It’s Not Fair: Honoring the Protest and Reclaiming Choice
Sometimes “It’s not fair” is accurate. You did not deserve the illness, loss, betrayal, or burden. Fairness matters because it points toward dignity, protection, and repair. The difficulty comes when the protest becomes the only available position: until reality changes or someone admits the injustice, you cannot move.
Tapping is not used here to call an unfair event acceptable. It helps release enough stuckness to choose what supports you now.
This Guide Helps With
- feeling trapped in a true injustice
- needing to be right before you can move forward
- feeling angry at God, life, your body, or another person
- believing acceptance means approving what happened
- separating accountability from endless argument with reality
- turning protest into boundaries, support, or action
Name What Should Have Happened
Complete:
- What happened was ___
- What should have happened was ___
- The cost to me has been ___
- The acknowledgment or repair I want is ___
- If I never receive that, I still want to reclaim ___
“This should not have happened” can remain morally true even after you accept that it did. Acceptance is contact with present reality; approval is a value judgment.
Hear the Younger Protest
“It’s not fair!” is often a young and accurate protest against being hurt, deprived, blamed, or told you deserved what happened. Before asking that part to move on, let it say what an adult should have recognized: You did not cause this. You needed protection. The burden was too much.
Then ask whether someone else’s judgment is still inside the argument. If a parent, authority, or community implied that illness, hardship, or mistreatment was your fault, that accusation deserves its own tapping. Relief does not require accepting their explanation.
Tapping: This Really Was Not Fair
Side of the Hand: Even though this was not fair, and I did not deserve it, I honor the truth of my anger and hurt.
Even though part of me believes moving forward would let someone off the hook, I can reclaim my life without calling the harm acceptable.
Even though I do not know what to do about it, I am open to one choice that belongs to me now.
Top of the Head: It was not fair.
Eyebrow: This is not how it should have been.
Side of the Eye: I want the truth acknowledged.
Under the Eye: I am angry at them, life, or God.
Under the Nose: I have been stuck in the protest.
Chin: The protest protects something important.
Collarbone: I can keep the value without carrying all the pain.
Under the Arm: I can ask what repair is possible.
Top of the Head: I do not approve of what happened.
Eyebrow: I accept that it is part of the facts now.
Side of the Eye: I can seek justice, care, or a boundary.
Under the Eye: I can grieve what should have been.
Under the Nose: I can stop making relief depend on their agreement.
Chin: My power is not located only in the past.
Collarbone: I choose one action that supports me.
Under the Arm: I am reclaiming life beyond this unfairness.
Take a breath and name the value your protest has been protecting.
Let Fairness Become Direction
If a practical remedy exists, document, report, appeal, seek care, or ask for repair. If the event cannot be undone, create a living expression of the value: protect someone, change a policy, set a boundary, or offer yourself the care that was missing.
The protest may soften in stages. First it may become grief, then clearer anger, then direction. None of those shifts means the original event became fair.
For legal, medical, or safety issues, get appropriately qualified help. Emotional relief should support clear action, not replace it.
Session Audio
This guide was adapted from a Thriving Now session with Rick Wilkes and Cathy Vartuli.
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