EFT Tapping Script for Recovering from Long COVID
Important Note: As you read this article and EFT tapping script, please keep in mind that I am neither a physician nor a scientist. I’ve explained these concepts according to my understanding of them, and how I have applied them to my own recovery from Long COVID. This article is not medical advice, nor should it be taken as such.
Medical experts estimate that at this point in the COVID crisis, over one year in, there are millions of people worldwide suffering from chronic symptoms of COVID. This condition is called long COVID, and also long-haul COVID. For those who have it, it can be profoundly disabling.
I had severe COVID in March of 2020. After that, due to residual effects of the acute infection, and than long COVID, I was almost entirely bedridden for a year and a half. It took me three years to fully recover.
In that time, I learned a lot about chronic illness and how to help the body heal by healing and retraining the nervous system.
When you’re not in parasympathetic mode, you’re in sympathetic mode, which means the fight-flight-freeze response is activated, and when that’s happening, the body literally cannot heal.
Immunity shuts down, the body can’t detox, and tissue repair is put on hold.
Because the acute phase of COVID is often traumatic, and chronic illness is also traumatic, this can make it very difficult for the body to heal. Unresolved or ungoing trauma keeps the nervous system on high alert. In other words, it keeps the sympathetic nervous system activated.
Remember, in order for healing to happen, the body-mind must be in rest and digest mode, aka heal and repair mode, and that is only possible when the parasympathetic nervous system is on, and the sympathetic nervous system is off.
That’s why I’ve written this script. It addresses the many different aspects of stress and trauma caused by both long COVID and acute COVID, so that you can heal them with tapping.
Because chronic stress and trauma cause you to be in chronic fight or flight (when the sympathetic nervous system is activated), the more of your COVID trauma and stress that you heal, the more readily your nervous system will spend as much time as possible in the parasympathetic mode which allows your amazing body to do the amazing healing work it was designed to do.
Remember: Parasympathetic mode means heal and repair, rest and digest. Sympathetic mode means fight, flight, freeze. Parasympathetic equals relaxed state. Sympathetic equals stressed.
As I’ve worked toward my own recovery from long COVID and the damage caused by acute COVID to my lungs, heart, vascular, and nervous system, another thing I’ve learned about is called the cell danger response.
This is related to the fight or flight response, but it relates more specifically to how the mitochondria respond to the sympathetic nervous system being engaged. In short, they basically shut down. When your mitochondria shut down, you shut down.
Your body may have energy, but you will feel like Westley from The Princess Bride after being taken off the torture device. Incredibly weak, devoid of energy, and completely unable to function. If only we could all go to Miracle Max and be restored to our past healthy and vital selves!
If you’ve experienced this, you know what I’m talking about, and you also know that it’s very hard to explain to those who haven’t experienced it.
“Oh, you’re feeling really tired?” is what most people think severe fatigue means. What it actually means is that you’re so weak that it’s nearly impossible to stand up. I had days when I was so weak that I didn’t have the strength to roll over in bed. That’s the cell danger response.
The latest research in neuroplasticity shows that trauma wires the brain to be on high alert, and to feel unsafe in many, if not most circumstances. In other words, it wires your nervous system to be stuck in sympathetic mode, where the body simply cannot heal.
When EFT tapping is used to completely heal trauma (it’s often used to only partially heal it, which is better than nothing, but far from the benefits gained from total healing), it rewires the brain to feel safe again, allowing the parasympathetic, heal and repair mode to be the default setting of the nervous system. Otherwise, the default setting is the sympathetic mode, where healing cannot happen.
If I sound like a broken record, good! These concepts bear repeating, and the more you hear them, the better you’ll be able to integrate them into your daily life, which will help you recover.
HOW TO USE THIS TAPPING SCRIPT
This script contains many of different aspects of long COVID which need healing. Some will fit your experience, and probably some will not. Just pick whichever ones do, and tap those ones out, either on your own, or with your EFT practitioner.
For ease of use, I’ve divided these different aspects into various sub-headings so that you can scan them all as you scroll down.
The physical symptoms I’ve included are there so that by tapping them out, you can heal the stress, trauma, fear, frustration, and other painful emotions associated with each symptom.
This alone can help the symptoms to resolve, as the fight or flight (sympathetic nervous system) response is deactivated, and the heal and repair mode of parasympathetic nervous system takes over.
Once the stress, trauma, and painful emotions associated with an individual symptom is healed, that symptom will be less likely to activate the fight or flight response, which, in turn, keeps the trauma loop running.
As with all of my tapping scripts, these statements can be used as is, or modified in any way that makes them resonate more fully with your experience. Some of them will fit for you, and some will not. Just use the ones that fit your experience and have an emotional charge.
You may notice that when you start tapping on these statements, thoughts and feelings will arise that you can then turn into new tapping statements, which will then give rise to still more thoughts and feelings, which you can use to create additional tapping statements, and so on.
I call this following the thread, and it’s a very efficient way to heal and release a lot of painful feelings in a short amount of time.
Before you start tapping on a statement, give it a number between 0 and 10 which indicates the level of fear, stress, or concern that the statement brings up for you. Then, do your best to tap on the statement until it is a 0, which means all of the emotional charge is gone.
There is a lot of material here! I recommend spending anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes on this, but not more than that. That means you’ll only have time to tap out a small number of the statements on this script in one session.
If you’re thorough, and tap things down to 0, you’ll likely feel MUCH better after tapping out just a few of them. You can attend to other ones at another time.
PLEASE NOTE
When doing EFT tapping on your own, if you aren't able to completely heal the issue you're working on, so that when you think about it, it no longer causes stress or emotional pain of any kind, I recommend working with a professional EFT practitioner. If you decide that this is the best course of action for you, and you’d like to work with me, click here to schedule an EFT session or free consultation. To learn about my nervous system retraining program for recovering from chronic health conditions, click here.
THE TAPPING STATEMENTS
General Long COVID Experience
Long COVID makes it hard for me to function.
Part of me is afraid that I’ll never recover from this
I wish I could function like I used to.
If I need to walk more than a few hundred feet, I need someone to push me in a wheelchair, and that’s really hard for me to accept.
I'm afraid I'll never be able to do the things I used to do.
I really miss working out, and I'm afraid I'll never be able to do it again.
I worry that me being sick for so long is hard on my partner.
I feel guilty because I know me having this illness is hard on my family.
I'm really sad for my kids because I'm not the mom I used to be.
I wish I could return to the person I was before I got COVID.
Trauma from the Acute Phase of COVID
Feeling like I was suffocating was so scary.
When my oxygen level got into the danger zone, I was really afraid that I’d end up on a ventilator
My lungs hurt so much when I was sick, and it was really scary.
During the worst part of COVID, I felt like I was going to die, and it was terrifying.
COVID is unlike any illness I’d ever had before, and the strange symptoms were scary.
At night as I lay there, struggling to breathe, I felt like all of my insides were shaking violently.
Losing my senses of taste and smell was scary.
During the worst part of my illness, I often smelled things that weren’t there, like something was burning
The pain in my lungs was almost as severe as childbirth.
COVID caused me to get dangerous blood clots, which was really scary.
Respiratory Issues
I’ve been struggling to breathe for months now, and I’m afraid it will never get better.
I don’t understand why I’m still struggling to breathe after the infection and damage it caused has healed.
It’s hard to go through each day feeling like I’m breathing through a straw.
I often feel like I’m suffocating, and it’s really scary.
My lungs feel really heavy and tight.
It’s really hard to breathe when my lungs feel like so heavy and tight.
Energy Issues
I’m so exhausted most of the time that I can barely function.
Because of my severe fatigue, I haven’t been able to exercise since getting COVID, and I really miss it.
I can’t walk more than a few hundred yards a day, and it makes life really hard.
I’m so weak most days that it’s hard for me to pick up my child/cat/dog.
I have to use a shower chair now, and it’s hard for me to believe that this is my life now.
It’s hard to take care of my kids when I barely have the energy to get out of bed.
I feel like I’m missing out on so much of life because I don’t have the energy to do much.
I have to sit in a chair to cook and do other kitchen things, and that's hard to accept.
Cardiovascular Issues
I have heart palpitations all the time now, and it makes me worry about my heart.
My doctor said I have myocarditis from COVID, and that scares me.
My doctor said that COVID caused me to have endocarditis, and that is really scary.
Since having COVID, I often have chest, arm, shoulder, and jaw pain, which really scares me.
It was frustrating when my heart issues didn’t show up in any tests until I finally got an MRI.
It's been four months, and my blood clotting still hasn't returned to normal.
My heart rate skyrockets for no reason now—just walking a few steps or standing up sends it through the roof.
Sometimes when I’m just lying down resting, my heart pounds like I’m working out, and that’s really scary.
Sometimes I wake up in the night because my heart feels like it’s pounding out of my chest.
Gut Issues
I’ve had diarrhea every day for months now, and I don’t know what to do to make it stop.
I feel sick to my stomach all the time now.
Sometimes I suddenly get severe abdominal pain and I don't know why.
Sleep Issues
Even though I’m tired all the time, it’s hard for me to sleep.
I can’t sleep through the night like I used to.
I lie in bed exhausted, but I can’t sleep.
Neurological Issues
When I get extra tired, I can’t walk normally.
I feel unsteady on my feet a lot, especially when I’m extra tired.
I sometimes walk strangely now, like I’m shuffling along and can’t move my legs normally.
My hand shakes like I have Parkinson’s.
It’s hard for me to think clearly.
My memory is terrible since I had COVID.
It’s hard to get work done when I feel so out of it all the time.
It's been over a year, and I still can't smell anything.
Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get my sense of smell back.
Since having COVID, I'm extremely sensitive to noise.
I wish I wasn't so sensitive to noise--it's like it doesn't just hurt my ears, it hurts my whole body.
Ever since COVID, I'm extremely sensitive to smell, which is hard for me and hard for my loved ones.
Menstrual Issues
Since COVID I get a lot of really big blood clots, which worries me.
My cycle isn't regular anymore.
Sometimes I won't have a period for three months, and then I'll have two in one month.
My periods are really long and painful now.
When I got COVID, I was three years post-menopausal, and after COVID I started getting periods again.
Medical System Stress and Trauma
My doctors don’t understand long COVID, so they don’t really know how to help me.
I wish my doctors could help me treat the root cause of my symptoms, instead of just temporary relief from my symptoms like my inhaler.
It’s scary to have an illness which is so new and no one really understands.
I wish my doctors could help me with this debilitating weakness and fatigue.
Once the visible damage in my lungs was healed and I was still struggling to breathe, my pulmonologist didn't know what was wrong.
My doctors don't understand why I started getting periods again after I had COVID, years after menopause.
NEXT STEPS
When working with this tapping script, if you aren't able to completely heal the various aspects of your long COVID experience, so that when you think about it, it no longer causes any fear, anxiety, stress, or any painful emotion, I recommend working with a professional EFT practitioner. If you decide that this is the best course of action for you, and you'd like to work with me, click here to learn more and schedule an EFT session or free consultation.
By Heather Ambler
Heather Ambler is an EFT practitioner and mindset coach in California. Through her private practice and online programs, she’s helped many thousands of people all over the world heal the pain of losing a loved one, recover from trauma, release fears, erase limiting beliefs, increase confidence, and achieve goals. If you could use some help with any of these things, click here to learn more and schedule an EFT session or free consultation.
