Why is it so hard to change when we know exactly what we want? We may want more peace, better relationships, or financial freedom. However, we often find ourselves repeating the same patterns, sabotaging our goals despite our best intentions. The truth is, most of our behavior isn’t logical, it’s unconscious—shaped by old programming and emotional residue that keeps us stuck in fear, overwhelm, and self-doubt. In the chaos of daily life, few of us are ever taught how to release what no longer serves us or how to engage in true emotional healing.

In this episode of The Jamali Life Show, host Eram Saeed welcomes international EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) expert Brad Yates for a powerful conversation about self-sabotage, energy healing, and emotional freedom. Drawing from decades of experience and over 53 million YouTube views, Brad explains how tapping works on the body’s energy system to reduce stress, unlock clarity, and break through subconscious resistance. Together, they explore why we often act against our own best interests and how we can lovingly rewire our beliefs to move toward the life we desire.

Walk away with practical techniques, eye-opening insights, and real-world stories. Understand how tapping has transformed lives in moments of deep trauma, self-doubt, and fear. This episode offers a path to reclaim your peace. 

What Is EFT and Why Does It Work for Emotional Healing?

Brad offered an accessible explanation of Emotional Freedom Technique—commonly known as tapping—and its roots in acupuncture and energy medicine. Instead of needles, EFT uses fingertip tapping on specific meridian points to stimulate energy flow and calm the nervous system. Brad explained how tapping regulates stress by sending calming signals to the brain, especially when we're triggered or overwhelmed.

Eram herself has personally experienced the benefits of EFT. Tapping helped her through devastating life events like divorce and bankruptcy, offering emotional healing when logic and willpower failed.

Self-Sabotage: Misguided Self-Love

As the conversation deepened, Brad introduced one of the episode's most powerful reframes: self-sabotage isn’t weakness—it’s often “misguided self-love.” When our subconscious mind, shaped by early family dynamics and cultural conditioning, tells us that success or joy isn’t safe, we unconsciously act against our goals.

There are many different ways it can manifest. For example:

• Overeating
• Avoiding a call
• Sabotaging a relationship

We do these things to soothe our fear, not because we’re lazy or broken. This insight resonated deeply with Eram, especially in the context of her work with South Asian and Muslim women, many of whom struggle with internalized beliefs of unworthiness.

Healing from Within: Rewriting the Subconscious Story

The subconscious—often programmed in childhood—runs our adult lives until we become aware of it. Brad emphasized that many of our blocks are rooted in early misunderstandings or cultural messages, like “girls are less valuable” or “money is evil.”

These become identity scripts we replay endlessly, even when they no longer serve us. Tapping becomes a tool not just for clarity, but for deep emotional healing, helping us break the cycle and choose new, empowering beliefs.

Tapping for Energy Hygiene

Daily tapping can help. It’s not just for crisis moments, but as a form of “energy hygiene,” like brushing your teeth. Eram, for example, uses her “Tap of the Morning” as a foundational ritual to maintain clarity, focus, and emotional resilience. Brad likened tapping to a vitamin—sometimes the results are immediate, like pain relief, and other times they’re cumulative, working in the background to strengthen emotional immunity.

Real-Life Proof: Tapping in Crisis

One of the episode’s most touching moments came when Eram recounted a midnight emergency where she used tapping to help a domestic violence survivor de-escalate from a full-blown panic attack. In less than 10 minutes, the woman was calm, aware, and felt safe. Brad mirrored that experience with his own story of helping a woman on the London Eye overcome a fear-induced panic. Both stories illustrated that tapping isn’t just theory—it’s a life-saving, real-world tool that works even in high-stress, unpredictable moments.

Emotional Triggers, Forgiveness, and Choosing Peace

EFT can also be powerful in the context of relationships, emotional healing, and the pursuit of peace. One listener asked if tapping could help her stay sane in a difficult marriage. Brad gently offered insight: while tapping won’t change the other person, it can help you respond from a place of peace rather than pain. Eram added her own example—reuniting briefly with someone from her past and realizing how much healing she had done by choosing forgiveness over bitterness. The path to emotional freedom isn’t about denying pain, but about reclaiming agency over the meaning we gave it.

Live Demonstration: Overcoming Overwhelm Through Tapping

To give the audience a direct experience, Brad led a live tapping session with viewer Corinne, who was feeling overwhelmed by an upcoming massage course. As Brad guided her through tapping on her fear of failure, doubt about her capability, and anxiety around expectations, the shift was palpable. Not only did her stress reduce from a 7 to a 5, but many audience members also reported feeling calmer just by tapping along—demonstrating the “borrowing benefits” phenomenon where healing ripples out from one person to many.

A Tool for Everyday Breakthroughs in Emotional Healing

Eram and Brad emphasized that tapping is not a one-time miracle, but a daily tool for emotional mastery. Whether facing performance anxiety, limiting beliefs about money, or subconscious resistance to joy, tapping can help us identify the inner “electric fences” and release the charge that keeps us stuck. It’s also a consistent path to emotional healing, rewiring the nervous system to support clarity, calm, and confidence.

Introducing “Tap Into Your Best Life”

As the episode wrapped up, Eram introduced Brad’s 12-week self-guided program: “Tap Into Your Best Life.” Designed to help individuals clear inner blocks across all major life areas—money, relationships, health, purpose—the course includes weekly guided tapping rounds and supplemental exercises for deep transformation. Brad emphasized that this isn’t about perfection, but about ongoing progress. The more we tap, the more we clear, and the more we open ourselves to the life we truly desire.

Final Reflections: From Pain to Power

Closing with heartfelt reflections, Eram and Brad reminded listeners that we all carry pain—but we don’t have to be defined by it. Whether it’s inherited trauma, cultural conditioning, or personal heartbreak, healing begins with the willingness to feel, release, and rewrite our inner story. Tapping may seem simple, but in its simplicity lies profound power. With consistency and compassion, it becomes a tool for long-term emotional healing, resilience, and transformation.

Brad Yates’ Journey

Before he became one of the world’s most recognizable voices in the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) movement, Brad Yates was on a search—first for healing, then for purpose. Like many who walk the path of transformation, his entry into the world of tapping wasn’t born from ease, but from curiosity, challenge, and the desire to help people truly feel free.

Originally trained as an actor, Brad found himself drawn to deeper questions about why people suffer, sabotage themselves, or stay stuck in patterns that don’t serve them. His journey took a pivotal turn when he encountered EFT, a method that seemed almost too simple to be effective—but one that delivered profound results. As he began experimenting with tapping on himself and clients, he quickly realized its potential to unlock emotional relief and clear subconscious blocks with astonishing speed.

What began as quiet experimentation soon became a global mission. Brad’s warm humor, intuitive insight, and gift for language made him a natural teacher, and his YouTube videos, now exceeding 50 million views, became daily lifelines for people struggling with stress, grief, anxiety, or self-doubt. From working with domestic violence survivors to guiding entrepreneurs through financial fears, Brad’s reach expanded across every walk of life. Today, he’s not just a practitioner—he’s a guide for anyone ready to return to peace, rewrite their inner story, and tap into a life they love.

Expert Advice & Powerful Quotes

“Self-sabotage is simply misguided self-love. Logically, it doesn’t look like a self-loving act, but in that moment, we’re feeling upset about something, and we’re thinking, ‘The box of cookies is all that’s going to save me.’”

“If our parents had terrible health habits or terrible money habits or terrible relationship habits, that’s what we learned. Just like we learned how to walk and talk from them—we learned all of their behaviors, for better and for worse.”

“We are geniuses based on misinformation. With the belief that, ‘I can never be in a happy relationship,’ we think, ‘I should minimize the pain as much as possible,’ so we sabotage it. It's a misguided brilliance.”

“The extent to which we are not experiencing what we say we want tends to be the extent to which we are resisting it.”

“Michelangelo said the statues are there inside the marble perfectly. All I have to do is chip away what doesn't belong to reveal the masterpiece that's inside. And to me, that is the perfect metaphor for what we're doing with tapping.”

Step Toward Self-Awareness and Transformation

This episode of the Jamali Life Show is an invitation to reconnect with the parts of ourselves we’ve neglected, silenced, or misunderstood. We uncover a new framework for healing: one rooted in self-awareness, energetic hygiene, and the courage to rewrite the stories we’ve long believed. It’s also a gentle yet powerful guide to emotional healing, reminding us that inner peace begins with presence and permission.

1. Listen to the Full Episode – Brad explains how stress can hijack your thinking and how self-sabotage is often a form of protection, not failure. Eram shares vulnerable moments from her own healing journey. Together, they offer practical tools for calm, clarity, and emotional release.
2. Reflect on What You’re Resisting – Brad’s words hit home: “The extent to which we don’t have what we say we want tends to be the extent to which we are resisting it.” Let that sink in. Ask yourself—what am I unknowingly pushing away? Is it love? Peace? Success? Be honest, but gentle. Even tapping on one small discomfort can begin to shift everything.
3. Join the Community of Conscious Healing – Visit Jamali.love to explore more episodes that combine faith, healing, and deep transformation. From live sessions to powerful stories, this space is here to support you. You can also check out Brad’s 12-week self-guided program if you’re ready to go deeper into your emotional healing journey.

You don’t have to do it all at once. You just have to begin. Tap through the resistance. Make space for peace. And trust—your healing is already in motion.