Podcast: Tapping Away Writer’s Block with Helen McConnell
hosted by Anne Hawley
In this episode of the Write Anyway podcast, host Anne Hawley interviews certified EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping practitioner Helen McConnell about using tapping to overcome writer's block and creative barriers.
Episode Highlights
Introduction to EFT tapping and its benefits for writers
Live demonstration of tapping techniques for writer's block
Discussion of how fear and safety mechanisms can block creativity
Practical tips for accessing creative inspiration
Real results: Anne's positive outcome following the tapping session
Guest: Helen McConnell
Certified EFT tapping practitioner with 14 years of experience
Specializes in helping people resolve trauma, relieve pain, and clear mental blocks
Returning host of "What's Bugging You" podcast
Resources Mentioned
Contact Helen: helen@helenmcconnell.com
Special Opportunity
Helen is seeking three writers to participate in writing-related tapping sessions for her podcast "What's Bugging You." Interested writers can contact her at helen@helenmcconnell.com.
Connect With Pages & Platforms
Subscribe to the Write Anyway newsletter
Some links are affiliate links, we get a small commission when you purchase, but you don't pay more.
transcript
Anne Hawley: Hello and welcome to the Write Anyway podcast from pages and platforms and the Happily Ever Author Club.
I'm Anne Hawley, and in today's episode, i talk with Helen McConnell about using EFT Tapping to overcome writer's block. Helen has been a certified EFT tapping practitioner for 14 years, and in that time, she's helped hundreds of people change their lives by tapping to resolve trauma, relieve pain, release, old thinking patterns, clear overwhelm, and so much more.
Full disclosure, she's also my sister, and I've benefited countless times from her EFT tapping therapy, so on with the interview.
Hi Helen. How you doing?
Helen McConnell: I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me to do this.
Anne Hawley: Oh, I'm excited 'cause I need your help.
Helen McConnell: Okay, well I'm excited 'cause I'm happy to help. And I just want your listeners to know that if they've heard of tapping, I won't need to tell them anything. They're probably already convinced that it works. If they've never heard of tapping and they think it's weird, I suggest it won't hurt you.
Just do it anyway. Follow along with us and see what kind of benefit you can get from it. 'cause it, it's such an amazing tool and it's so easy to use. You can use, it takes, you can take seconds with it. You can take. An hour with it, whatever you need, it, it is a very flexible tool, but today we're talking specifically about your listeners who might experience some form of writer's block.
Anne Hawley: Right. I think people should understand from my experience with tapping that even if writer's block per se isn't what you're dealing with today but some other aspect of your creative life, you'll get something out of following along with this. The that I have found that to be true, even if the subject isn't real specific to me.
If I go along and do the tapping and think of my own thing, I can still get a ton of benefits. So hopefully people will just follow along and get a ton of benefit.
Helen McConnell: Well, yes, we actually have borrowed benefits, it's called, and you can tap along even if your thing has nothing to do with what we're tapping on, and your mind will translate what we're doing into something that applies to you.
Anne Hawley: Okay.
Helen McConnell: Okay. All right. So since you volunteered to be the person with writer's block, why don't we just dive right in, Anne, and you tell me just briefly-- and the beautiful thing about tapping, I don't need to know whole story. Just tell me briefly what is it you'd like to unblock.
Anne Hawley: Okay. I haven't done any serious writing for quite a stretch of time because I feel like I lack inspiration. There's sort of nothing coming through.
Helen McConnell: Oh, okay. All right. Like all your good ideas are all dried up kind of.
Anne Hawley: Yeah, it's so dried up that I feel like I've never had one before.
Helen McConnell: Okay. All right. It's interesting that you say that. 'cause in the description I sent to you earlier, those were the, almost the exact words that I had sent is like, if you're feeling like you're, you , can't get yourself to sit down and write, or you can sit down and write, but all the ideas seem to have left you.
This will really help. Alright, so as you sense into that lack of inspiration, feeling where, and this is really important, where in your body do you notice the feeling?
Anne Hawley: Inside my mouth, kind of like hollow mouth and down, really down, far down, deep in the bottom of my gut down here.
Helen McConnell: Okay, like almost to your pelvic bowl almost.
Anne Hawley: yeah. Down there.
Helen McConnell: Okay. Okay. Oh, those are, those are, I mean, that can tell us a lot. I but we don't need to figure it out. That's the thing. What we're intending to do with the tapping is to help you have an experience where some of those feelings begin to shift, and if the feelings begin to shift, there's a good chance everything else will shift with it.
Not always, but usually. So on a scale of one to 10, how intense is, are those feelings?
Anne Hawley: Seven.
Helen McConnell: Okay.
Anne Hawley: Yeah.
Helen McConnell: All right. And this is subjective . You know, nobody's gonna check to see if the number's right. It's to help you measure later when it doesn't seem any different.
So just lean into it, acknowledge what's going on for you. Acknowledge that you would like to be writing more. Is that right? Do you wanna be writing more or not?
Anne Hawley: Yeah. Yeah. Let's assume that I do wanna be writing more. Yeah.
Helen McConnell: Well, some people say that, but then they go, well, maybe I really don't want to. Maybe I'm done. You know? Alright, so let's do some tapping and I'm not gonna teach everybody the basics. You're gonna just tap along. It's so simple. If you can see me, you can follow along. We start on the side of the hand, the soft fleshy side of the hand, tap with a couple of fingers and you repeat.
And all your listeners can repeat and you can say,
"even though I've got this thing I wanna write"
Anne Hawley: even though I've got something I wanna write
Helen McConnell: Okay. You don't even know. I don't even
Anne Hawley: I don't know what it is. Yeah.
Helen McConnell: And I, I feel like I lack inspiration.
Anne Hawley: I feel like I lack inspiration.
Helen McConnell: Like all my ideas have just dried up.
Anne Hawley: All my ideas have
Helen McConnell: Or maybe they were never there in the first place.
Anne Hawley: maybe they were never there in the first place.
Helen McConnell: Okay. And I, I acknowledge and accept that this is how I feel.
Anne Hawley: I acknowledge and accept that this is how I feel, ugh.
Helen McConnell: Answer. What was that noise?
Anne Hawley: I'm gone. Okay. Yeah. This is how I feel.
Helen McConnell: A lot of people don't like to say the negative. It's like, am I just attracting the negative? No. The negative has to come up and be addressed. And what I always say is you could just tap on the positive, but that's like putting frosting on a shit cupcake.
We just really don't.
Anne Hawley: Okay.
Helen McConnell: Okay. So even though I have this hollow mouth feeling.
Anne Hawley: Even though I have this hollow mouth feeling,
Helen McConnell: And I feel this intensity down in my pelvic bowl.
Anne Hawley: and I feel this intensity down in my pelvic, but it's more like an emptiness, but yeah.
Helen McConnell: Oh, emptiness. Okay. All right. So it's hollow and empty. Everything's
Anne Hawley: Hollow and hollow, yeah.
Helen McConnell: Yeah. Okay, good. Good visual there. I feel like I lack inspiration
Anne Hawley: I feel like I lack inspiration.
Helen McConnell: and I'm willing to accept that this is how I feel.
Anne Hawley: And I'm willing to accept that this is how I feel
Helen McConnell: Okay, and one more time. Even though I feel this hollow feeling in my pelvic bowl, empty
Anne Hawley: Even though I feel this empty feeling in my pelvic bowl
Helen McConnell: and a hollow mouth feeling,
Anne Hawley: a hollow mouth,
Helen McConnell: I accept that, this is how I feel.
Anne Hawley: I accept that this is how I feel.
Helen McConnell: Okay, now we're gonna tap around the points and we're gonna say a little reminder phrase about what we're doing, and you just repeat after me. You start right at the top of the head,
Anne Hawley: Okay.
Helen McConnell: this feeling
Anne Hawley: This feeling,
Helen McConnell: on the inner eyebrow, this hollow mouth feeling
Anne Hawley: this hollow mouth feeling
Helen McConnell: side of the eye.
This emptiness in my pelvic bowl.
Anne Hawley: emptiness in my pelvic bowl.
Helen McConnell: Under the eye, this feeling
Anne Hawley: This feeling.
Helen McConnell: under the nose, this hollow mouth feeling
Anne Hawley: This hollow mouth feeling,
Helen McConnell: on the chin, this lack of idea, feeling
Anne Hawley: this lack of idea,
Helen McConnell: collarbone, this feeling
Anne Hawley: this feeling
Helen McConnell: under the arm, this hollow mouth feeling. I.
Anne Hawley: this hollow mouth feeling.
Helen McConnell: Okay. And just take a nice deep breath there
And bring your awareness right back to your body where it was before. And think about that you haven't done any serious writing. And how does that feel now when you think about it?
Anne Hawley: It still feels pretty crappy.
Helen McConnell: Okay. Is it still feel crappy at a seven?
Anne Hawley: No. More like a five.
Helen McConnell: Okay. That's why we use the number, because oftentimes you'll go, well, God, I still, I still don't imagine that I could write, but that's not where really, where we're going. But a shift from a seven out 10 to a five outta 10 after just a round or two. That's pretty impressive, right?
I mean, it, it is a noticeable difference. It feels lighter.
Anne Hawley: And you know what it feels like instead of hollow and empty, there's little sparks in there.
Helen McConnell: Ooh, I like that.
Anne Hawley: For what that's worth.
Helen McConnell: No, I think the visual, the, the bodily sensations and the visuals that we get from that are really, they're metaphorical. Like what are those are? What if those are sparks of inspiration? You know, we, we don't know. We don't have to fix, we don't have to decide. This is just to help you.
Okay, so now we're gonna do another round and you just tap on the side. No, let's skip the side of the hand. Just go to the top of the head and say this feeling.
Anne Hawley: This feeling.
Helen McConnell: I heard you take a deep breath. Did something just open up there or was that
Anne Hawley: don't know. I just, no, I'm just taking a breath.
Helen McConnell: Oh, okay. Well, a lot of times stuff moves and we're suddenly able to breathe more deeply than we were
Anne Hawley: Right, right.
Helen McConnell: on the eyebrow. This hollow mouth feeling
Anne Hawley: This hollow mouth feeling,
Helen McConnell: side of the eye, this pelvic bowl feeling.
Anne Hawley: this pelvic bowl feeling. I.
Helen McConnell: Under the eye. These feelings are starting to shift
Anne Hawley: These feelings are starting to shift.
Helen McConnell: Under the nose. I'm noticing some sparks down in my pelvic bowl
Anne Hawley: I'm noticing some sparks down in my pelvic bowl
Helen McConnell: on the chin. I don't know what they mean.
Anne Hawley: I don't know what they mean.
Helen McConnell: Collarbone. I don't need to know what they mean
Anne Hawley: I don't need to know what they mean.
Helen McConnell: under the arm. I'm simply observing what's happening. I.
Anne Hawley: I'm simply observing what's happening.
Helen McConnell: Top of the head and allowing my body to feel what it needs to feel.
Anne Hawley: And allowing my body to feel what it needs to feel.
Helen McConnell: All right. Take a deep breath there. Perfect. Yawning is such a common thing, you know, and I always tell people, don't try to hide the yawn. And are you noticing anything else, Annee?
Anne Hawley: Yeah, but I have a hard time saying what it is.
Helen McConnell: That's okay, but it feels different. Something feels different.
Anne Hawley: Yeah. Something moving in here and
Helen McConnell: Oh.
Anne Hawley: like my sinuses are draining almost. That's weird.
Helen McConnell: No, it's not weird at all. All our bodily sensations are all so related and we don't give them enough attention, you know? And this area here, this is all your fifth chakra stuff, your throat, your jaw, probably your sinuses, and that's all about speaking your truth, which I believe writing is, you're speaking your truth, right?
You're speaking your creative truth.
Anne Hawley: hopefully. Yeah.
Helen McConnell: And then the pelvic bowl down there, usually chakra one or chakra two is about creation. All about creation. All right, so now there's not gonna be any way we can prove to your listeners that you're suddenly gonna be able to write this serious writing, except you might get a sense that, oh, yeah. The idea of it feels easier, or maybe it doesn't. What are you noticing?
Anne Hawley: More sparks.
Helen McConnell: Okay.
Anne Hawley: Like lots of little fireflies, which not really fireflies inside my body, but you know, like ,
Helen McConnell: Well, yeah, I was kind of picturing like when you throw a log, a burnt log. Yeah. And the sparks go flying like at
Anne Hawley: oh
Helen McConnell: you know, like that. I mean, that's kind of what I was picturing. Are they all the same color? Are they various colors, or what do you notice?
Anne Hawley: They're all like your lights behind you. They're kind of little bright, yellowish white, you know, bright, golden white.
Helen McConnell: Okay. All right, good. All right, and let's check in again with the sensation and the intensity of it went from a seven down to a five. And where's the sensation now when you really think about, I haven't done any serious writing lately.
Anne Hawley: Two,
Helen McConnell: Okay.
Anne Hawley: maybe three. Something around in there. Two and a half, let's say.
Helen McConnell: Okay. I like to, yeah, find that halfway pointed. Again, the number is just mostly for you to monitor. Oh, there really is a shift.
Anne Hawley: Right.
Helen McConnell: And is it still the same thing that you feel like you lack inspiration?
Anne Hawley: I can't say that like some big idea has come to me, but I feel like it could.
Helen McConnell: Okay. Well that seems to me like you're much more likely to get inspiration , if you feel like you're ready to receive inspiration. Right.
Anne Hawley: Yeah.
Helen McConnell: Okay. All right. And is there anything else you're noticing?
Anne Hawley: Well, I can get a nice deep breath. That's nice.
Helen McConnell: And we didn't even monitor your, or check your breath intensity and your jaw is loosening up.
Anne Hawley: Yeah,
Helen McConnell: Yeah. Some of us, when we're feeling stressed about things, we're just like, oh, you know, and we don't even realize we're doing it. But by doing that, we're actually cutting off the inspiration or the creativity, the flow. We're cutting off the flow.
Anne Hawley: Right,
Helen McConnell: And so let me ask you this. When you think about the fact that you haven't, you feel like you haven't written anything serious in a while does that put you into what I would call fight or flight mode?
Anne Hawley: No, it's, it's, um, more like freeze or be depressed, you know?
Helen McConnell: Oh, okay. Well, freeze is one of the fight flight ORs, you know, fight, flight, or freeze are the responses we go into. So let me ask you, is there fear behind this not writing?
Anne Hawley: I think there's fear behind the writing.
Helen McConnell: Oh, okay. All right. That's good to know. What are you afraid of?
Anne Hawley: Uh, exposure probably.
Helen McConnell: Okay. Like being seen kind of exposure.
Anne Hawley: Mm-hm, like, what if I write about something that is too personal or something like that?
Helen McConnell: All right. We're gonna do a little tapping on that 'cause your audience probably can relate to that. And then I'm gonna suggest that I'm gonna, I bet a lot of people, I hear that a lot. Like, what if people don't like what I write or they get mad or I get in trouble, or whatever the, you know, however you word it.
I'm also gonna suggest that writing is your creativity. You could write a complete, beautiful novel. Doesn't mean you have to do anything with it,
Anne Hawley: Yeah, that's true.
Helen McConnell: But it feels like your soul wants to write.
Anne Hawley: Yeah.
Helen McConnell: we're gonna take the fear of being seen and just see if we can put it on a shelf somewhere.
Anne Hawley: Oh, okay.
Helen McConnell: Okay. And just see if it helps to, and you know, again, we won't really know until you go sit down at your computer and start writing.
Anne Hawley: Yeah.
Helen McConnell: So how do you notice that you're in that freeze state? What tells you you're in freeze.
Anne Hawley: Yeah, I am not even sure freeze is the right word because it's this very low, flat, no energy that it's just kind of depressed more than freeze. But it's just kind of hopeless.
Helen McConnell: Oh, that's a good word for it,
Anne Hawley: Yeah. Kind of dark and flat sort of,
Helen McConnell: And that kind of goes along with no inspiration, like.
Anne Hawley: that's exactly
Helen McConnell: I'm getting the sound I hear is like
Anne Hawley: yeah. Kind of flat tires, sort of.
Helen McConnell: Yeah. Okay. And are you aware of any particular thing that brought that on?
Anne Hawley: I haven't been able to trace it to anything particular.
Helen McConnell: Okay. All right, so let's just tap and see if we can get that part of you that is trying to keep you safe and all these parts in us just wanna keep us safe. Even though usually when they're keeping us safe, they're really keeping us small and hidden away. Right? That's how that part works.
We have to be able to soothe the nervous system, which is what we're doing with the tapping, just soothe the nervous system. Let's just do a round or two and see if it helps at all. Just tap and say, even though I've been feeling kind of hopeless,
Anne Hawley: Even though I've been feeling kind of hopeless
Helen McConnell: like, flat
Anne Hawley: flat,
Helen McConnell: just say I love and accept myself.
Anne Hawley: I love and accept myself.
Helen McConnell: And I accept that this is how I feel,
Anne Hawley: I accept that this is how I feel,
Helen McConnell: even though this feeling
Anne Hawley: even though this feeling
Helen McConnell: seems to be keeping me from writing.
Anne Hawley: seems to be keeping me from writing.
Helen McConnell: I know it just wants to keep me safe.
Anne Hawley: I know it just wants to keep me safe.
Helen McConnell: Yeah. Right. But I, this is not a time for that kind of safety.
Anne Hawley: This is not a time for that kind of safety.
Helen McConnell: I'm not currently in danger.
Anne Hawley: I'm not currently in danger
Helen McConnell: You're only in danger in your mind, right. There's,
Anne Hawley: Yeah. I'm
Helen McConnell: well, exactly. Okay. That's really good. Tap on top of the head. Just say, so far
Anne Hawley: so far.
Helen McConnell: the eyebrow, I'm only in danger in my mind
Anne Hawley: I'm only in danger in my mind.
Helen McConnell: side of the eye, but this part of me.
Anne Hawley: But this part of me
Helen McConnell: Under the eye that wants to keep me safe
Anne Hawley: that wants to keep me safe
Helen McConnell: under the nose has gone out into a future that I don't really know about
Anne Hawley: has gone out into a future that I don't really know about,
Helen McConnell: on the chin, and now it wants to keep me safe from my future.
Anne Hawley: and now it wants to keep me safe from my future.
Helen McConnell: Collarbone, a future it doesn't even know about
Anne Hawley: The future it doesn't even know about.
Helen McConnell: under the arm, it's just making stuff up.
Anne Hawley: It is just making stuff up. Damn it,
Helen McConnell: Head top say this and see how it feels. Say, but right here, right now
Anne Hawley: right here, right now.
Helen McConnell: on the eyebrow, I'm safe
Anne Hawley: I'm safe.
Helen McConnell: side of the eye. I'm safe in my body
Anne Hawley: I'm safe in my body
Helen McConnell: under the eye. Right here, right now,
Anne Hawley: right here, right now.
Helen McConnell: under the nose, and now is all I really have.
Anne Hawley: And now is all I really have.
Helen McConnell: I'm safe right here, right now.
Anne Hawley: I'm safe right here, right now.
Helen McConnell: I feel my feet on the floor.
Anne Hawley: I feel my feet on the floor.
Helen McConnell: Under the arm. I feel my butt in the chair.
Anne Hawley: I feel my butt in the chair.
Helen McConnell: Top of the head. I'm safe right here, right now.
Anne Hawley: I'm safe right here, right now.
Helen McConnell: Okay, and then just take a breath there. And see what you notice.
Anne Hawley: God, it all feels so, like everything that I was so worried about feels so kind of silly.
Helen McConnell: Well, it's not silly. I mean, it is and it isn't. It's not silly because your mind has decided that this is important, but right here, right now, when you think about that, this really is the only moment you have. This is the moment to write in and the moment to live your life in. And most people I would say a good majority of people are living in fear.
They're living in fear of something that isn't actually happening to them in the moment. And I understand that, and I'm not trying to diminish that except I am trying to help people reduce their fear, because it doesn't help anything, doesn't make you more creative, doesn't make you safer, doesn't even help you to have a better argument with your partner or your spouse, right?
I mean, you just don't think as well when you're in a fear state.
Anne Hawley: No, true.
Helen McConnell: And we tend to overreact and stuff like that. So is there any other thing that you're becoming aware of or that's becoming clear to you right now?
Anne Hawley: It feels like the sort of empty flat place is more filled up with like the little sparks or the fuel. Like I could be doing something and then the next thing that comes up, and I know we don't really have time to do a whole other session, but maybe there's one more thing is: but what if I don't know how to write it now that like something might be coming up?
What if I can't do it justice? What if it's, what if I've asked for inspiration that I'm not capable of
Helen McConnell: Well, okay, so I'm just gonna tell you my experience. You will not get inspiration for something you're not capable of doing. I mean, you'll, you have the capability to learn how to do it if you don't know how to ask for help or to ask for coaching, I mean, you already know how to write, so you probably don't need that kind of help.
But you might need a writer's group or somebody to, you know.
Anne Hawley: I have that.
Helen McConnell: To lovingly critique what you're writing
Anne Hawley: Yeah.
Helen McConnell: And again, all of those what ifs are just that part of us that just wants to keep us small and safe and hidden away. That is not your true self. That's saying that I.
Can you feel that? Like your soul isn't saying, oh, what if you're not good enough? What if you don't write it well enough? That's not your soul. That's more your ego that does that.
Anne Hawley: Right. Yeah.
Helen McConnell: Our ego is like, has taken over and is running the show and the ego doesn't deserve to run the show. The ego doesn't know how to be in charge.
Anne Hawley: It's also not a very good writer.
Helen McConnell: Yeah, not a very good writer, not a very good anything except keep us scared.
Anne Hawley: Yeah.
Helen McConnell: Alright. So it'll be really interesting to, you know, hear how you do in the next few days or weeks. you have a specific time you write every day or,
Anne Hawley: Every day. Yeah, every day. Always at nine, sometimes earlier.
Helen McConnell: okay. And when you write, do you always write about the same thing? Are you waiting for inspiration or can you sort of, dig down for inspiration. Try something different, write about something different tomorrow. I don't know what your writing is like.
Anne Hawley: Yeah, I, I don't have a specific thing that I write 'cause I haven't had something that I'm working on for a very long time. So I just do morning pages, . And I would like it to be more directed than that towards an actual story or project that's more specific.
Helen McConnell: So I'll just make one suggestion. I was just talking to a woman in my business mastermind group yesterday, and we were talking about talking to our higher guides. I didn't know if she was open to that idea, but I was explaining that I have these higher guides, and she goes, oh my God.
She goes, just earlier today I was writing, she's a writer and an artist, and she goes, I was talking to Maurice Sendak. You know who that is?
Anne Hawley: Oh yeah. Uhhuh.
Helen McConnell: She was saying, I want to paint more like you. How do I do that? So I do believe we have access to, if there's a writer you admire or just a the writer's Guild in the, in the sky say, please, I need some help.
I need some guidance. They're there to help you, but you gotta be willing to listen.
Anne Hawley: Yeah. I, I have some ideas of who I would ask.
Helen McConnell: Then ask, and I think everyone, whether they agree with this or not, try it. Don't pooh pooh it. Try
Anne Hawley: Can't hurt to try,
Helen McConnell: Can't hurt to try and you don't have to tell anybody you're doing it, but just see if you can access a higher wisdom. It's really might be your higher wisdom, but it is higher wisdom that's available. A storyline might drop in. It may not be complete, but it might be a nugget of a story that drops in and you're suddenly, like, these sparks now suddenly turn into flames and you get a really good idea.
Anne Hawley: My emotional support dead author.
Helen McConnell: Exactly. Emotional support dead author. Exactly. All right. Well, I hope this is helpful for you and your listeners.
Well thank you for letting me do this with you today, Anne.
Anne Hawley: Thank you for helping me. I will come back and record a little tag on this, when I see what kind of writing is arising from it.
Helen McConnell: Okay. I'd love to hear about it.
Anne Hawley: Thanks, Helen. Okay, bye.
Just a quick follow up. Since this tapping session, I'm happy to report that I've begun to have ideas again, I've written several short essays, and for the first time in ages, I've started a new story, possibly a novel length one, and I'm really excited about it. Helen is resurrecting her old podcast called What's Bugging You, and she's looking for three writers willing to go on her show and do some writing related tapping with her, kind of like what she and I did in this episode.
If you're interested, drop her a line, helen@helenmcconnell.com. You can find out more about her EFT Tapping Practice and workshops at purposeprosperityhappiness.com. Finally, if you'd like a weekly dose of writing, insight and mindset and marketing tips in your inbox, subscribe to the Write Anyway newsletter at pagesandplatforms.com/subscribe.
And that's it for this episode of the Write. Anyway Podcast, thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.