The woman behind BodyTap Method
Annette Burke
In 2013 I was sitting at a table surrounded by glass trophies. That year I had won every award going. Our Photography studio was financially flying. We were busier than we had ever been. By every external measure, I was at the peak of my career.
I was also twenty seven stone and my physical body was getting it tough. Something was not in balance.
Where the journey started
By the time I was an adult, I wasn’t just eating chocolate for pleasure. I needed it. It was the way my nervous system calmed down and felt safe, but it was out of control.
I went to a psychotherapist for professional help and it was there that I was first introduced to EFT Tapping.
I was sceptical. I was a scientist and had spent years in chemical research and development before moving into photography. I was looking for the evidence and was told to just try it as it was a very experiential tool.
What happened next changed the direction of my life.
The moment everything shift
When I began tapping on the cravings, specifically on the chocolate, I tapped into the urges and what was underneath them. I immediately started to see binges calm. I still ate a little bit of chocolate, but the cravings calmed very quickly.
It was not a willpower change, it felt like the compulsion simply lost its charge.
The background that shaped the method
My path to founding The BodyTap Method wasn’t a straight line - but looking back, every turn was necessary.
I started my career in chemical research and development. Science was my first language - data, evidence, measurable outcomes. Then I followed a different pull and a deep passion and became a professional photographer. Over the years that followed, our studio became one of the most awarded in Northern Ireland. I understood creativity, story, the way an image can hold an entire truth in a single frame.
Throughout all of it, I was studying. For over ten years I trained with the Mindlink Foundation, exploring meditation, metaphysics, neurobiology, and the science of consciousness. I was trying to understand the same thing from every direction - Do we have a choice of living a life of suffering or joy and do we have the control to change it?
EFT Tapping was the answer I had been looking for.
I trained deeply. I qualified. I began working with clients - and what I witnessed in those sessions confirmed everything the research had been telling me. People were releasing things in a single session that years of talking hadn’t touched.
In 2016, BodyTap was born. Named for exactly what it does - tapping the body into the life you actually want to live, by clearing the fears, the beliefs, the old stories and inherited patterns and paradigms that have been quietly running the show.
In 2019, I delivered a TED talk at Stormont. I stood on that stage and talked about chocolate, about shame, about awards, boudoir photography and about what it actually takes to change. I even shared one of my poems at the end of the talk.
The reason I went deeper
There is another reason I committed to this work as completely as I did.
My nephew Adam was diagnosed by the age of three with Asperger’s, ADHD, and ADD. Watching him navigate a world that wasn’t built for his nervous system was my drive to go deeper.
The generation after mine is filled with neurodiverse children. All on the spectrum in different ways. and I kept seeing the same thread running through - inherited nervous system patterns, passed down through the family line, expressing themselves differently in each generation but coming from the same root.
This is when Family Constellation entered my practice because EFT could release what was present in the body now - but Family Constellations could go where it had originally come from.
Today I work with a significant number of people with ADHD, and with families navigating neurodiversity. The tapping works extraordinarily well for the nervous system dysregulation that sits at the heart of so much of it. And for many of them understanding that what they’re carrying has a longer history than their own lifetime is the thing that finally takes the weight of the shame away.
What BodyTap Method is now
BodyTap Method is the integration of everything I have learned, experienced, and witnessed across a decade of practice.
It is EFT Tapping and Family Constellation working together - the science of the nervous system and the wisdom of the family system, combined into something that goes further than either can go alone.
It is for individuals who are ready to stop managing their lives and start living them. For organisations carrying histories they can’t quite name. For the woman who has tried everything and is still stuck. For the leader who performs brilliantly on the outside and is exhausted on the inside.
It is built on evidence, shaped by experience, and grounded in a story that is very real.
Based in Belfast. Working internationally.
And only getting started.
Want to work with Annette? Visit our bookings page or contact Annette directly at hello@bodytap.co.uk