Support Your Wellbeing with Affirmations and EFT Integration
The Power of Affirmations combined with EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique): A Simple Yet Effective Approach to Personal Growth and Transformation
If you’re new here I’m Laura, a counsellor, nature therapist, somatic therapist, meditation teacher and space holder. My work is centered around gently guiding people back into relationship with themselves, with their bodies, and with the wider natural world. My offerings weave together counselling psychology, embodiment, nature connection and ritual to support deeper alignment with our inner and outer cycles.
Today, I want to share a bit about the practice of combining affirmations with Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), sometimes known as "EFT tapping." As a therapist EFT is a tool I regularly use in both my personal and professional life, and I’ve found it to be incredibly powerful. For me, as someone with a neurodivergent nervous system that can be easily overstimulated or triggered, EFT offers a practical and effective way to process emotions and return to a sense of groundedness. There’s something very regulating about naming what you’re feeling, whether it’s anxiety, anger, overwhelm, or grief, while gently tapping on specific acupressure points on the body. It helps to bring what’s under the surface into awareness and gently shift it, without having to talk yourself out of what you’re feeling. If you’re curious about using EFT tapping to explore difficult emotions I definitely encourage you to explore some EFT resources and try it out for yourself. It’s a simple practice, but one that can create profound emotional shifts over time.
Today, though, I want to focus on using EFT as a positive tool for change; specifically, how it can work alongside affirmations to support emotional and behavioural shifts. Let’s begin with affirmations. At their core, affirmations are simple, positive statements that we can repeat to ourselves either out loud or silently. This can help to reframe unhelpful thought patterns and shift limiting beliefs. The idea is that by consistently repeating these statements, we begin to rewire our inner dialogue and create new, more empowering mental pathways through neuroplasticity (I’ll share a bit more about this below).
Why Affirmations Alone Aren’t Always Enough and How EFT Can Help
Having said all of the above, it feels important to be honest about the limitations of affirmations when they’re used on their own, especially in the context of trauma or neurodivergence. In my work as a counsellor and therapist, I support many clients who live with dysregulated nervous systems due to chronic stress, trauma, or the impacts of being neurodivergent in a world that often doesn’t accommodate them. In these states, when the body is stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode, it can be nearly impossible to genuinely believe a positive affirmation, no matter how often we repeat it.
If you’d like to find out more about the nervous system states, including fight, flight, freeze and shut-down, check out this post on understanding the polyvagal ladder to befriend your nervous system.
This is where tapping affirmations come in. By combining affirmations with the physical, grounding act of tapping on specific acupressure points, we create a bridge between the mind and the body. We’re not just telling ourselves something positive, we’re also calming the nervous system and making space for those messages to actually land. It becomes a way of gently working with both the emotional truth of the moment and the intention to move toward change.
Neuroplasticity means you can rewire your brain—and EFT helps make that change possible.
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change and form new neural pathways throughout life, meaning it’s possible to shift long-held patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) supports this process by combining emotional awareness with physical tapping on specific acupressure points, helping to interrupt old responses and create space for new, healthier ones. One simple way to work with this is through affirmations: positive statements that can help reframe limiting beliefs. If you struggle to believe an affirmation, try softening it with phrases like “I am willing to…” or “I am open to believing that…” For example, if “I am confident and capable in social situations” feels too far from your current experience, try “I am willing to believe that I can feel more confident in social situations.” This approach gently opens the door to change without triggering resistance. I’ll be sharing weekly affirmations over on Instagram if you’d like some inspiration to get started.
An affirmation that I personally find really useful, especially when combined with tapping, is “I am willing to believe that every cell in my body is safe and that I am able to keep myself safe”. This is an incredibly powerful tool when my nervous system is activated.
Using EFT and Affirmations to Build Self-Esteem and Set Intentions
Self-esteem is something many of us quietly struggle with, often shaped by past experiences, external criticism or the persistent inner-critic. The good news is, affirmations can be a simple but powerful tool for building a more positive self-image. Start by choosing affirmations that reflect your strengths, things you do well, qualities you appreciate about yourself, or even small moments of joy or success. If you find this difficult, begin with something light and manageable. Even saying, “I make a really good cup of tea” is a valid and positive affirmation. It might seem small, but statements like this can become the foundation for greater self-belief.
Our brains are hardwired with a negativity bias. This is a survival mechanism passed down from our ancestors, whose lives depended on staying alert to danger. While this helped keep them alive, in the modern world it often leads us to overlook the good and focus on what’s “wrong.” Affirmations help rewire this tendency by gently shifting your attention to what’s working, what’s true, and what’s possible. Over time, this creates a more encouraging and compassionate internal dialogue, making your mind a more gentle place to be.
Affirmations are also incredibly useful for intention setting. Say you’re working toward a promotion at work. Rather than jumping straight to a bold statement like “I deserve a promotion” (which might trigger doubt if you’re not quite there yet), begin with affirmations that recognise your current strengths: “I consistently meet my targets,” or “I’m a valued and reliable team member.” From there, you can build toward a more specific goal-focused affirmation like: “I would make an excellent [insert dream job title], and I’m ready for the next step.” When repeated regularly, especially alongside practices like EFT, these statements help your brain and nervous system begin to believe the possibility of change and new ways of being.
Combining your affirmations with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)
As I mentioned above, EFT, which is also referred to as "tapping," is an energy-based healing practice rooted in the principles of traditional Chinese medicine and acupressure. The core idea behind EFT is that negative emotions, beliefs, and unresolved stress can become stuck in the body’s energy system leading to emotional and even physical imbalances. By gently tapping on specific acupressure points, primarily on the face, upper body, and hands, while bringing awareness to a particular issue, EFT helps release emotional blockages and allows the body and mind to return to a more balanced state.
To try this yourself, start by choosing the affirmation that you’d like to work with, remembering that you can add phrases like “I am willing to…” or “I am open to believing that…” to start with, to soften the statement and make it more believable. As you repeat the statement, tap on each of the EFT points (usually five to seven times per point) while repeating your affirmation out loud or silently. You can find videos of this process online if you need a bit more guidance. Stay focused on the statement as you move through the points, allowing the words to really sink in.
Once you’ve done a round of tapping and repeating your statment on each of the points, pause and reflect for a moment. How are you feeling now. Repeat this cycle using the same statement around five times (or more!). For really deeply held negative beliefs, this will work best if you regularly repeat the process. Can you take a few minutes each day to explore your affirmation through tapping?
I hope you find exploring this process useful and supportive. With regular use, combining EFT and affirmations can help shift long-held negative beliefs, build self-confidence, and support you in moving toward your goals with greater clarity and compassion. It’s a gentle but transformative way to change the stories you tell yourself—and to replace them with ones that reflect your growth, strength, and worth.
If you enjoyed this, check out this post with 3 simple ways to be more resilient, including ‘taking in the good’ as a way of reprogramming our brains to be more positive. If you’d like to work with me, I offer 121 counselling and therapy in person (Birmingham, B30) and online, 121 nature based counselling and in person nature connection, meditation and embodiment sessions. If you’d like to find out more about me before working together, check out my FAQs.
