EFT- Tapping and The Apex Effect

In her book, The Science Behind Tapping, Peta Stapleton, PhD, says she has never seen anything like The Apex Effect in all her years of psychotherapy.

Dr. Stapleton led a randomized study beginning in 2012 that involved about 89 obese adults. In this 8-week EFT program, participants showed reduced food cravings and anxiety symptoms, and these improvements were maintained through the following year.

In the book, she says (and I paraphrase here) that when clients tap on an issue and achieve a complete resolution, they often promptly forget that the tapping made the difference.  She followed up with participants 12 months after the trial and asked how the specific food cravings they had tapped on were progressing.

Some told her they had never eaten that food and couldn’t recall when they last did. She reminded them that they had tapped on that food during the clinical trial and had eaten it several times daily. They brushed this off nonchalantly and dismissed the possibility that tapping could have been the reason.

They might cite other things, such as their willpower, distraction, time, and other random things. It is curious why they couldn’t stop eating with their willpower for years before EFT.

When Tapping on Your Own

To gain awareness of your before and after when you are tapping on an issue, when tapping on your issue, record your SUDS level (significant unit of distress) between 1 and 10, with 10 indicating the highest distress. It is valuable to see how the intensity was reduced and/or eliminated. This way, you can see the difference the tapping made or didn’t; it is recorded on paper.

The Apex Effect arises frequently when working with clients. I attribute the Apex Effect to the fact that EFT tapping neutralizes the traumatic aspect of our memories and the beliefs that cause the negative issue in the first place. The root of the problem is no longer "true' for us and running our lives from the subconscious.

We have to ask ourselves...

Why do we get triggered emotionally and react to issues? Why are we anxious, angry, or addicted? Why do we have control issues, depression, shame, and so on?

All these issues come from beliefs we gained about life, usually when we were young; some were passed on through the family line and through cultural trauma. If these younger parts of us are not healed, they will run your life from the subconscious in their attempts to keep you safe from disappointment, being attacked either verbally or physically, being found out you are not good enough, deserving enough, successful enough, and for some, being molested or killed.

The Stress Response

EFT-Tapping calms the stress response, the fight-or-flight and freeze responses in our bodies. Our bodies naturally respond to a fearful event in this way because it is intrinsically linked to our thoughts and beliefs. Most people are not conscious as to why they are having the negative issues they have because parts of us split off to dissociate from the situation and bury it deep in the subconscious. The feelings from an event or events are often too overwhelming for a young child; our survival system evolved to protect us.

This is why, in some child sexual abuse cases, victims have entirely forgotten about the trauma until something triggers it in their present lives. As children, we don’t have the resources to address these issues. Unless one has a very understanding and compassionate person to help them work through it, these events/traumas get frozen in time.

EFT works on our energy system, and when we tap, it unfreezes the energy around the particular event or events that caused the issue in the first place. Let’s say it opens the channel that was previously clogged, stuck, or blocked, allowing it to flow again. Remember, we are both physical and energetic beings. Our bodies run on electrical impulses — the heart, brain, and nervous system all generate measurable energy, as do our emotions.

As we tap on each aspect of the event or memory, our energy begins to flow again. This is why, as we tap, emotions will flow and, often, forgotten memories will surface—not to overwhelm us, but to help us address the root cause and ultimately experience freedom. 

Case Study

I was so excited to participate in the Cecchetti Ballet Medal Test. I was given the number 1 out of 26 participants, perhaps because I was the smallest, maybe even the youngest. I was thrilled to dance with the older, more advanced dancers. Well, I was thrilled to dance anywhere and anytime, actually, and even better if I had an audience to share my love of dance with.

Although we were being judged, I wasn’t nervous, probably because I was only ten years old and very happy to participate. I wasn’t expecting to win anything.

We were all lined up at the end of the event when the judges announced the winners. The first and second-place winners were called, and two dancers received commendations. I was one of the girls who received a commendation. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Not only did I get to do what I loved, but I was also commended for it.

I couldn’t wait to show my mother and father my certificate; I was in awe that something so good could happen to me. I ran down the steps from the stage to the auditorium to my parents and joyfully thrust out my certificate for my mother to see. She took the certificate and said, “Your hair was all over your face, and your tunic was up at the back.” That’s all she said. I was devastated, and I wanted the floor of the auditorium to open up and swallow me whole. That memory was one of the many heartbreaks in my relationship with my mother, where I could do nothing right.

This memory had many aspects that I had to tap on to avoid feeling devastated and overwhelmed. The beliefs imprinted at the time were that I was "not good enough" and that it was unacceptable to be happy and celebrated, especially when I shared my joy on stage.

Other aspects of that memory needed to be tapped on, such as:

1. My father said nothing to defend me.  This compounded the belief that there was something inherently wrong with me, not my mother.
2. My ballet teacher and her mother came up to us to say congratulations and tell me what a good job I had done. She asked my mother if she was proud of me, and my mother just smiled. No one ever knew what my mother was like behind the mask. Although I adored my teacher, her words couldn’t soothe my mother's reaction. It was especially poignant because I loved ballet so much.

Those beliefs I held about myself were not true. I was indeed good enough to be commended and selected by the judges. I was good enough even if I had never received a commendation. However, that was what I believed, and any subsequent affirmations or rationalizations I consciously made later in life could not alter the underlying belief I learned at the time. This was not a one-time attack from my mother, they occurred repeatedly.

That memory is no longer an issue for me now. I can look back on it without being devastatingly sad. However, it is a sad fact that my Mom could never be pleased with me and never found joy in me, but I no longer believe the lie that I am not good enough. I am free of the emotional pain of the event.

Tapping on all the aspects of a memory neutralizes the trauma and allows us to see the truth. As I have worked to gain freedom from traumas from childhood, many memories that had once caused me intense sadness do not come up in my consciousness anymore. I am well aware it was EFT that helped me.

If you need help getting free of any beliefs or feelings you are struggling with, please contact me by clicking the Book a Call button below for a complimentary 20-minute consultation.

If you want to learn more about The Apex Effect, here is an article from EFT Universe on the Apex Effect and how EFT neutralized veterans’ wartime trauma.

This is from EFT Universe https://eftuniverse.com/refinements-to-eft/the-apex-effect/.