Happy Place: Annabel Rivkin on tapping out of the negative fantasy vortex

There I was, unable to motivate, tumbling into a familiar vortex of negative fantasy: I have nothing to offer, I am a terrible person, inadequate mother and likely to be imminently bankrupt. It was high summer and I was facing a weird week alone at home with not much work. I had intended to fill the time virtuously by taking myself on solo art dates, but I was horribly immobilised. A week of anticipated calm quickly morphed into a week of consistent disquiet. Through my gloom-tinted spectacles, the city looked as grubby as my mind. So I sat. And marinated in sweaty tiredness and deleterious thinking. A reminder for a Zoom session with tapping expert Poppy Delbridge popped up on my phone. I was reluctant, but you can’t let people down unless you want to hate yourself even more. So I logged on. Poppy uses tapping to clear anxiety and tension, change habits, unleash personal power and find purpose. She taught me a ‘rapid tapping’ protocol, an alternative for those who cannot stick to meditation or can’t quite buy into manifestation and takes an easy two minutes. As you tap your fingertips on specific meridian points, you acknowledge your feelings (out loud), connect with yourself and open pathways for change. I immediately felt less tired and hopeless and trotted off to the wondrous Cornelia Parker at Tate Britain. I have been tapping ever since — when I remember — and it’s always a little lift. The results, she says, are cumulative. I tend to believe her.

‘Tapping In: Manifest the Life You Want with the Transformative Power of Tapping’, by Poppy Delbridge, is out now