Interview: Nick Ortner | The Tapping Solution
Nick Ortner
Interview by Kristen Noel, Newtown, CT, October 29, 2015
Photographs by Bill Miles
KRISTEN:
OK, so even though we are sitting here shoeless on your sofa, I think I need to do a formal introduction so here goes: Nick Ortner, New York Times bestselling author of The Tapping Solution: A Revolutionary System for Stress Free Living. But pre-book, you founded your company and executive-produced a film of the same name – all built around this crazy modality of healing. Let’s dive into the work – EFT: Emotional Freedom Technique aka “tapping.” I would describe it as the melding of east meets west, Chinese acupuncture without needles meets traditional psychology, topped with a sense of humor. Clearly, you have to be willing to look ridiculous.
NICK:
Yes – what are we doing…we’re hitting ourselves to feel better!
KRISTEN:
At the end of the day it’s getting to the root of things – it’s about healing. What I love about it is that it is non-denominational, it transcends boundaries of cultures and belief systems. You can do it at home – it’s not about economics or who you can get an appointment with. It’s about what you are willing to do to move through something in your life that has you stuck.
NICK:
It’s the people’s method. As Patricia Carrington, one of the experts in the documentary I made almost a decade ago said, “It’s literally at your finger tips.”
KRISTEN:
Pun intended.
NICK:
Always pun intended with tapping. And people watching are going to be wondering are we going to be tap-dancing? We call it tapping because we are literally physically stimulating by gently tapping on the meridians of our body. And what the latest research is showing is that when we do this, when we activate these points, while in a stressed out space, while focusing on the challenge or the issue – whatever it is…whatever part of the human experience you are struggling with – we send a calming signal to the amygdala in the brain.
KRISTEN:
Let’s go back to this – whatever you are struggling with. Give us an example – is this physical or emotional ailments?
NICK:
There’s a saying in the EFT world said by Gary Craig, the founder of EFT, “Try it on everything.” And the running joke is that it literally can work on everything. Let’s take physical pain. My second book The Tapping Solution for Pain Relief is a step-by-step guide to reducing and eliminating physical pain.
The results I have seen when people focus on their physical pain is unbelievable: 30 years of chronic back pain – gone, 10 years of fibromyalgia – gone.
Time and time again, I see people doing the tapping focusing either on the pain itself or the emotional component – what’s going on underneath the pain. Then you add the stress, the anxiety, the overwhelm of anything we are struggling with – it’s that amygdala that’s firing,
