In this video, we are going to quite literally be tapping into self-love with some positive affirmations.
But these are not gonna be just any usual self-love affirmations.
These are gonna be validating those negative icky thoughts that we all have from time to time while working towards a better relationship with ourselves. Also known as self-love.
So we're going to be coupling this new strategy of affirmations with another technique called Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT for short.
With EFT, you literally tap on different points on your body to help physically ground yourself to your experience and to help process or center on new more positive beliefs about your emotional experience.
If you prefer to watch the video, click this image here:
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Now, EFT has a specific protocol that they use. So I'm gonna walk through that first and then we'll get to the actual guided with me EFT tapping technique. So if you wanna skip ahead to that in the video, I'll put the time in the description of when that starts.
Here is how to do EFT
Typically you’ll start with this fleshy part of the outside of your hand. They usually recommend two fingers, though if you wanna use one, three, all of them, or however you wanna do that, it's fine.
You’ll want to lightly gently tap the following areas. You do not want to hurt yourself. You don't wanna scratch. If you have longer nails, you might wanna use the more fleshy part of the pad of your finger. So you don't wanna be hurting yourself when you're doing this.
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Here are the different tapping points you’ll use for EFT:
Start with the fleshy part of the side of your hand.
Middle of your forehead
The side of your head aligned with your eye (do not tap your actual eyeball)
The top of your cheekbone
Between your upper lip and nose (mustache area)
Your chin
The “sore spot” between your collarbone and upper chest area (do not tap here, instead rub in a circular motion)
Side of your body where your rib cage starts/aligned with where a bra strap would be
The crown of your head
Repeat and cycle through again
EFT will tell you that you have to follow in this direct order. I'm gonna be rebellious and tell you I don't know that it really matters where you're tapping. I think that the idea of tapping in general, it's just a very healthy grounding technique.
And I stand by that because I first heard that from Dr. Bessel van der Kolk and he's like the granddaddy of trauma treatment and chronic PTSD. He's amazing. In his research, he wrote "The Body Keeps Score."
I saw him speak many, many years ago before I even decided to go to grad school to be a therapist when he was talking about how to work with people who struggle with self-harm. He first introduced me to this concept of tapping or EFT, Emotion Freedom Technique in that training, and he said the same thing. He was like, “You can tap wherever. I've seen progress wherever you're tapping.” So don't worry too much about the exact order.
But in this video, if you wanna follow the order along with me you can do that as well. And if at any point you feel overwhelmed or emotional or stressed out, you can pause, you can stop this video. You can go back to the fleshy area of your hand and reset.
This is how we're going to do the affirmations.
We're going to start with, "even though," and then we're going to say a negative thought that we've had about ourselves or about our situation or circumstances. Then we're going to end with, "I deeply and completely love and accept myself."
“Even though (negative thought or belief), I deeply and completely love and accept myself”
That is my positive affirmation that I was trained to use when I was learning how to do this. I have found it super helpful and effective in my own work when it comes to self-love. And I hope that it will do the same for you, though if you would rather replace that with a different positive mantra or affirmation, go for it. I'm not here to stop you.
I highly encourage you to follow along with the guided demonstration in the video here: https://youtu.be/BGoXFQf0Atk
Though if you’d prefer to read along, here are the affirmations I use with EFT Tapping for Self-Love in the guided video practice.
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Even though I struggle with loving myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I judge myself harshly, and even though I feel really bad about myself sometimes, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I have a hard time believing that I am lovable, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I say really negative things to myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I actually hate myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I struggle to find anything that I like about myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I feel insecure sometimes about the things that I say or the way that I say things, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I believe the negative things I hear people say about people like me, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I struggle to find the good and to find the positive in myself and others, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I find myself self-sabotaging, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I don't always keep those promises to myself, and even though I have those days, those weeks, those months, where I just give up on my self-care, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I feel like I have to be perfect and I have to be the best, and I struggle with that, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I find it hard to accept myself sometimes, and even though I struggle to love myself all of the time, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I'm not exactly where I want to be, and even though I'm not done on this self-love journey, even though it seems like it's going to be a long time until I fully love and accept myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I don't always think I'm doing a good job, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I have a hard time always looking at myself with kindness, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though sometimes I [beep] up, sometimes I make mistakes, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I struggle with self-love, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
When you're ready you can take a deep breath in through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. Walk a little lighter and brighter out into your day or into your evening sleep, depending on when you are practicing these self-love tapping affirmations.
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