Nick Ortner Has a Tapping Solution
SL: Life coach Anthony Robbins often teaches people how to erase certain traumatic emotions from their own ‘personal hard disk’. Tapping is not a mind eraser, it’s not erasing emotions and memories of the past, is that correct?
Nick: Yes, it’s not that you forget what happened, you change the experience of it, you really rewrite, so most people will remember the event but it won’t have the emotional charge behind it. I like the word “charge” in terms of what we’re looking to remove. When we think about something that happened 20 years ago, there are two ways you can think about that memory – It will only be a memory, like “Yes, 20 years ago I had a bad relationship, my girlfriend dumped me, it was terrible, I was heartbroken for a year but I am fine now. I feel that I have healed and I am happy”. Or… you’ll think about the memory and you’ll say “ugh, I still feel it, it still hurts, there is still a charge”. What we want to do is approach these memories, rewrite them and take that charge out so that the negative emotional experience is gone. Anthony is actually a tapper – we met and he’s a big fan of it and he talks about it.
SL: So, what’s the difference between tapping and meditation, like in the example you just described? Can’t we achieve the same result with meditation?
Nick: Yes, I think you can in some ways, but it will be difficult with some of the deeper, harder emotions or experiences. Let’s say someone has a fear of flying, it’s a very primal fear, usually it’s based on the fact that they had a bad flight or they have associated something with it and if that’s a true fear and you will sit someone down and say: “Let’s meditate and imagine yourself flying safely”, it will be very hard for them to get to that, because that primal instinct is so strong.
