Tapping with Nicolas Ortner

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where we'll connect with some of the coolest people in the world. Plus, I give you tips that you can put into fast action to uplevel your health and your life. Now, today's show, I am super excited to bring one of my heroes on today. I have got Nick Ortner of the Tapping Solution on with me today. And I actually was introduced to tapping years and years and years ago and unfortunately forgot about it. I'm going to tell the story on the podcast and refound it. When I ran into Nick at an event and I was like, oh my gosh. And it has been. It's my top mindset hack. I actually call it touch technology. It's something I teach in the Miracle Mindset Academy and I keep in my hip pocket. It has really helped me get through so much. I just wish I'd had it when Grant was in the hospital. But it has been a lifesaver over the last year. So I knew I wanted to talk more about it. And so I went to the man himself, Nick Ortner. He didn't create it, but what he's really done is become a leader in tapping. He started nine years ago putting on the tapping summit that he does every year. It's amazing. And then he also has written a couple of New York Times bestsellers, the Tapping Solution and the Tapping Solution for Pain Relief. And his brother Alex wrote a tapping book for kids and his sister Jess wrote a tapping book for weight loss. So it's now a whole family business. It's just awesome. So let me tell you a little bit about Nick. He is the CEO of the Tapping Solution. It's a company he has with his brother Alex Ortner, and he's got a big mission to bring tapping into the mainstream as a simple, effective natural healing method. And you also may have heard of tapping as emotional freedom technique. What tapping is, is a modality that uses ancient Chinese acupressure and modern psychology. And when you use is amazing all the different things it can do, which Nick will tell you about in the interview. Anyway, Nick now is speaking all over the world and Teaching and has amazing online events and books and films and CDs, everything about tapping. So he's an amazing resource. I'll share with you how to get your own free tapping audios at the end of this podcast so that you can have him walk you through. Like, you'll hear us get walked through during this podcast. So I am super excited to have Nick Ortner on the podcast today. All right, let's do it. Nick Ortner, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here with me today.

Hey, jj, thank you so much for having me.

Well, I have become like a crazed person on tapping, and you are my go to guru. And so I'm, of course, like, have a little crush going on here too. So we've got that. We've got that to contend with. Nick, don't make me blush. Unfortunately, this isn't video, so let's talk dive in. For people who don't know what tapping is, I got to tell you, I've been calling it my touch technology. To me, it's like active meditation.

Yeah.

And I know it's also called emotional freedom technique. I'd love to hear, you know, what it is and how the heck you got started with it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So tapping is not tap dancing, as I like to joke when I'm on stage and people say, what is this tapping thing? You know, we're calling it tapping. Tapping is a general sort of generic term in the same way that meditation is a term for a whole body of work. The kind of tapping that I do is called eft, Emotional freedom techniques. And we call it tapping because we are physically, literally tapping on these endpoints of meridians of our body while saying certain statements, while focusing on a challenge, a stressor, something that is holding us back, some event from the past that we're stuck with. And what the latest research is showing is that when we tap on these endpoints of meridians while focusing on that's stress. So it can be as simple as somebody said something to you two days ago. We've all had this experience, and you just keep thinking about it over and over and over again, Right. And it's just like running like a loop in your mind. You can't let it go. It's a stressor. When you're stressing, when you're having that thought, the amygdala is firing in your blank, in your brain, that fight or flight response. So when we tap, we actually send a calming signal to the amygdala and that simple mechanism that one thing that's happening, we're focusing on the stressor, we're tapping on these endpoints of meridians. We're calming that stress response that has the power and as I know you've started to notice and realize, to literally transform our lives. Because I feel that it's in those moments of stress. It's in that amygdala firing that basically every challenge we have in our life, we can pinpoint it back to that back to. And unresolved trauma, back to an amygdala that's firing back to stress that we can't seem to overcome.

Yeah, it's been amazing. I wish that I had known you when my son was in the hospital for four and a half months, you know, but coming out of it, the. The craziest part of all of that is the hardest part of. Of it has been the last four years, not actually the time in the hospital because of the brain injury. And honestly, this has saved me from some of the times that it's just been so scary. So. And I've even been in the bathtub. Turns out Ariel Ford, I was interviewing her, and she goes, yeah, I take baths every day and I tap. I'm like, you do that in the bathtub too? So that's my favorite place to tap. Has anyone else told you that? Nick?

Yes. The bathtub, the place where we're already relaxed, already feel safe, already feel good, and now we can focus on changing our lives. What's happening?

Yeah. I thought I was crazy until I heard Arielle telling me she was doing it too, you know, so that's. I highly recommend it. It's a perfect way if I take baths every night, it's a perfect way to end the evening.

You know, Ariel is a big tapper. And one of the things that she talks about this publicly. That's why I can share that. I tapped with her on. She was totally stuck on writing a book and a proposal, and she just had no interest in doing it. And she said, I've been sitting on this for months. And we worked together maybe for 20 minutes on it. And the next day, boom, she was like, ready to go, wrote it. And she credits the whole birth of the book to just clearing out that resistance, that block that she was feeling.

That is so cool. So here's the coolest part about this, because one of the things that I've always talked about in my business is that I deliver simple science based solutions, right? And so now I'm moving into this whole mindset thing and I'm like, okay, this seems like kind of gooey and where's the science? And there's a lot of science behind eft. Can you share some of that?

I mean, probably hitting 60 to 70 public research studies right now on it. You know, some of the great ones are still small sample sizes, 80, 90 to people. The cost of making that happen. But, you know, one, for example, shows that we did a study where there were people who did cbt, cognitive disebo therapy. And that's just talk therapy, which can great. And it's what we're all really familiar with. You sit down, talk about your problems, and it can certainly be effective in a lot of ways. The other group in this study just sat still for an hour. So they did nothing. I don't think they meditated. They just sat around. And the third group did tapping and they did cortisol levels in the through saliva pre and post. And what the study showed was that there was a significant reduction so high of a reduction that the lab that was processing the results thought that there was a mistake initially with it from the tapping. So just that hour tapping session actually reduced the cortisol levels in the body, which is just so exciting to see.

It's super exciting. And I mean, for me, I'm always looking for those things that I can do in five or 10 minutes that can make a big shift. And that's the other part I love is, you know, I can do this in a couple minutes and feel different.

Well, that's it. I mean, you know, certainly you don't have to do it for an hour. And sometimes people go in for a session and have that deeper work. But I just love, like, you're in the middle of your day and things stressing you out, boom, you have it right there at your fingertips. You don't have to say, let me go see my therapist or let me go do this or that. It's like, this is a tool that can make me feel better right now. And that's what's exciting, that you can actually feel results. I mean, like Jay, I hear about results and so many people listening want to see things change in their lives and that things take time. And with this, you can be like, wow, I feel different now than I did five minutes ago. And I just know it in my body.

I know. And you can do it anywhere. It's like, you've got your hands, you got your body, you can tap. It's so cool. And I know you're going to walk us through some of this before we get There. I just love to hear, like, how you found this, like, where. Because you are. To me, when I think of tapping, I think of. I think of you. So how did you figure this whole thing out? You know? What got you tuned into tapping?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm certainly not the creator or the inventor. This was created 30 years ago now, which is crazy how long it takes something this wonderful to finally get out there. But this was created by a gentleman by the name of Roger Callahan in the late 70s, early 80s, and he was a psychologist who was working with a client. Her name was Mary, and she was really stuck with a water phobia. No matter what they did, she couldn't overcome her water phobia. He did all the traditional stuff, and one day when they were working together, he had been reading about the acupressure points and the acupuncture points in the body. She said, you know, when I look at this water, I get this queasy feeling in my stomach. On a whim, said, try pressing and tapping underneath your eye. That's where the stomach meridian ends. And lifelong water phobia was completely cure. So that was, you know, that eureka moment. Roger Callahan developed the technique that was modified by Gary Craig in eft, which is what I do. And I found it. It's probably about 13 years ago now. I found Gary's EFT and just started using it. I certainly probably skipped it over 10 times when you're like, wait, what are these people doing? They're tapping and hitting themselves and somehow feeling better. But, you know, probably like, you saw jj, you heard about it a million times, and you thought everyone was crazy. And then you said, I gotta try it. And then you try. And you said, oh, my gosh, this work.

Well, I'm kind of frustrated with myself, Nick, because honestly, my kids, when my kids were young and my son with the brain injury was bipolar and was having all sorts of issues. And we met this therapist, and she goes, you should go teach them, learn tapping. And so there was actually in Palm Desert, where we were living, there was someone who did tapping and taught us tapping. And what was interesting is Grant was not into it. My younger son Bryce, was totally into it. He would crawl into bed every night and ask me to tap him. You know, mommy, can you tap my. But I forgot about it. Like, I used it for him, and then I totally forgot about it for years, actually, until I got reconnected or got connected with you. I'm like, oh, that thing, right?

It happens. It happens. You know, it's funny that you mentioned kids, because we actually just released a kid's book that my brother wrote, my younger brother Alex wrote called Gorilla Thumps and Bear Hugs. And it's a nighttime kid story on tapping just to get them going because it works so well for them.

I know it's amazing. I mean, it could calm Bryce down and help them sleep just like that, you know, and which parent doesn't want that? My gosh. Now, what else besides, you know, like that in the moment? Anxiety and helping with sleep. And I know it helps with pain. What all does tapping help with?

Well, you mentioned pain, and I want to reiterate pain because it's such a big topic for people. My second book was the Tapping Solution for Pain Relief because it just works so well on pain relief. I bring people up on stage. You know, there's thousands of people in the audience. I pick some random people from the audience, bring them up on stage, and we start tapping on pain. I don't know them. And 20 minutes later, they're pain free for the first time in 20 years. And it's not because I'm a magician, it's because it works. So certainly if you're experiencing any pain of any kind, whether it be that book or any other resources, just try it. It works so well. You know, another topic, and I know you're a huge expert on this, is weight loss. And the tapping works on exploring the emotional aspects of weight loss, nutrition and food and everything is so key. But you know, jj, because you've been frustrated, I'm sure, in the past with clients that you're like, okay, you know what to eat, you're not doing it right. And all too often there's an emotional component to that. So when we address that emotional component, things can change.

Yeah. We buil into the Sugar Impact Diet program. We built in bonuses by your sister Jess and her, you know, weight loss tapping solution. So I absolutely am key on that. And you know what I'm seeing, Nick? With everything in life, it's not a shortage of strategies. It's what sits above that. It's your mindset. And if you're stressed out, anxious, you know, you're not going to operate at your best and you're not going to make those right decisions. You're not going to do what you need to do. So this is.

And in every aspect of our lives, I know we both run businesses and we don't have a shortage of strategies. Right?

Too many.

Too many. No, that's it. There's too many. And that's that same thing with food, right? Like, there's too many diets to try. There's too many options. It's the mindset above it that when you have the mindset, you can make. And look, if we go back to that core concept that I discussed right in the beginning, when we tap on these points, we calm the amygdala, we calm that stress response. When we calm that stress response, we bring our brain back online. We can actually make clearer decisions, and from there, everything changes.

So let's show people how that works.

I think working with the body is a great place to start, and we can just take a second to just put our feet on the ground and tune into our body. And if you're driving in the car, don't close your eyes. Maybe if you're at a stoplight, you can do a little tapping and just tune into the body. And if you feel any pain in your body or any tension or stress, just feel that. Just notice where it is in your body and give it a numbered intensity on a scale of 0 to 10. And as you tune into that pain, see if anything else comes up. Are there any other emotions, any memories, any events? And if it's not pain that you feel, you can also just notice some tension in your body, notice where you're holding on to some stress. So we're noticing the tension, we're noticing the stress, whatever it may be. We have a number, and then we're going to gently start tapping and, jj, will you be my echo?

Sure.

All right, so just repeating after me. We're going to start by tapping on the side of the hand. It's called the karate chop point. And use whatever hand feels comfortable to you. We're using four fingers to tap on the outside of your hand and just tap gently. You're not counting. You're not worrying about getting perfect or right. And repeat after me. Even though I'm holding on to the stress in my body, even though I'm.

Holding on to the stress in my body.

I choose to relax and feel safe now.

I choose to relax and feel safe now.

Even though I'm holding on to all the stress in my body, even though.

I'm holding on to all the stress.

In my body, I choose to relax and feel safe now.

I choose to relax and feel safe now.

Just tuning into whatever pain or tension or stress you're feeling. One more time. Still tapping on the karate chop point. Even though I'm holding on to all.

This stress, Even though I'm holding on to all this stress.

I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Now we're tap through the points. The first point is the eyebrow point. It's on the inside of the eyebrow, right where the hair ends meets the nose. And you can tap on one side, the other side, or both sides. You're just tapping gently with two fingers. The meridians run down both sides of the body. And as you tap, you're focusing in on that pain in your body, that stress, that tension, whatever your issue was. And just tap gently and repeat after me. This stress, this stress. And now to the side of the eye, not at the temple, a little further in, right on the bone.

This stress, this stress.

And now under the eye again, one side or both sides? Tapping gently. This stress in my body, the stress in my body and under the nose. Focusing on that pain, that stress, that anxiety, whatever's going on that you are focusing on, that you want to let go of. This stress, this stress. Now underneath the mouth, it's above the chin, below that lip and that little crease there. Tapping gently. All the stress in my body.

All the stress in my body.

Now on, if you have two little bones of the collarbone and you go down an inch out to each side about an inch, you can tap with all ten fingers of both hands to make sure you get it. Focusing on that pain, that stress, whatever you want to let go of.

This stress in my body, this stress in my body.

Now underneath the arm, about 3 inches underneath the armpit, right on the bra line for women either side of the body. All the stress in my body.

All the stress in my body.

And now the last, the head, right in the crown. The stress in my body.

The stress in my body.

And we'll do one more quick run now that you know the points back to the eyebrow. It's safe to feel the stress.

It's safe to feel the stress.

Side of the eye, and it's safe to let it go.

It's safe to let it go.

Under the eye. It's safe to feel all this stress.

It's safe to feel all this stress under the nose.

And it's safe to let it go.

It's safe to let it go.

Under the mouth. From every cell in my body.

From every cell in my body. Collarbone, right now, right now.

Under the arm. Letting it go.

Letting it go.

Top of the head right now, right now. So take a deep breath in and let it go. And that's what's considered. That was just two quick rounds of tapping. And what we do after Each round is check in. So check back in on the pain, the stress, whatever you were feeling, and just look for a shift. We only did a couple minutes there, and it was very general. Right. I don't know what everyone's working on. Very general language just to start relaxing the body. And we're looking for, where did that number go? It was an eight. Now it's a seven or a six. And then also what came up? I'm sure you've had the experience, jj, where you're tapping on one thing and you think that's the issue, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm thinking about this whole other thing, and I just didn't even know this was related.

The issue behind the issue, behind the.

Issue, behind the issue.

I was thinking as you were doing this, like, how do I get Nick to do this with me every day? But I think you actually have something for everybody right where they do get this, because that was where my brain was going.

Yeah, it's a simple process, but it takes guidance to go through it, and that's what a lot of people are looking for. What are the ways that I can use this easily in my life? And, you know, right when this podcast comes out, we have our 9th annual Tapping World Summit. We've got some great free audios there. The whole event's free. And when you sign up, you get some introductory to tapping and science and research audios immediately. That'll just take you through the whole process in a lot more detail.

Awesome. You can get that@jjvirgin.com tapping and yeah, I'm super excited about the fact you have these audios that lead you through this, because as I was first trying to figure this all out, I'm, like, reading and finding pictures, and it's just nice to let all that go and just be guided 100%.

Absolutely.

Totally appreciated that so much. It's so great to have you with me. I just really appreciate you. I appreciate everything you're doing to push this out into the world. I mean, I know you didn't create this technique, but you've really been, like, the ambassador for this out there. And, you know, it's changing lives everywhere. And that's the biggest thing that I would tell people is if you couldn't test it out right now because you were driving, make sure you go over to jjvirgin.com tapping and this is one that I think you should just. Everyone should have in their hip pocket. It's the ultimate little mindset. Hack to have that can get you through the day when things are going sideways.

Thank you, jj. Thanks for helping spread the word and for being another ambassador to tapping in this great technique that can change lives.

Thank you. Now, after the break, I'm going to be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question comes from Susan in Milwaukee. And Susan asks, jj, I know you talk about stress all the time, and I'm highly stressed, but why is this such a problem with weight loss? You know, early on, I used to go teach a doctor a course for doctors all over the country called overcoming weight loss resistance. And it was all the things get in the way of you losing weight or can cause you you to gain weight. And stress is a huge one. In fact, I did a separate course called is stress making you age faster, gain weight and lose your sex drive. It's interesting. So I was like, everyone will want to know about this, but people in stress don't want to hear more bad news. I'll tell you why it impacts it. And of course, one of the easy ways to lower stress hormones you heard about today with Nick is tapping. And I want you to find a couple things like tapping that you can keep in your back pocket so that when things get stressful, you have a solution. Burst style training is another great one. And meditation, hanging out with a friend, walking a dog, getting some hugs. Those are all great ones, too. But tapping has been amazingly powerful for me. And again, like Ariel Ford and I, we tap in the bathtub, not together. So that's one to try, too, because an Epsom salts pot bath with tapping is like the trifecta for lowering stress. All right, so how does stress make you age faster, gain weight, and lose your sex drive? Oh, my gosh. Okay, so this is chronic stress that I'm Talking about, not like a one time hit, like you're trying to run away from a tiger or you're about to get in a car accident. You swerve. This is like chronic stress. And what chronic stress does is it raises cortisol. Cortisol. Then over time, if you keep pushing on your adrenal glands, your body keeps going, she's running away from a lion. We need more. Over time, your adrenal glands can no longer produce that. And then you start to rely on adrenaline. And then pretty soon you don't have anything to rely on. So again, I'm talking chronic, not acute. Acute stress is totally different than chronic stress. Chronic stress starts to deplete your adrenals. It starts to raise your fasting blood sugar. In fact, one of the ways I can tell someone's under stress is their fasting blood sugar is elevated, even though they've got a really good diet. So it breaks down muscle. So you'll start to see your muscle go lower. It impairs thyroid function, the ability to convert from inactive to active thyroid function. Your T3 will go down. It makes your gut more permeable. So now you've got a higher risk of food intolerance. You also will tend to get things like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and candida. It lowers stomach, stomach acid. So you lose the ability to start to fight those things off with stomach acid right out the bat. And now your digestion's impaired as well. It lowers serotonin, so now you're going to crave more sweets. It screws up your sleep because it lowers serotonin. You can't make your melatonin as much. And so now you know, with elevated blood sugar breaking down muscle, you also start to get insulin resistant. You start to store more fat around your waistline. Okay, so lower muscle, lower metabolism, more food intolerance, lower serotonin and more food cravings. Right? I mean, I think you're seeing the picture. This is going to make you better at storing fat. Hungrier, tired, everything's going sideways. And it also starts to throw off your sex hormones as well. So you'll start to get either lower testosterone. It's a very key one, especially obviously for men, but for women too. So clearly we need to do something about it. Now, obviously, first thing you want to do is identify any sources of stress that you can eliminate. Just like this is sort of like a stress detox, right? Eliminate anything that you can. But quite often that's not the issue anyway. The biggest issue quite often in stress is your perception and that's where tapping can come in so well. So the first thing to do is identify all the areas of stress, look at what you can automate, delegate, delete out of that, right? And then look at what things you really have to deal with. And then use your mindset training. This is where the miracle mindset comes in and some mindset hacks like tapping to handle it. All right, if you'd like to submit a question, just head over to my Facebook page at JJ Virgin Official. You'll see the little blue check mark. That's me. And I would really appreciate it if you could jump on Stitcher or itunes or both and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch. And while you're there, be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. Thank you so much. All right, this is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you to live courageously. Show up, step up. You are stronger than you think.

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