Interview: Nick Ortner | The Tapping Solution

Nick Ortner

Interview by Kristen Noel, Newtown, CT, October 29, 2015

Photographs by Bill Miles

KRISTEN:  

OK, so even though we are sitting here shoeless on your sofa, I think I need to do a formal introduction so here goes: Nick Ortner, New York Times bestselling author of The Tapping Solution: A Revolutionary System for Stress Free Living. But pre-book, you founded your company and executive-produced a film of the same name – all built around this crazy modality of healing. Let’s dive into the work — EFT: Emotional Freedom Technique aka “tapping.” I would describe it as the melding of east meets west, Chinese acupuncture without needles meets traditional psychology, topped with a sense of humor. Clearly, you have to be willing to look ridiculous.

NICK:  

Yes — what are we doing… we’re hitting ourselves to feel better!

KRISTEN:  

At the end of the day it’s getting to the root of things — it’s about healing. What I love about it is that it is non-denominational, it transcends boundaries of cultures and belief systems. You can do it at home, it’s not about economics or who you can get an appointment with. It’s about what you are willing to do to move through something in your life that has you stuck.

NICK:  

It’s the people’s method. As Patricia Carrington, one of the experts in the documentary I made almost a decade ago said, “It’s literally at your finger tips.”

KRISTEN:  

Pun intended.

NICK:  

Always pun intended with tapping. And people watching are going to be wondering are we going to be tap-dancing? We call it tapping because we are literally physically stimulating by gently tapping on the meridians of our body. And what the latest research is showing is that when we do this, when we activate these points, while in a stressed out space, while focusing on the challenge or the issue — whatever it is… whatever part of the human experience you are struggling with — we send a calming signal to the amygdala in the brain.

KRISTEN:

Let’s go back to this — whatever you are struggling with. Give us an example — is this physical or emotional ailments?

NICK:

There’s a saying in the EFT world said by Gary Craig, the founder of EFT, “Try it on everything.” And the running joke is that it literally can work on everything. Let’s take physical pain. My second book The Tapping Solution for Pain Relief is a step-by-step guide to reducing and eliminating physical pain.

The results I have seen when people focus on their physical pain is unbelievable: 30 years of chronic back pain — gone, 10 years of fibromyalgia — gone.

Time and time again, I see people doing the tapping focusing either on the pain itself or the emotional component — what’s going on underneath the pain. Then you add the stress, the anxiety, the overwhelm of anything we are struggling with — it’s that amygdala that’s firing, running that picture in your mind. It doesn’t matter what it is.

We only take ourselves so far because we are running and operating these programs that say, this is safe, this isn’t. With the challenges we have at work or in personal relationships, if you are having trouble communicating with someone it’s probably because saying that is too dangerous, it doesn’t feel safe. If you are attracting the wrong guy or gal repeatedly, it’s because you are operating with programs that say – this is what I’m addicted to, this is what I know, this is what feels safe. So when we tap, we are focusing on these challenges, rewiring the brain — finally letting go of that old stuff. One of the amazing things that tapping does is clear out the baggage – the stuff we have been carrying around forever. And we all know what that is. If I said to anyone, tell me what your baggage is, they would probably say something like, I procrastinate, I never make it to the gym and I have a problem with cookies at 9 o’clock at night, etc. We know our stuff.

KRISTEN:

OK, so despite already being familiar with tapping — I have to say I was totally engaged in this book from cover-to-cover. You share a great deal of yourself within the pages — you talk about your life pre-tapping in real estate, an economic downturn, stress and your now. I think your “now” warrants being called the “King of Tapping.” I’d like to share 2 passages from the book, that I’d like to call your “before” and “after” statements to set the stage of where you came from and where you are.

BEFORE: “For the vast majority of my life, I navigated the world believing things just happened. I had no awareness of why — no sense of the root causes of my behavior and what I could do about them. If I was angry at someone, it was because they had done something to deserve it. If I felt hurt, it was a justified feeling, because someone had ‘made’ me feel that way. If I acted a certain way, it was a ‘personality trait.’ I acted, reacted, made decisions, experienced negative emotions and outcomes, and believed that that was just the way things were. Not believing that we are in control of our own destiny is one of the more painful ways to live.”

NICK:

Wow. That’s very wise — I wrote that?!

KRISTEN:

You wrote that! You should read the book. And your AFTER: Today, I spend my days doing what I love, with the people I love, and making a massive difference in the world. It’s not because I found some get-rich-quick scheme; it’s not because I inherited a lot of money or because I was hired by the right person. It’s because I cleared the limiting beliefs that were holding me back. From there everything else fell into place.” When I read these 2 statements spread throughout the book, I felt it demonstrated the power of the journey. It wasn’t about the “stuff” per se, but the feeling in which you described your life. And in that synapse between the two, what happened — what led you to tapping?

NICK:

I love focusing on that 1^st statement because there is a point where you have to take responsibility for your life. To me that is step one in the personal development journey. There’s that moment when you realize — wait a second, you mean the things that I think about, the actions I take — are actually a choice? With 7+ billion people on the planet, I bet that 99% of them believe that the world just happens to them. The reality is that until you have a tool like tapping or meditation, something that can help you shift that state — nothing can change. We’re not taught in 4^th grade, hey when you are angry, do this. When we get angry we get scolded — we get yelled at, just don’t do that. The question is, How? I’m angry. Someone has attacked me. I’m angry.

We never learn healthy anger. Tapping gives you this awareness and something to do with it. Most people will say, I know I shouldn’t be angry. I know I should forgive, but I can’t. They deserve it. I’m unwilling to forgive. And why is it that we don’t forgive someone, it’s because our body, our mind, our spirit says that if we forgive — it’s as if we are condoning the behavior — if we forgive we are setting ourselves up to be hurt again. So we stay closed down, angry, blocking everything off — mad at that person because that’s keeping us from repeating that same mistake. When you bring the tapping in, access that amygdala, you rewrite the memory.

KRISTEN:

I want to interrupt you there and have you say that again — the actual reality that we can rewire the memory — that “flight or fight” impulse can be re-scripted to “no big deal.”

NICK:

Why is one person ZEN about the world and the other person insane? I love delving into the biology of it all. I’m spiritual, but I love the biological component. When I recognize that my body is running a certain amount of chemicals that are making me feel a certain way then it takes off a little bit of the pressure. These are just patterns that we are running over and over again.

The brain is trained to think a certain way. Most of us are running in this unconscious reaction that is locked in, this unconscious flight or fight response. What happens here is that the blood floods away from the brain into the arms and legs because we need to run from the danger, the tiger chasing us. The repair mechanisms in the body turn off because the body says, you might not live long enough to repair that cancer cell. Adrenaline, cortisol, all these hormones coursing through the body — that’s the saber tooth tiger chasing us. The reality is that to some extent we are all being chased by the saber tooth tiger on a daily basis in the form of tension, perfectionism, to-do lists, “shoulds,” the social media pressure that says we have to keep up, etc.

KRISTEN:

Who introduced you to tapping?

NICK:

I discovered it online over a decade ago. Tapping itself was developed by Dr. Roger Callahan over 30 years ago while working with a client using traditional psychology. This patient was terrified by water. They had been working together for 1 ½ years doing traditional therapy — talking about it with very little results. Worse yet, all the talking would give her a migraine. One day they sit by Roger’s swimming pool. So what happens in this case – she see’s water, the amygdala sends the message — danger. There’s clearly some programming that happened here. She starts to get queasy. Familiar with the Chinese meridians, Roger showed her how to tap on the meridian under her eye to get rid of the queasiness. They did this and it cleared like that [snap] — not only was the queasiness gone but so was a lifelong pattern of fear. In that moment her body rewired the phobia.

The running joke with anyone who knows me has always been, don’t say anything is wrong around Nick because he’ll make you tap on it.

KRISTEN:

Oh I think you infused some of that Juju into this book. I devoured it and have suddenly been looking around at everyone silently thinking to myself — oh, you should tap on this, you should be tapping on that. Some of the stories you share in the book truly are mind-blowing. I guess the bottom line is that when people are in tremendous chronic pain that isn’t shifting, they have a willingness to try something new. It was fascinating to me to read stories of people living with pain their whole lives and after one session of tapping, things started to shift.

NICK:

I write about John in the book — a Vietnam veteran, 30 years of chronic back pain, surgeries — doing everything possible, taking medication on a daily basis and still living in pain. I can’t imagine taking the strongest pain pills in the world and still being in pain at a level of an 8 or 9. He came to this weekend event that we did; after several hours of tapping both privately and in a group setting, he woke up the second day, pain-free for the first time in 30 years!

 KRISTEN:

This process also provides an amazing awakening. When you are in pain, you feel victimized. When something can give you back your power and make you believe you can do something about this — I can shift this — that is a beautiful thing.

 NICK:

I’m glad you brought that up because the first thing people say after tapping and experiencing their pain diminishing is — I have hope.

And it’s the hope that has been crushed due to years of chronic pain. When that door opens and people say, what if this is possible… that’s when everything cascades and new things align.

 KRISTEN:

I always go to Louise Hay’s book to look up the emotional significance of any physical ailment I may be experiencing. She reminds us of that undeniable mind-body connection… and of course I am a full believer in that connection until I get jolted with “real” pain.

 NICK:

Hey, I’m the tapping guy and I do the same thing. I laugh at myself — I’ll catch myself saying…so, your neck has been hurting for the last 2 hours and you’re still not doing anything about it. This is such a good example of what we do. When the pain is bearable, we just deal with it, make do, ignore it. Now, if it hurt that way for 6 months, you might say let me do the tapping thing — and actually do the work. And here’s the real thing, tapping is more work — it’s much faster to pop a pill.

KRISTEN:

I was introduced to tapping years ago, but didn’t really understand the full virtue of it. My previous work was focused on the emotional issues in my life — I wasn’t making those connections between the two. So this segues into a recent personal share. The other morning (after just completing the book no less) I was out jogging and I rolled my ankle. Luckily it was fine and I kept on running. Later that night I simply stepped the wrong way and I could feel my ankle tweak, this time — not so fine. I tried to ignore it away and returned to my desk to work. Within moments I could feel my ankle swelling – to the point that I was in severe pain and couldn’t walk. Now I’m kind of freaking out and feeling pretty sorry for myself. Leg elevated, iced and feeling sorry for myself — I go to bed and I say — what the hell? I might as well tap on this, what do I have to lose? I did 3 rounds, though my tapping script was probably far from perfect.

 NICK:

Doesn’t matter.

 KRISTEN:

Well you do a fabulous job in the book giving us the scripts, diagrams, links, and resources.

When I woke up, I very carefully moved my foot beneath the sheets and thought, Oh my God — no pain. The true test was swinging my legs over the side of the bed to get up and walk. It was as if saying OK Universe, bring it on — let’s see about this tapping stuff. Guess what? No pain. Swelling, gone. I’m glad I had witnesses because even though I had the previous information, I was still questioning — how is this possible?

 NICK:

I’m still surprised all the time. Your story still surprises me.

I think we are just starting to open to what is possible — how our bodies can heal, not only emotionally but physically — what the human potential is. We are just on the cusp of it.

KRISTEN:

Point being — why are we afraid of trying? What do we have to lose?

 NICK:

And the reality is that maybe every story isn’t as miraculous as yours, but if the inflammation goes down from an 8 to a 5, and the pain subsides and it heals 3 days faster — we’ve done something.

Then people will say, ok then — if we can heal the ankle, can we heal cancer? What can we cure? And my thing is that this is another tool in your tool belt. If you are dealing with cancer and going the traditional western medicine route with radiation and/or chemotherapy – tapping is amazing for nausea and to balance the body from all the side effects. This is just one of the tools. It doesn’t have to be an either/or — do this, don’t do that. What are the things we can bring into our lives that can help us live happier healthier lives?

 KRISTEN:

If we can accept this notion that our bodies are working overtime to heal than we have to support them. Clearly it’s our job to build support around that — from what we are consuming, thinking, doing. But the reality is that unless you are seeing a functional and integrative medical doctor — your doctor is probably not asking you, “so what’s really going in your life. What is the underlying cause of this?”

NICK:

They don’t know what to do with it. They don’t have time, they’re not trained to deal with it. Most doctors will admit that stress plays a role in disease, but then they don’t know what to do about the poor choices their patient may be making. They can write a prescription — that is what they are trained to do.

KRISTEN:

It is a sad state of affairs in our medical system. In this current environment of healthcare, they don’t have 3 hours to sit with their patients.

 NICK:

And then visiting a functional medical doctor and many of these modalities like tapping are usually not covered by insurance and cost a lot of money.

KRISTEN:

Going back to the stories we tell ourselves, our limiting beliefs — you mention in the book that we are programmed per se by the time we are 7 years old.

NICK:

Yes. With a 5 ½ month old daughter in the house, I’m very aware of the intake that is happening. All that information that we hear, the things we say — it all creates who we are. I think mannerisms are so interesting — people will say, “Oh, you are just like your mother or your father.” Now you don’t see it, but this is a small example of the kinds of subtle intakes we are programming ourselves with.

KRISTEN:

I’ve been delving into your “tapping tree” for abundance and one thing that came up for me is that the emotions that arose were not necessarily the “truth,” but they were my “truth” — how I experienced them as a child for example. It was how I perceived it and then it became something I carried throughout my life. And then it grew voracious roots.

NICK:

You establish a belief like that for yourself and then look to the world for affirmation of it.

 KRISTEN:

There’s this other push/pull we can experience in the self-development world. We are supposed to live as “is.” Keeping it in the financial realm — when you are experiencing financial strain, it is difficult to live as “is” when it “isn’t.” I appreciate that you addressed our negative emotions and how we have to talk about them. I loved when you said, “when weeds come up in your garden, it does no good to say, there are no weeds, there are no weeds, there are no weeds…”

NICK:

Want to hear my new favorite quote from my dear friend Louise Hay? We were sitting down and tapping and were focusing on some negative statements. In tapping, we start with saying things like, “even though I’m angry…” I said to her, “Look you are the queen of affirmations, what’s the deal with focusing on the negative statement?” She said, Honey, if you want to clean the house, you have to see the dirt. This is what we are doing. We are seeing the dirt and cleaning it up.

KRISTEN:

But this was a great point because we punish ourselves for having negative thoughts — feeling something negative, saying something negative. Like you say we are not erasing emotions we are just trying to find a way to process them.

NICK:

Exactly, this isn’t a mind eraser. What I love about the process is that, for example, someone will come to me and say, “I’m so angry” and we’ll tap on it. Then suddenly the emotion turns to sadness. We tap on that and an awareness pops up. Then this opens the door to being able to forgive and before they know it, they are saying something like, “you know what — I’m so glad this thing happened.” That’s the evolution of tapping through an emotion.

What I think tapping does, is condense something that could take a decade to process.

KRISTEN:

To that you said, When a relationship ends, so many pieces of your life have to be put back together. I don’t believe that you can break off a long-term relationship, do tapping for an hour, and feel fine the next day. But I do believe that you can use it to move more quickly through the grieving process and through the process of letting go.

NICK:

We can tap on any emotion we are dealing with. The time frame is unique to each of us. We experience the emotion so we can learn from it. These things are happening for a reason.

KRISTEN:

You have noted that the traditional medical field is becoming more receptive. There comes a point when certain protocols, procedures and medications have their limitations. And the only reason they are becoming receptive is because it works.

NICK:

99% of people in the medical field are looking to do good. We are starting to have new conversations — the way I look at tapping is to say, How do we integrate this into what you are already doing? We need to have a different conversation. It’s not about right and wrong, east vs. west, east being alternative things, west being drugs and surgery. Each side thinks the other is an idiot. Each side thinks they have all the answers. That clash needs to be over. It doesn’t make any sense.

KRISTEN:

And by extension — let’s have these conversations, earlier, sooner, younger. If we could teach our children these tools they would be so far ahead of the game. We could help them address their day-to-day stressors, for example, in school with test taking. They could tap at their desks before an exam.

NICK:

We can change their whole experience.

KRISTEN:

I’d love to do some tapping with you. I want everyone to see all the tapping points. What should we tap on?

NICK:

You can pick your own thing to tap on. Physical pain: if you have any pain in your body hone in on that. Is there tension you feel anywhere? I like focusing on the body because you can very quickly quantify the physical results. If your body is fine, you can tune into something that’s happened recently — that you are angry about, anxious about, worried about.

KRISTEN:

Do you have to say the script out loud?

NICK:

You don’t have to, but there certainly is a power in speaking, just an extra energy. For certain things you need to give a voice to it. Most of my tapping is silent at this point, which also allows you to tap wherever you are.

KRISTEN:

Do you tap while on the treadmill?

NICK:

[laughing} Yes, I do everything on the treadmill. I have a desk on my treadmill. But I must caution, no tapping while driving — both hands on the wheel!

Glasses removed, we started tapping!

Watch a sneak peak of the tapping here:

 Returning after a couple of rounds of tapping:

 NICK:

Tune back into that emotion which may have gone from an 8 to a 7 or less, and we also want to pay attention to what else came up while we were doing it. That’s the roadmap. Stray thoughts pop up — you may be tapping on back pain and you keep thinking about work. It’s a message to heed. I was working with someone years ago — a fit young woman with sciatica pain. We were tapping on everything for a 1/2 hour and getting nowhere. I asked her, “Name your number one stressor in your life,” and she said, “I hate my job, I hate everything about it” so we tapped on that. After a few moments – back pain gone. For whatever reason, that was her body’s connection, where she was stuck. She hated her job and it manifested in her back. Side note — she quit her job within 6 months because she realized this wasn’t working for her.

 KRISTEN:

When I first reached out to you and asked you what was lighting you up right now, what you are most excited about – you instantly spoke of this ability to have such an extraordinary outreach and impact in the world. I’d love for you to talk about your humanitarian efforts. You dedicated a page in your book specifically to 4 organizations that are doing tremendous work with tapping throughout the world.

NICK:

As we sit on this couch in Newtown CT, we are 8 minutes away from the location of the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. When I wrote the 1^st book, the shootings hadn’t yet occurred. We were already working with veterans with post traumatic stress, Rwandan genocide victims, children with cancer in Mexico, tsunami survivors – deep, deep trauma. And then it hit home, miles down the road – my own backyard. I started the Tapping Solution Foundation with my brother and sister, who are both in the business, and we have dedicated our efforts, along with the foundations director Lori Leyden, to bringing trauma relief to the families of Newtown. We are setting the foundation for what Lori calls a new form of humanitarian aid. Usually, when we think of humanitarian aid, we look to things like food, water, money, electricity. We are looking at teaching entrepreneurship, business skills, etc. Clearly we have to address basic necessities. If someone is traumatized or has PTSD, that’s going to be at the forefront. This becomes a basic necessity. We can teach them skills, but without getting to the root of their pain, will they be able to show up to work?

KRISTEN:

Yes, but as you said earlier — It’s about giving someone hope. Some of these people are surviving unimaginable atrocities — this is giving them their life back.

You, yourself, have had this tremendous arc in your journey — going from a million dollars in debt to being able to support all of these organizations.

And even with your massive outreach, with an estimated 7.3 billion people on the planet — we’ve got to keep spreading the word.

NICK:

We’ve got our work cut out for us. That’s why I’m up in the morning and going. We’re getting there, but there’s work to do.

KRISTEN:

I have another parting quote of yours that I have to share, When we turn on the TV, we get cues to eat terrible food, drink alcohol, take pharmaceutical drugs, and buy a car (a gecko helpfully instructs us where to buy insurance for said car). But yet to appear on the tube, unfortunately, is a commercial that reminds you to take the time to slow down, forgive, heal, and love. I’ve often stated publicly that the greatest thing that could happen for the personal development / alternative health industry would be for someone to figure out how to make $1 billion helping people heal – thus being able to run a commercial during the Super Bowl right next to one for pharmaceutical drugs. An ad that offers a different possibility for change.

I think you are on your way. Go forth and make Super Bowl commercial history.

NICK:

I’m ready. Let’s go — let’s do it! [high five]

KRISTEN:

Rock on. And one other thing, you are extremely excited about (and for very good reason) this new addition to your family — your Mini Me.

 NICK:

My Mini-Me, June, is 5 ½ months now. So now I’m writing children’s books — some on tapping (my brother just wrote one on tapping that we are going to be releasing soon). We are going to have a series of them; for example, tapping for sleep and for bullying.

KRISTEN:

Just think about the potential impact of that, if it becomes the norm and becomes accepted. If we can teach our kids this stuff now — to tap on their emotions — we’re not going to have any weeds to pull.

NICK:

I’m also writing a book for parents to tap with their kids; a big component of this is for parents to be able to use this as a stress relief tool. Interestingly, what I’m seeing working with these parents is that I say to them, I know you want to tap on your kid, but let’s tap on you first. When they do their work, their kid’s behavior changes.

KRISTEN:

You are doing amazing things in the world — I love this book, I love your work and how it’s expanding. And I am waiting for that Super Bowl commercial!

NICK:

Whoever does it — me or someone else, I’m rooting for them. Let’s get it out there — let’s have a different conversation.

KRISTEN:

And just last night watching TV we were laughing about how it is the accepted norm to listen to a pharmaceutical ad with a 5 minute disclaimer spewing off a laundry list of side effects. This drug may cause a deadly disease (but keep taking it).

NICK:

Our disclaimer can say: may cause happiness, health and abundance.

Learn more at thetappingsolution.com