Feel Better About the State of the World in 17 minutes
If you're free next Friday you can test it for yourself
So you look at the world, and it’s on fire. Civilians are being bombed. Children are being starved. Fascism is gripping half the world in its fist. Everyone you know, maybe including you, is short of money and as low on hope as they’ve ever felt in their lives.
And the TV spews out the same game shows and light entertainment like nothing is wrong. How can anyone be happy? Why are people in the audience laughing, the presenters telling the same dumb jokes? Why the hell are people still buying room sprays and decorative throws, like the decor matters when the whole damn place is going to Hell?
Because it’s all too much. Because you have to turn away. Find any lightening, laughter or lift you can. Yes, even in the form of a decorative throw. Focusing on the small good in our life, in what we love and want more of, is actually a top survival strategy.
But I have good friends living in sharp misery right now, and good strangers too, all around me on this platform where I’ve set up my virtual home. Of the 5,000 people subscribed to How to Evolve, how many, I wonder, are struggling to feel okay with the way things are going?
But this is what I’m here for. Because I’m that annoying bugger who actually does feel okay, most of the time. And not because I don’t have challenges to deal with (debt, pain, a precarious freelance existence, an estranged son, take your pick). And not because I’m insensitive. Quite the opposite, in fact: I was the ‘oversensitive’ child, the ‘you think too much’ girl, the adult still capable of crying at the drop of a hat. In a board game challenge recently, I astonished my family by creating real tears, to order, within ten seconds. Because I know where the sadness lives, and how to reach it. I’m a poet, for crying out loud. My heart isn’t just on my sleeve; it’s the outer layer of my whole damn trouser suit.
Yet I’m profoundly emotionally stable. When I feel myself tip out of kilter, I address it at speed: make the time to get upright as fast as I can. My offspring know they can share anything with me, and I won’t explode. And my positivity, most hours of most days, is so profound that I have to be aware that others might find that painful, and temper it in their presence.
It wasn’t always the case. My stepfather, a GP, once described me as “emotionally labile” (go to, stepdad-fella, you were part of the reason!). A psychologist with whom I shared university lodgings when we were both students, aged 18-19, described that version of me as “high maintenance Ros.” I had my first full-scale breakdown aged 20. I was a heap of pain through my twenties and early thirties. Suicidal at 35, I unwisely confided in a new acquaintance who promptly tried to have me sectioned.
Only at 36 did I realise I’d been chronically depressed since the age of 9, and that being miserable and angry wasn’t “my personality”. And it wasn’t until I was 43 years old that I finally discovered the tool that would change everything for me: enable me to look after myself emotionally for the very first time, without leaning on anyone else. Heal layer upon layer of trauma. Transform me from mess to success.
If you’ve been subscribed to How to Evolve for a while, you’ll know I’m talking about Emotional Freedom Technique, aka tapping. I’ve led introductory sessions via video, and told stories of its powerful effects in the face of high emotion. I know some of you have tried it and found it transformative. Just a couple of days ago, commenting on a note about how it (essentially) saved my second marriage, Catherine Boswell replied:
Me too, Catherine. Over and over.
Now, when I see something terrible happening in the world, instead of that familiar chest-crushing despair, I feel something else: clear-eyed compassion that doesn’t destroy me. I can witness suffering without drowning in it. I can take useful action instead of freezing in overwhelm. The world’s still on fire, but I’m no longer burning with it — I’m holding a hose.
It remains my daily practice (18 years now). It was what made meditation possible, despite my ADHD. It is, to my mind, as vital to my wellbeing as brushing my teeth, and takes only a little longer.
Wait, Ros. Was the promise of this post not “Feel better about the state of the world in seventeen minutes”? It doesn’t take seventeen minutes to brush your teeth.
Very true, my internalised interlocutor. I confess I chose 17 minutes as something of an average. You can feel better from tapping in anything from two minutes to twenty. I think when it comes to anything as large as “the state of the world”, best to err on the side of a larger number. And you know, in my bid to get better at putting myself out in the world and getting my words read, I’ve paid attention: 17 is one of those gritty little numbers that sparks curiosity where 10 just won’t.
So I hope to have piqued your curiosity at least.
Years ago, I ran a weekly tapping group in a community centre. People dropped a fiver in a hat, brought their issues, and we dissolved them. Everyone left laughing.
Substack is the new community centre. Here, I’ve connected with so many people — women especially — who have suffered abuse, and loss, and are squeezing every ounce of post-traumatic growth from their pasts in order to build better futures — not just for themselves, but for those whose lives they touch.
Sensitive people who are more prone than most to feeling anxious, due to their histories. And also who are most deserving of peace and stability. Are you one of them? Next Friday, instead of my weekly post, I’ll be running a tapping session for paid subscribers. I’m setting up, today, the 7-day free trial option, so you can become a “paid subscriber” without spending a penny (or dime) and if you don’t find it useful, you can cancel as soon as the session is done, and you’ll have tried it for free.
If How to Evolve full members agree this is useful — if you get that promised relief from anxiety — then I’ll do another one next month.
The truth is, we can’t put out the world’s fires while we’re suffocating in our own smoke. Tapping doesn’t make the horrors disappear, but it stops them from paralysing us. It’s the difference between scrolling doom news in bed at 3 am, heart racing, and calmly planning our next practical step over breakfast. Same world, different nervous system
My main skill will always be writing. Words can make a powerful difference: can land somewhere deep, and help rewire us. But sometimes, those words don’t get past our subconscious defences without a little help. This powerful somatic technique helps words land where they matter, and make a permanent difference. The difference between knowing intellectually how you’d prefer to feel… and actually feeling it, all the way to your bones. It has released me from pain a thousand times. And when the world is on fire, I’d rather teach you how to become fireproof than watch you burn.
If you want to try EFT tapping to release anxiety about your future, your country’s future, or the future of humanity, make sure you’ve got a paid subscription (or 7-day free trial) up and running by 7pm British time next Friday, and register here, just below the paywall. You’ll get access to the recording if you can’t attend live.
With a great deal of love,
Ros