EFT Meridian Tapping Clicks that Amygdala Forward – Part I

Thrive under Pressure and Manage Your Fight-and-Flight Response

Take your Tapping deeper because the Science is out supporting the profound effects of EFT and no matter what arises in your field of experiences, you can shift the hardware of your brain with new software of conscious thoughts and actions that consistent tapping on the acupoints may elicit.

Having said that, I also want to put forth a quote from Joe Dispenza’s book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.

“We should never wait for science to give us permission to do the uncommon; if we do, then we are turning science into another religion.”

Although thousands on the planet, perhaps even millions are using energy psychology tools for self- care, yet it may still be regarded as uncommon and novel to be using it with intention to deal with the moment by moment stresses of our daily lives.

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The Amygdala – Our Emotional Compass

EFT Meridian Tapping applied ‘on purpose’ can deliberately shift the ‘molecules of emotion’, reshaping your mood and thoughts to initiate a series of cascading chemicals and cellular events that dissolve and neutralize the lower vibrational, emotional reactions of fear, anger, anxiety, PTSD, depression, doubt or lack of self-worth, to list a few, ushering in peacefulness, calm and ease.

As you continue to reduce the distress level through tapping, the amygdala, that ‘emotional compass’ clicks forward to access the large passages of the frontal lobes where we create higher cognitive functions of excellence, positivity, clarity, intuition, expansiveness, focused and dynamic creations of imagination, moral decisions, logic, and synthesis of novel ideas.

Location in the brain

The amygdala is located about one inch back, from the outside corner of the eye, just in front of the ear and one inch inward from that point. It is the size of a pea and sits between the brain stem and the prefrontal cortex as shown in the photo further down this article.
What a grand play it is when you tickle the front portion of your amygdala with thoughts that are pleasurable, playful and passionate. Those ‘molecules of emotion’ that Candace Pert spoke of are now engaged in full body-mind progressive thoughts of exploration and to support you in this journey of proving to yourself that you can shift your perception through a number of fun tools…….check out “Tools for a New Generation – Part II” following this article.

And for now, here is my recent experience, with feeling the Amygdala click forward. 

Feeling the amygdala click forward

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My Experience

Recently, I experienced this clicking in a new way. I was lying in bed on my right side, preparing for sleep but mind-chatter was active regarding a computer concern I had. Without thinking about it, I smiled and instantly could feel my prefrontal cortex light up. I actually could feel this happen so much so, it caught my attention so I decided I would try it again.

I went back to thinking of the concerns of the day encapsulated in more mind-chatter and felt a swing backward. It felt heavy and weighty in my hind brain area. Again I smiled and by golly, my forebrain lit up with a feeling of lightness, of freshness! With closed eyes I could see and feel this lightness take over and play time began as I stayed in this posture, feeling the switch, back and forth, forth and back. Wow! What fun is that! And of course, no more mind-chatter!

When you do stay in the same toxic state of anger, the same familiar state of depression, the ever recurring anxiety and vigilant low self-esteem of doubt and suspicion, you would allow your amygdala to hijack your power backward to the parts of the R-complex (the reptile brain, I’ve painted in red) and again into emergency response. It is this part of the brain, the brain stem, that computes basic self-survival and the ‘Me Me Me’ types of behavior. The amygdala instantaneously reacts to your emotional reactions of ‘life in jeopardy’ and signals an alarm to the neural chemicals and hormones. They instantly cascade from the adrenals so you have the physical conditions to survive the threat, adrenaline floods the blood and strength fills the muscles in your arms and legs allowing you to fight or flee. When the adrenaline reaches the heart, it cause the heart to beat rapidly with amplified force, and the breath becomes shallow and cold sweat can take place as anxiety sets in.

It is important to remember here that anxiety served to keep us safe in our early hunter and gathering period during cave dwelling existence, it’s purpose was not to harm but to protect the organism. Fear and anger are the emotions you feel when you are actually in danger, they are hard-wired in all of us. Anxiety is the emotion you experience in preparing to deal with danger and can be re-activated when we think back to an event, or certain conditions arise that make us think of a past painful experience. You may not even be conscious you are thinking back to a painful event

Prefrontal Cortex

Prefrontal Cortex

Amygdala, Reptile In Red (brain Stem & Cerebellum)

Amygdala, Reptile in Red (brain stem & cerebellum)

Smell, color, sounds, certain environmental conditions may trigger elements from the core event of a traumatic experience, whether this life time or a previous life time. For instance, you may have been wearing yellow at the time of a trauma or experience that was very painful and for whatever reason, you hate yellow. Perhaps porridge was cooking on the stove. The smell of porridge could easily trigger a re-occurring allergy to oatmeal the smell of it may even cause nausea. Maybe you had your cat sitting on your knee and a whack across the back of your head, imprinted the memory of the cat’s sharp claws or piercing scream in fright along with that shocking smack to your head. These examples could imprint an allergy to cats and a chronic tendency to headaches. Imagine all that cellular memory of anxiety, fear and anger limiting your ability to relax, to trust to let go.

For many, anxiety can be triggered by just thinking of a belief that they’re not safe.

If a huge delivery trailer is barreling down the road at you, you better hope your body kicks into the fight-or-flight response so you have the strength to get out of the way quickly as an instinctive action. You will feel anxious and certainly fearful during this awareness of danger, but if you keep reliving it over and over again once it is over, then the amygdala will kept clicking you ‘backward’ to survival mode to protect you. One way we conjure this up is by turning the ‘pot of events’ by continually telling the story over and over again to our friends and family. One of the first steps towards creating a new you is to refrain from repeating the same story over and over again. If there are still emotional scars attached to an event and you keep telling everyone what happened to you, over and over again, then you keep creating those biochemicals associated with the actual experience. The anxiety continues to be re-imposed back into your cellular memory.

If you are using the EFT Tapping protocol and have collapsed the emotional underpinnings then you can tell that story without re-enacting the experience of emotional trauma and hurt. You are free of the emotional sting, so talking about it can actually help others understand they are not alone in their experience of pain.

These emotions we are feeling are real but what is unreal and imagined is the threat the mind creates by reliving events that happened long ago. Living in a state of high alert is exhausting to the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our life and when we digress to deeper states of exhaustion, our body shows up with physical symptoms.

The body doesn’t know the difference of a real threat or imagined threat

The body doesn’t know the difference of a real threat or imagined threat

The body, the subconscious mind, as Candace Pert’s scientific research shows, doesn’t know whether there is a real danger or not, it simply reacts to the environment of emotional thoughts and beliefs that are presently flooding the sympathetic nervous system. When a response of threat is triggered then the body through the mind’s activity energizes the emergency system response. It doesn’t know if the information is old or new. The subconscious mind deals with the present moment and the information stored in its files.

She writes that the sweatiness erupting, tightening of the stomach and pounding of the heart are the emotions and these emotions are felt throughout the body as sensations.

Cells in the nervous system and endocrine systems work intimately together to prepare the body’s emergency system for action. Cortisol, the other key hormone rushes into the blood stream resulting in an increase in blood pressure, increase in blood sugar levels and heart rate, expanded air passages of the lungs and a depression in the power of the immune system. It takes a lot of power to run these systems of the body. Eighty percent of the blood stops flowing to the cognitive systems like the frontal lobes because the body in this defense mode has no use for our forebrain. This acute stress response of fight-and-flight reaction suppresses the brains ability to handle difficult social or intellectual tasks and behaviors during that time.

The blood is also cut off from the body’s digestive glands as well as the productive system

as it primes up with the high energy required for an emergency by surging to the arms and legs, so you will have the strength to stay and fight, or run and flee, and perhaps, freeze. Even your skin reflects this diverted blood flow as it whitens in color and the body’s pupils dialate so that you can take in more light and make faster movements. This anxiety propelled movement of threat coursing through the body may not necessarily cause double vision, but it can cause vision issues that some attribute to double vision. When stress has become a pattern for life, then exhaustion as a pattern takes form and disease sets in.