Like many women I was SUPER EXCITED to see The Devil Wears Prada 2. So many scenes from the first film have now become iconic, like the one where Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly character exits the lift, her eyes glinting — now shorthand for confidence and chutzpah.
In many ways it shaped the way I thought people working in fashion and magazines lived their lives — and I’ve met a couple who are not dissimilar. However, one particular scene from the sequel, where Emily Blunt’s character Emily Charlton — now a high powered Dior executive navigating a fair amount of stress — uses ‘tapping’ to help regulate herself really struck home.
What was tapping? Did it work? More accurately would it work for an often overwhelmed midlife mum like me?
I reached out to Poppy Delbridge, founder of Rapid Tapping and author of Unlock Your Power: A seven-step system to transform your mindset and create change that lasts, which explains the ways in which tapping can help all of us regulate our nervous systems and calm the heck down.
What is tapping anyway?
I’d say I’m pessimistic at times, my brain dominated by things that could go wrong. As soon as I’ve abandoned one subject to worry about, I move onto the next, much like a dog gnawing on an old bone for hours at a time (but obviously nowhere near as enjoyable). When I do some online research, tapping (also known as Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT) involves tapping on specific points of the body, mainly on the head, face and upper body, while focusing on a negative or distressing thought, memory or feeling.
Therapists will then get the person to rate the emotion on a scale of 1-10 when they start tapping. Then they are given a statement that accepts and acknowledges that feeling or thought and they continue tapping. They are asked to rate the feeling at the end of the session to see if anything has changed — and it usually has. In 2022 a review of more than 50 research studies found that EFT tapping is ‘moderately to largely effective’ in managing anxiety, phobias, depression, insomnia, pain and even athletic performance.
Poppy offers me a quick 60 second, ‘beginners tapping’ session to see if it can help me out. I am not working for Dior by the way and I clearly am not about to push my way to the front to get into Balmain’s 2026 Fall fashion show. I do, however, have two kids (one a tween who is putting me through my paces), four cats (one of whom has a very nervous disposition that impacts her bladder) and a messy, disorganised house that I work in every day. My daily routine is usually washing, writing, tidying and putting away, writing, catastrophising, writing – repeat ad infinitum.
So, here’s what happened after trying tapping a few times during an ordinary, overwhelming day.
Anniki tries tapping
Firstly Poppy instructed me to find a ‘quiet space,’ so I went into my bedroom to find a cat which had, for some unknown reason, peed on the bedspread. After removing the offending article (bedspread to the washing machine, cat to the garden) I settled onto the bed. Poppy told me to focus on how I felt ‘and your nervous system and tension in the body.’
At first I felt A LOT of tension- it had been a busy morning with a school run, a dentist appointment (I lost a tooth through grinding) and then a 1pm deadline. Poppy explained how important it was to really feel the overwhelm, stress and fear while tapping on different points of my head, face, upper body and hand: “Focus on how you feel and then when you tap, always consider the 3A’s – first acknowledge and name the feeling, then accept the logic behind it – there will be a reason, let yourself accept that, then affirm the possibility that still exists even though there is that invisible limit holding you back.”
© GC ImagesI had watched a YouTube video that showed me the key areas to tap on, and at first I found it difficult to remember where I should be tapping, but Poppy had reassured me that it didn’t matter if I got lost. The cat at this point had re-entered the room and was looking at me oddly as I said aloud, “I feel tired, grotty and overwhelmed today because I didn’t get enough sleep and there is too much to do.”
I kept tapping – top of my head, side of my head, top of my eyebrows, under my eyes, just under my nose, under my mouth repeating this phrase aloud. I need to flag that I would have definitely felt self conscious doing this in public as it looks weird, but already with the light tapping, I could feel some tension releasing. My jaw in particular was nowhere near as clenched as it had been (this is why I’ve lost a tooth too which is scary!).
Then I moved onto the next part which was to acknowledge that despite feeling pants, there was a possibility that I could feel differently. In this instance I said: “Even though I feel overwhelmed and tired, I can choose to have a great day.”
The tapping verdict
It felt a bit fake at first, like trying to put a coat of paint over a crumbling fence, but as I continued to tap … well, the funny thing was I felt calmer and also just a bit more like it was possible for me to move on to feeling more… regulated!
When I caught up with Poppy afterwards she explained more. “The idea is that our inner power is always there,” she said. “It just needs to feel safe enough to be heard. The seven steps I have in my book help weave this into a larger system, step by step, to handle stress, worries and overwhelm, coming back to aliveness, self connection and more joy.”
I practiced tapping again when I returned from the school run and a mum had revealed there was a drinks thing going on that evening that she’d obviously not meant to blurt it out, as clearly I hadn’t been invited. I sometimes fear that I am left out because I am indiscreet and tend to write about things that people tell me (though I change their identity of course!) and so this sent me into a downward spiral of being left out of the hockey team at school, and how when I was 13 a boyfriend ditched me for my best friend (but to be honest it was probably for the best as he did MC Hammer style dancing in his front room and we had very little in common).
I spiral very easily. Free wheeling from current trauma to the past and back again like a crazed ping pong ball in a retro games arcade. While my youngest was watching Peppa Pig in the front room, I said to myself, “I feel sad and left out, like nobody loves me” and then, tapping again on the different pressure points, “because I didn’t get invited to this pub thing.”
I kept tapping and the funny thing was that acknowledging these thoughts made me realise how I usually tend to just leap for my phone or grab a biscuit. The fact I was acknowledging the difficult feelings and the possibility of still feeling good despite these feelings… well, it worked. It helped the feelings pass so I could move on. “Tapping specific meridian points while naming what you’re feeling (and a few other biological pointers) sends a physical signal to your brain: false alarm. You are safe,” Poppy explained.
And when we feel safe, we tend to feel less fear and less overwhelm. So did it work? Well, yes it did. For a few moments the incontinent cat, mean ex-friends and MC Hammer dancing ex all felt more manageable. I went on to have a calmer, more relaxed day and I would definitely recommend. Perhaps I am cut out for a career in the fashion industry after all? Is anyone looking for a 52-year-old intern?
Poppy’s new book: ‘Unlock Your Power: A seven-step system to transform your mindset and create change that lasts’ is out on 21st May.
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