Together we activated and celebrated Emotional Freedom at the first annual Emotional Freedom Day on July 11, 2020. This historical event archive includes a 90-minute Tap-a-thon and a one-hour Celebration of Emotional Freedom, where we also tapped on blocks to celebrating and appreciating ourselves.
We come together as a circle to honor the ways that doing emotional work is helping us all express ourselves more freely and authentically in the world.
Don’t know tapping yet? Our free EFT Tapping Guide is here.
Donations are welcomed, encouraged, and oh so helpful! All donations we receive go toward supporting and growing our Emotional Freedom for All initiative and community events like these. Thank you!
Emotional Freedom Day Tap-a-thon
Emotional Freedom Day Celebration
Donations are welcomed, encouraged, and oh so helpful! All donations we receive go toward supporting and growing our Emotional Freedom for All initiative. Thank you!
To continue this work with live group coaching, explore the Thriving Now Circle.
Companion Guide
The first Emotional Freedom Day in 2020 included a Tap-a-thon and an evening celebration. Across both gatherings, emotional freedom was not presented as never being triggered or having every issue resolved. It was the growing capacity to meet emotional intensity, accept what is here, choose new adaptations, and participate in relationships with more safety, respect, and freedom.
This Guide Helps With
- understanding emotional freedom as adaptable capacity rather than perfection
- soothing the compulsion to fix other people
- meeting resistance to a new pattern
- recognizing and celebrating subtle emotional growth
- creating circles where people can join, leave, laugh, cry, and care for themselves
Freedom From and Freedom To
Emotional work can loosen an old automatic pattern: “When this happens, I always do that.” Freedom also includes the energy to practice something new.
Under intense stress or pain, adaptive capacity narrows. After the nervous system settles, more responses may become available: a boundary instead of collapse, a request instead of resentment, a pause instead of attack, or compassionate presence instead of taking over.
Resistance naturally accompanies new patterns. The inner three-year-old may stomp and say no. Fighting or ignoring that reaction often drives it toward distraction. Noticing it makes the resistance part of the process.
Presence Is Different From Fixing
Another person’s suffering may dysregulate your body. Fixing can then feel logical, caring, and necessary. It can also happen without consent and be driven by the fear that you will not be valuable or loved unless you make things better.
Ask what is yours: regulate your own body, offer presence, inquire what support is wanted, and respect the other person’s agency. Fixing is not always wrong. It fits best when help is invited and the proposed solution actually serves them.
Tapping: I Have to Fix This Right Away
Side of the Hand: Even though I feel as if I have to fix this right away, even when it may not be good for me or the other person, I am open to a new way of connecting.
Even though my survival brain gets scared unless every box is checked, I appreciate how hard it is trying to create safety.
Even though fixing makes me feel useful and powerful, I can ask whether help is wanted and what would truly serve.
Top of the Head: I have to fix things.
Eyebrow: I cannot leave them unfixed.
Side of the Eye: Fixing makes me feel safer.
Under the Eye: I want to be the one they need.
Under the Nose: What if they do not want me otherwise?
Chin: I can love this protective impulse.
Collarbone: My idea of fixing may not be right for them.
Under the Arm: I can ask what support they actually want.
Top of the Head: It is okay to fix things sometimes.
Eyebrow: Especially when help is invited.
Side of the Eye: I can do good without checking every box.
Under the Eye: I can offer presence without taking over.
Under the Nose: Their choices belong to them.
Chin: My worth does not depend on removing all pain.
Collarbone: I can soothe myself while staying connected.
Under the Arm: I welcome a freer and more respectful way of helping.
Take a breath. Ask: “Do they want help, presence, listening, practical action, or space?”
Celebration Is Emotional Work Too
Growth is often less visible than a house or finished project. You may regulate better in some situations, process trauma sooner, ask for help, stay present with someone, or recover more quickly—and still focus only on what remains unfinished.
For some nervous systems, appreciation feels indulgent or dangerous. Happiness once attracted ridicule; pride threatened someone who was hurting; good feelings had to be hoarded for a future emergency. Start with twenty seconds of one small, specific appreciation.
Tapping: Letting Appreciation Be Nourishing Now
Side of the Hand: Even though I have things I appreciate about myself, I keep delaying the feeling until I have earned enough of it.
Even though enjoying my progress can feel unsafe or indulgent, I appreciate the younger part that learned not to shine too brightly.
Even though I am not finished, I am willing to receive twenty seconds of honest appreciation now.
Top of the Head: I will save the good feeling for later.
Eyebrow: I have not earned enough yet.
Side of the Eye: What if someone cuts me down?
Under the Eye: What if appreciation makes me full of myself?
Under the Nose: I learned to hoard the good stuff.
Chin: By the time I open it, the joy feels stale.
Collarbone: That was an intelligent strategy once.
Under the Arm: I have more choice now.
Top of the Head: I can appreciate one thing for twenty seconds.
Eyebrow: I showed up.
Side of the Eye: I handled something better than I used to.
Under the Eye: I offered myself or someone else presence.
Under the Nose: I can let this nourishment be fresh.
Chin: Appreciation does not put anyone else down.
Collarbone: There will be other moments to appreciate.
Under the Arm: I am allowed to enjoy some emotional freedom now.
Take a breath. Place a hand on your heart if that feels good and stay with one specific appreciation for twenty seconds.
The Geometry of a Circle
In a healthy circle, no one is elevated as the unquestioned authority. Facilitators make participation easier; the wisdom is co-created. When someone joins, the circle opens. When someone leaves to care for themselves, it adapts without declaring them excluded.
Laughter and tears are welcome. Abuse is not. Agreements and facilitation help create a container where sensitive people can feel, experiment, and return to grounding before they leave.
That is part of emotional freedom for all: not a promise that every space is safe, but an ongoing practice of making more room for each person’s aliveness, boundaries, identity, and capacity to choose.
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