Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: World Tapping Summit

  • DO What YOU Can

    “I don’t know what your destiny will be,
    but one thing I do know:
    The ones among you who will be really happy
    are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
    ~ Albert Schweitzer

    Tapping with Scarlett Lewis of The Forgiveness Project during the World Tapping Summit, my heart opened deeply related to a stream of past energies. Scarlett’s 6-year-old son, Jesse, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the deadliest mass shooting at a school in U.S. history.

    Interestingly, soon after tapping in forgiveness with Scarlett I was gifted some precious stories demonstrating what happens when you do what YOU can do.

      Leaving work late, “K” had to use the maintenance door at the back of the building. The cement stairwell was packed with snow but there sat a fat toad! As she picked the toad up, he was very cold but his eyes fluttered open briefly.

      That toad rode home in her passenger seat. She “turned the heat off and the music down.” He was safely placed in her monarch cage before she searched how to care for toads in captivity. Following instructions, she added a pan of sand and a bowl of water. The next morning he had dug down in the sand and covered himself with leaves. “K” put him in a dark cool part of house and he remains in hibernation. If he wakes, she will feed him. She hopes to keep him until spring and release him.

    “K” did what she could do. She truly is a shaman. I sent her the toad totem meaning: Toads have always been ascribed supernatural powers and they are believed to have a special connection with invisible dark forces we people cannot understand.

      “BJ” is a CNA working in hospice care. Covid-19 has certainly had an impact on patients and those who care for them. Standing at the bedside (gowned, masked, and gloved), a dying patient looked into her eyes and said, “Can I please hold your hands?” She felt like she was being touched by an angel for those short moments the patient held her hands before thanking her, and afterwards found a quiet place to reflect.



    “BJ” just does what she can do. Every day she is present with patients, family members, co-workers and HERSELF, providing support and a safe space.

      “A” also does what she can do. “A” just turned one-year-old.

      Born at the beginning of the pandemic, she has spent her life without many of the things we had believed we needed to be happy.

      But, at just 12 months old, “A” can wave and say bye-bye.

      Her mother sent a video of her waving and saying bye-bye over and over! It was soooooo cute.

      And then her mother asked if she wanted to say be happy. “A” smiled her biggest world-winning smile right into the camera and said clearly, “BE HAPPY!”

    You can only imagine what gifts “A” will bring the world as she continues to grow…

    We are not expected to do it all.

    We are not expected to do it right.

    We are invited to seek and find ways to serve and to be happy.

    The surest way to do that is to just DO What YOU Can….

  • Tapping into Gratitude

    My grandson, Brad, and his wife, Christina, spent five wonderFULL days with us on Pine Island. Brad had been working for Charter Media in Murfreesboro (Tennessee) since earning his Master’s Degree three years ago. Recently, though, he declined a large promotion with Charter that would have meant their move to North Carolina. It was not the move itself that was a deciding factor, it was the corporate lifestyle that demands you live to work rather than work to live.

    They called their visit “Retirement Training.” He decided the reason they call it retirement is that first you are tired because you are working so hard, then you are retired because you are playing so hard.

    They rode bikes, went kayaking with dolphins, watched manatee in the canal, took a pleasure boat ride to lunch at Fort Myers beach, grilled fresh shrimp, participated in music on the island, played shuffleboard, and went to dinner at early-bird schedules. In the early morning, and late in the evening, Brad would work remote as a consultant in data management. It was way beyond great.

    After they left, I participated in a World Tapping Summit talk on gratitude with Carol Look. I loved her words, “Expressing gratitude is like planting seeds; many good things will come from it.” She stressed the importance one not do it because you will get something. Do it because it feels good.

    But what about those times when it is difficult to catch a whiff of gratitude? The darkest of the dark days? Especially then, it is important to start where you are and cast a net of well-being with the WHAT IF frame: “Even though thus and so, what if there could be a solution I don’t yet know about.”

    I also appreciated learning the importance of tapping thank you to the universe or god or whomever/whatever you conceive: “Thank you for brining me a solution to thus and so.”

    Finally, Carol says you will benefit by moving through the points just expressing anything and everything you are grateful for. “Nature, family, friends, sunshine, dolphins, manatees, health, freedom, kindness, flowers, trees, birds, bicycles.”

    Today, I am tapping thank you for Brad and Christina having been able to visit, and for the wisdom they have at 27 years-old to avoid clamping on golden handcuffs.

    (If you are new to it, here is a short instructional video and introduction to EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), commonly called just “tapping” with Jessica Ortner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAclBdj20ZU)

  • Catching Rays

    Have you ever seen any of those 3D “magic eye” images? You have to hold the image close to your nose, look through it so it is blurry, and maintain your gaze as you slowly move the image away from you. As your eyes relax, your focus changes, and you can see amazingly beautiful things. This image contains two giraffes.

    Just like those hidden images, you have undoubtedly been able to see the way an unusual event will bring something else into view. Like seeing not one, not two, but three gopher tortoises one day during a bike ride. Or catching not one, not two, but three stingrays one day fishing off the dock.

    The odd thing about catching the rays while fishing off the dock is that the people right next door who have fished from the dock for years have never ever caught one stingray here. Let alone three in one day.

    So, I looked up the symbolism of stingray.

    Stingrays represent your emotions and how you may be hiding them from others. If it’s calm, stingray suggests maneuvering a challenge in your life with ease and grace. If the ray is aggressive; it means you may be reacting to your emotions, rather than using careful deliberation in your approach, which could be costly.

    Oh, my goodness. The first and largest of the three rays fought very hard. For the longest time. Taking the line way out. Darting away from the dock. Digging down in the mud. This first and largest one was about the size of a garbage can lid. In case you are wondering, the ray was able to be safely released.

    The guy who managed to wrestle with and land that big old ray on an ultralight rod and reel currently has two younger brothers navigating cancer treatment. One of his brothers was having his right kidney removed at that time! Another of his brothers has been dealing with the side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy treatment for lung cancer. His platelet count was too low for him to receive chemo at that time! While the fisherman has been snow-birding in Florida this winter, he has begun saying he is bored with being here and thinks he might go home early.

    Stingrays may be telling you to not overreact to your emotions, to calm down and wait before reacting. Stingrays maneuver themselves quite well despite their size and shape and they tell us to also carefully maneuver the complex emotional waters of our inner world.

    This week, I am participating in the World Tapping Summit. I especially enjoyed the interview with Dr. Paul Sheele, “Feeling Abundant: Attract More Wealth and Prosperity Into Your Life!”. Sheele made the distinction between abundance and prosperity. The universe is abundant. Prosperity is the degree to which we are aware of and participating in the true state of the universe.

    I am thinking about all of this in relationship to catching the rays, and those magic eye photos. I am going to think about it this way: well-being (like abundance) is there even while going through all those challenges, hidden right there just out of view.