I'm So Stressed! How Do I Release This And Feel Better?
Rick Wilkes and Kathy Vartuli walk through tapping and body awareness exercises to release stress. They guide you to notice where tension lives in your body, then use tapping to shift the emotions and beliefs holding it there.
Rick, I'm so stressed. How can I release this energy and feel better and make better decisions?
Yeah. That's one of the questions that we both had when we found tapping. And we want to step you through a very simple worksheet, a process that allows you to identify what's going on and bring yourself relief. I'm Rick from Rick Wilkes from Thriving Now. This is Kathy Vartuli from thriving now and theintimacydojo.com and we're gonna start with what is actually stressing you out.
Yeah. So the first line in the worksheet, just write down what it is. My stupid boss. My husband didn't take out the trash. The kids, whatever it is.
The kids. Yeah. The dog just chewed up my Christmas slipper. You'll notice that stress means it's causing you to feel more emotional disharmony and intensity than is really right for you right here, right now.
Yeah. And even tapping on those small stresses that kind of. We blow off, it's amazing how much room it can clear because we start carrying around one or two and we don't notice it. But when it's 100 or 200, it's like, my day was horrible. And you start clearing them out one at a time. We encourage you focus on one at a time as you're going through this process. You can repeat it as many times as you like with different ones, but focus on one at a time. You'll clear it out. You'll suddenly, like, wow. A little more energy to deal with stuff each day, and that's really powerful.
So the next thing you do is say it out loud. This stress.
The kids.
The kids, the dog. And feel how intense it is. Zero. I don't feel it at all. Which you're done. If it's a 10, it's as intense as you can imagine. Or intense as it's ever been.
Yeah. So write that number down on the next line. And please remember that if you haven't had a lot of experience tapping and this is something that's a big trauma for you, like, a lot of intensity, and you're not sure how you'll. If you'll stay grounded and present as you go through it, we encourage you to get support, Get a coach or a therapist to help you through some of this. So once you've got the intensity, just notice in your body where you're feeling it. Put your feet on the floor. Take a nice, slow, deep breath. Wiggle your toes so you're in your body. Present. Notice your butt in the chair. You're being supported. Gravity's still working. And think about the kids and notice what you're feeling or whatever your stress is. Notice what you're feeling in your body. Are your teeth grinding? Are your jaw tight? Is your chest heavy?
My boss. Ah.
So write down where in your body you're feeling and what it is you're feeling. Is it a heaviness, a hotness, a tension, a cold? Just write down what the sensation is. And it's important when you're here not to write down what you think about it. Like, I'm stressed in my stomach. It's like, how do you know you're stressed in your stomach? What do you. Oh, well, I feel really acidic or my stomach has butterflies. What is the actual physical sensation you're feeling?
Yeah. You could have a buzzing feeling that makes you want to run and hide. Where do you feel that? In your body?
Yeah. And if there's an emotion, ask that feeling. If there's an emotion in there. Is it anger, fear, frustration? Write that down on the next line and just be with it a minute. And it may be several emotions mixed together.
Yeah. And if you touch the area and you treat it like a friend and say, hey, what are you feeling right now? What's the emotion that you're feeling? And if I touch my throat thinking about a stressor and it comes up with pissed off. Now maybe pissed off is not something you generally ever say or allow yourself to feel. This is about you being aware of what energy emotion is there. There's no right or wrong. There's no analysis. Anger in the throat is just what your intuition is saying you might be feeling. Disgust in my gut. You may not think that you're a nice person if you feel disgusted at somebody else, but that's okay. Your body is reacting and it's not. It's not about your necessarily your higher truth. It's about how your body is reacting. And everything goes.
Yeah. And I like to tune in and see is there color there? Okay. My heart is really feeling kind of blue. Like, what is the color? It's kind of a swirly blue. And just tuning into the color. You're tuning into your emotions. A lot of the time when we're stressed, especially the smaller stresses, we push them down. We're not tuned into our body. We're not present. And just being present with them is very powerful.
For a long time I didn't like, couldn't grab a color. It was in my body. If that's the case for you, that's fine for Me, it was sometimes easier to get the sound like. And that might be the sound in my heart when I was grieving or annoyed. So a sound or a color tuning into that.
Yeah. And then ask yourself, like, put your hand on whatever area that is, if it works for you, and say, is there anything that you know, Heart, is there anything you want to say? And sometimes I'll be like, this is just too much, or, I can't believe he said that, or whatever. Tuning into your body guidance and listening to the words that that part of you wants to say can give you a deeper truth than the thought process. You may be socialized to associate with it.
And again, this is where, if you're really listening, you might hear something like, they're going to leave me. It may not be actually true, but if your heart is feeling that energy, and that's the best interpretation, write that down.
A lot of stress has come from beliefs we have about things. It may not be that our boss is really angry at us, but it reminds us of our father being angry before he left or before he had a big fight with your mom. It could be that it's reminding you of old stresses or old beliefs that have nothing or very little to do with the present time. And being aware of that and tapping on those older things can give you so much freedom.
It does.
Yeah. So once you have all that written down, take a nice, slow, deep breath, reground your feet, feel your toes and your butt in the chair, and we're just going to start tapping. Karate chop. Even though I have this stress in.
My body, Even though I have this.
Stress in my body and it feels pretty intense.
And it feels pretty intense.
And it has all these colors and sounds with it.
And it has colors and sounds with it.
And I have this belief about myself.
And I have this belief about myself.
I choose to relax right now.
I choose to relax right now.
At least a little bit.
Just a little bit.
And notice that I'm probably safer than I think.
And notice that I'm probably safer than I think.
Even though I have this stress, Even.
Though I have this stress.
And it's occupying a lot of my attention.
And it's occupying a lot of my attention.
My primitive brain is pretty active.
My primitive brain is pretty active.
And I love that it's trying to keep me safe.
And I love that it's trying to keep me safe.
I send it thanks.
I send it thanks.
And let it know that we can turn the volume down a little bit.
And let it know that we can turn the volume down a little bit.
Top of the head. The stress in my body.
This stress in my body.
Eyebrow. I feel it here.
I feel Feel it here.
Side of the eye. And it feels like it has a.
Lot of emotion and it feels like.
It has a lot of emotion under the eye.
All the stress.
All this stress under the nose.
I feel like blaming them.
I feel like blaming them.
Jin. Some of this is my own beliefs.
Some of this may be my own beliefs.
Colorbone. Some of it might be them.
And some of it might be them.
Under the arm. I choose to reclaim my own choice.
And power I choose to reclaim my own choice and power.
Top of the head and be present.
With my body and be present with.
My body while I look for better solutions.
While I look for better solutions.
Nice deep breath and tune back in your body and notice what's changed. It may be that the intensity has gone up or down. It doesn't matter. There's no right or wrong here. But write that number down.
Yeah. If it started at an eight and it's gone to a six, that's a big deal. One of the things that we've seen is that the trend matters. And if it went up from an eight to a nine and a half, well, that's okay too. I would encourage you, if the trend is toward more intensity, to recognize that, hey, it probably really wasn't an 8. It might be an 8,000, but I'm on a 10 point scale, so. And then just tap again. You can say, this remaining stress. This remaining stress. This remaining stress.
This remaining stress.
Side of the eye. This remaining stress.
This remaining stress under the eye.
All this remaining stress.
All this remaining stress.
Under the nose. This stress and all that it means to me.
This stress and all that it means to me.
Chin. And I'm letting it go.
And I'm letting it go.
Collarbone. I'm turning down the volume.
I'm turning down the volume.
Under the arm. I'm restoring my peace and well being.
I'm restoring my peace and well being.
For me.
For me.
Top of the head. I'm open to feeling surprisingly calm and confident right now.
I'm open to feeling surprisingly calm and confident right now. Another deep breath. The nice thing is you can go back and forth through this process and keep repeating it and each time go through the questions again because you might be surprised. It might have been blue and all of a sudden it's green or the sun was. And I was. Yeah. And sometimes you can just tap on the points. I love that you do this. You Just make the noise as you tap through the.
Yeah. See how free it is. We're sending signals into our body. We're getting into our body. We're paying attention to it. This is not something that most people do when they feel something. They tend to go up into the emotions and up in their head, up into their face, into the thought process. We're going grounding into the body. We encourage you to use our grounding resources.
The links below.
The links below. And to consider that how would your life be different if you didn't have access to a toothbrush? If you could never wash your hands and get them clean or take a nice warm shower? For me, that would be very uncomfortable. And yet most people run around today without having access to a way to kind of cleanse their energy and their emotional body. That's why we want to share this. Please feel free. Share this with someone else who you have an emotional relationship with.
I have to cut that part out because this is the paid one.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, that's okay. So I can cut that. That's not. And there's spots in here for you to write down insights that you might come up. Sometimes we get surprising insights, and if you have something, some thought that goes, this doesn't make any sense, write that down. Because our primitive brain does not always have logical explanations for things. And those insights can be the ones that give us the biggest bang for our buck.
Absolutely. We hope you enjoyed this resource. Put it to use, Let us know how you're using it and any questions that you have. We're here for you. Supportrivingnow.com and the comments.
Yeah.
