Last night, I heard a familiar tale. €I was lying in bed and wasn't able to sleep because of this upset from something that happened during the day so I tapped. And tapped and tapped and I couldn't get rid of the upset.€

The speaker uses EFT tapping often and is used to getting results, so she was confused, €Why didn't it work?€

When I drilled down, I found that she was tapping on the upset as a whole.

Now, when you are in the upset and still feeling it then to do general tapping is a great place to start. The act of tapping itself soothes the nervous system.

€Even though I have this upset, I love and accept myself.€

But then she got stuck. Why?

Because she stayed general. Something in her was yearning for relief, but she couldn't find the key.

She needed to look more.

When you are looking for an answer it helps to narrow the search.

Imagine you want a piece of paper - a real piece of paper. It has the answer to your problem. You know what it is and where it is.

It is inside a folder which is inside a hanging file, which is in a sliding drawer of a filing cabinet. So when you want that piece of paper all you have to do is to walk up to the cabinet, open the right drawer, find the appropriate file, leaf through to the folder, take it out and find your piece of paper! Easy!

But supposing you don't know which piece of paper you want and instead of one filing cabinet there are hundreds, in rows, and maybe they are dusty. How do you find that piece of paper? Aaghh!!!

Exactly. Frustration and overwhelm. You are going to need to narrow your search. You are going to need to sub-divide all those cloned ranks. Now you have a focus for your search. You know what you need to look for first.

This gives you confidence, so you notice that rather than look all alike, the rows are differentiated. Some are blue and some are red and some are yellow. Great! You decide to look in yellow because that is where you are drawn to first. You walk down the yellow rank, open a drawer at random - no, it's not there. You know it isn't there because it doesn't feel right. You open a couple more drawers and there it is! The paper you were looking for - bright and clear as daylight. With a sigh of relief, you take it out. Success!

You have found the answer

So, in this imaginary search for the unknown piece of paper, what did you do?
€ You were faced with frustration and overwhelm
€ You decided to focus down your search
€ This gave you confidence so you trusted yourself & the process
€ You investigated what you were drawn to first
€ You carried on looking until you found what you were looking for

You used both logic and intuition to find what you were looking for

Now let's go back to my example of the speaker lying awake at night, yearning to feel better.

She did some general tapping which is great. To go back to the story, that is like at least seeing the filing cabinets rather than being stuck somewhere in the corridor outside. But she still felt frustration and overwhelm at the upset.

And when you are in the middle of an upset that can be hard. Everything is jumbled up into the overwhelming pain of that upset.

She needed to go deeper.

With EFT tapping, that means asking questions.

The good news is that those questions are simple. When you ask those questions, you are shining a light on the dusty cabinets and they reveal their colours.

Question 1 How am I feeling in my body?

A simple question, but the answer isn't always obvious. One way of finding out is to methodically scan your body - how are my shoulders feeling? How is my breath? What does my stomach feel like? Is there a shape or a colour or a sensation? There often is. It might feel something like, €I notice I'm not letting my breath out fully. My stomach feels all wobbly, like it's kind of vulnerable and I notice I'm scrunched up around it€¦€

Question 2 What thoughts am I having?

Again, answers aren't always so easy to hear, because you are inside your head at the same time. It's just you after all!

So try listening to what is going on in your head as if you really are listening to someone else. Then you begin to hear the thoughts.

Sometimes the thought you need for your tapping is the very first one, so don't try and find anything €special€. What is upfront is what your energetic body is resonating with, so trust that first thought. It might be as simple as €I don't want this upset, I want to go to sleep now, why isn't this tapping working?€ There will be a hundred other thoughts jostling for space - just like all those filing cabinets, but listen out for what is €on top€.

Question 3 What emotion am I feeling?

There aren't so many negative emotions - anger, fear and sadness are the prime colours of the emotions - but oh dear, it can be hard to know what you are feeling. Often times you mix it up with the words in your head. €How am I feeling? They shouldn't have said that€¦.€ Sometimes of course it is €on top€ - €I am SO ANGRY€, but sometimes it is more hidden.

If so, I suggest you sink a bit deeper into the question€¦ €How am I feeling?€ and allow the answer to surface. It will. Giving yourself that permission to feel the feeling is huge in itself and when you hear the answer, what a relief€¦

You have asked the questions. Now what?

In truth, asking these questions can still give you jumbled answers. But the good news is that you don't need all the answers.

You just need one answer

Listen out for what is clearest. To use the filing cabinet analogy, the answer was €yellow€. Are you more in touch with the physical feeling or the thoughts or the emotion? You will know.

And tap on that. Keep it simple.

For example, €I notice when I think of this upset, I'm feeling shocked. I feel wobbly.€ So you can start with,

€Even though I feel wobbly, and I'm shocked, I love and accept myself€.

Do your tapping for as long as it takes for the intensity to come down. By this time, another important factor will have come up, eg €they shouldn't have said that€.

€Even though they shouldn't have said that, I'm OK€.

Do that tapping until you are aware of the emotion €¦.€and I'm feeling hurt€.

Then you tap on the emotion€¦

€Even though I'm feeling hurt, I love and accept myself€.

There isn't a correct order in which to ask the questions and there isn't a correct order in which to tap.

You are asking the questions so you can make sense of the dusty ranks of filing cabinets. When you hit the right question, the rank with the most relevance will be revealed. As you tap, you are opening the drawers to look for the paper. When you get the right answer, the one with the most power, it is like finding the paper. Then you find the next bit of paper. They will appear until you don't need them any more.

Again and again, the pivot of clearing with EFT comes down to being specific. It may be a feeling, it may be a word. But when you get it, and tap with it, then you know, because you feel better. It may need several aspects of your upset to clear it altogether. So go on tapping and asking until you are done.

The beauty of EFT is that it is so forgiving as a technique. You don't need to know exactly what to tap on when you begin. You don't know where the piece of paper is. You feel the overwhelm and frustration,

€Even though I have this upset, I love and accept myself€.

Your upset comes down a bit but there is more.

€Even though I feel frustrated, I am OK€.

That feels better. You have acknowledged the situation and cleared enough to be open to asking questions.

Question 1 How am I feeling in my body?

Qu