Emotional Release · “Die to Be Reborn”
BSFF Original Tapping Protocol
To discharge the emotional charge attached to a specific upsetting thought, memory, or feeling by rating its intensity, then tapping a fixed set of acupoints while stating that you are eliminating the sadness, fear, anger, and trauma ‘in all the roots and the deepest cause’ of the problem.
Original BSFF tapping in 5 lines: Pick one specific upsetting issue and rate it 0–10. Tap each point firmly while declaring you’re eliminating that emotion “in all the roots and the deepest cause”: eyebrow (sadness), under-eye (fears), little-finger nail (anger), eyebrow again (emotional trauma). Re-rate; repeat on whatever’s left, then a forgiveness/closing step. Relief comes from attention, exposure, breathing, and expectancy — not “energy”; never a substitute for care.
What it is
Before Larry Nims collapsed his method into a single cue word (the version covered in ), Be Set Free Fast was a tapping protocol in the Thought Field Therapy family.
You tune into a specific upsetting issue, rate how strongly it bothers you, then tap a short fixed sequence of acupoints — eyebrow, under the eye, and two fingernail points — while declaring, at each point, that you are eliminating a particular emotion (“all the sadness… all the fears… all the anger… all the emotional trauma”) “in all the roots and the deepest cause of this problem.” You then re-rate and repeat until the charge drops.
This is the physical ancestor of the cue-word method and is distinct from it: here the tapping and the per-point emotional statements are the whole technique.
The Method
Reconstructed faithfully from BSFF basic-treatment materials. Nims later abandoned the points, but the original sequence ran like this:
- Identify the problem. With your conscious mind, pick one specific issue — an upsetting memory, a fear, a recurring feeling, a self-limiting reaction. Keep it concrete and singular.
- Rate it (SUD). Notice and rate the Subjective Units of Distress — how strongly it bothers you right now — on a 0–10 scale (or mild / medium / strong). This is your before-baseline.
- Tap the fixed point sequence, one emotion per point. Tap each point firmly several times while saying or thinking the matching statement. The documented version pairs the four points with four emotion-families: - Eyebrow point (inner end of the eyebrow): “I’m eliminating all of the sadness in all of the roots and the deepest cause of all of this problem.” - Under the eye (on the bone beneath the pupil): “I’m eliminating all of the fears in all of the roots and the deepest cause of all of this problem.” - Little-finger point (corner of the nail of the little finger, thumb side): “I’m eliminating all of the anger in all of the roots and the deepest cause of all of this problem.” - Eyebrow point again: “I’m eliminating all of the emotional trauma in all of the roots and the deepest cause of all of this problem.” (Nims numbered points in his materials; the index-fingernail point is also used, especially in the forgiveness add-on.)
- Re-rate. Check the SUD again. It should have dropped.
- Repeat on what remains. If a charge is still present, run the sequence again, optionally targeting the specific remaining emotion (e.g. “all the anger that’s left”). Continue until it tests/feels clear (0, or “nothing left”).
- Address “roots” and underlying beliefs. Nims framed each problem as having emotional roots and a “deepest cause”; the statements deliberately aim the tapping at those layers, not just the surface feeling.
- Close. Finish with the forgiveness step (see cross-link) and a sense of completion. (Faithful paraphrase of BSFF’s documented original sequence — points, emotion-pairings, and the “in all the roots and the deepest cause” phrasing are Nims’s; not a reproduction of his copyrighted manual.)
Source & Lineage
Dr. Larry Nims (clinical psychologist; d. 2017) trained with Roger Callahan in Thought Field Therapy and built BSFF from it in the 1990s.
The original protocol is recognisably TFT-shaped — fixed acupoints, SUD ratings, repeat-until-clear — but Nims’s signature was framing each tap as eliminating a named emotion “in all the roots and the deepest cause.” He then made his now-famous leap: noticing that he felt release the instant he decided to treat something, before tapping, he concluded the subconscious and conscious intention were doing the real work, and replaced the points with a single cue word. Siblings in this library: TFT, EFT, TAT, FasterEFT.
The Traditions' versions
TFT (Callahan) — the parent: diagnosed point algorithms + SUD + reversal correction.
- EFT (Craig) — TFT simplified to one long fixed sequence with a setup affirmation.
- BSFF cue-word — Nims’s later, tapping-free version of this protocol.
- FasterEFT / Eutaptics — tapping + reframing + gratitude.
- Focusing (Gendlin) — the legitimate cousin of the “tune in and rate the felt sense” step, without the energy claims.
Common refinements
Vague targets. “My anxiety” is too broad; pick one specific scene or trigger and one before-rating.
- Skipping the SUD re-check. The before/after rating is what makes the practice self-honest — don’t assume it worked.
- Treating the wording as magic. “Eliminating all the roots” is a suggestion, not a mechanism; engage the actual feeling rather than reciting on autopilot.
- Trusting muscle/energy-tests. They track expectation; never base real decisions on them.
- Going it alone on heavy trauma. Bring real trauma to a qualified professional, not a self-tapping routine.