Five years before, Julia had had a car crash. It wasn't a big one and she got back to work the next day. However, she kept what she described as "an annoying pain" in her shoulder.Her first EFT session got her an unexpected relief.
Four years after the accident, she eventually complained to her GP about it, and he said the only thing he could do was to prescribe some pain killing patches. She'd change them every week, and they release pain killers on a regular basis. She'd been using these for a year, at great expense.
Julia was wearing one of these and her pain was still at a 5 that day. There was no point in trying to explain anything, so I suggested we start immediately. As I was about to go with "even though I have this pain in my right shoulder, I love and accept myself", I noticed a clear reticence to saying the last part.
We tried a first go instead as :
"even though I can't say that I love and accept myself, I'm open to the possibility that one day I might be able to say it".
We only did the shortcut on this; it was worth trying, but I had a feeling we wouldn't go far at that stage. And we didn't. So I changed tactics and asked her what positive feeling she had about herself. She said she was good at her job.
So off we went, with the full basic recipe, this time:
"even though I have this annoying pain in my shoulder, I'm good at my job and I'm proud of myself".
She followed politely as I was taping along with her, explaining after the first round each point and the reasons for the eyes movements and the singing and counting. But then I asked her how her shoulder was. She hesitated a bit, her face still tense, saying "do you want a an honest answer?" in a way that made me think that there had been no progress at all ... and she eventually said "it's a 2 now"! I knew then we were on for some results. A further round on "this remaining shoulder pain" got rid of it, at least for that time. Well, actually, she never said it was a 0, she just said she felt relaxed and smiled.
Then we got onto the real issue. It turns out that a young driver had arrived behind her far too fast, and as he was reaching on the floor of his car for his mobile phone, he didn't see her. She could see him coming and pulled out of the way seconds too late to avoid the shock. She was "over it" now, but discussing it a bit further, she said she could hear the bang sometimes, and that would keep her unable to sleep, or bring on a migraine.
"even though I can still hear that BANG sometimes, and I can't sleep then, I'm a strong woman, and I choose to release the bang."
Reminder phrases progressively focussed more on the anger towards the other driver for putting this bang in her head.
When I asked her to rate her anger towards this man on a 0-10 scale, she put it at a... 20!
"even though I've got this "20 anger" against this stupid young man I'm a strong woman, and I'm proud of myself, and I might forgive him ... one day"
We only got partial progress on this, but it opened new doors:
"even though I'm so angry at myself because I saw him coming and I didn't move fast enough to avoid the accident, I'm a strong woman, and I'm proud of myself, because I pulled out early enough to still be alive today, and I'm open to the possibility that I might forgive myself one day".
That was a pretty long statement, but it was worth the effort, as I could see her relaxing even further, admitting that she might actually forgive herself a bit more readily than she would forgive him.
Julia really is a very strong woman and has been through a lot during her life. She thought she was done with that accident. However, as I asked for any other aspects she went on: "you see, I have to pass this place every single day. I'm over it now, but at the beginning, it brought me goose bumps every single time". Well, if this was coming up in the conversation, she wasn't totally over it yet, so it was worth a little attention too. Julia was very used at covering up her feeling to be able to cope with it all.
"Even though when I pass this place every day, I might have some fear and anger coming back up and I'm not aware of it, I'm a strong woman, and I choose to release that fear and that anger".
Reminder phrases included statements like :
that fear and that anger.
I don't feel them,
maybe my subconscious is hiding it from me to protect me,
and it went into my shoulder
I thank my subconscious for having protected me from this fear and this anger all these years,
now I am ready to face them,
I ask my subconscious to uncover this fear and this anger for me,
so I can deal with them,
I choose to release them,
I'm thankful that my subconscious now allows me to release this fear and this anger
There was no instant realisation of relief, but Julia definitely came in as an angry and exhausted woman, and came out of the session relaxed and more peaceful, ready to address other very difficult issues she had at this time.
On our second session, Julia wanted to discuss these other stressful issues and migraines. Her shoulder pain was still there, but lighter. We went along discussing the other issues, got some relief, and after she left, I sat down to e-mail her a little bit of homework. Only then did I realise that all along this 2nd session, we'd be using "I love and accept myself". On our 3rd session, I asked her if she had just been polite, and she answered "You know what, I actually enjoy saying it". Well, to me, that only, was a huge achievement on Julia's list.
Her shoulder pain was still at a 2, and as she put it : "it's my own fault because I'm guarding myself all the time". But this was not a priority anymore, so we decided to leave that one alone for now.
Still she could now control her pain as well as her migraines, and was even thinking about removing the patches when things would get a bit quieter in her life. EFT brought her a way to control her stress too, so she saves her energy to face her challenges instead of "wasting" it dealing with constant unbearable pain.
EFT might not solve everything for you all the time, but it will give you the choice to deal with your priorities.
6 month follow-up
The difficult times and challenges Julia was facing at the time are now happily over. Julia has been using EFT along to manage her migraines. She has now completely removed her patches, as she doesn't need them anymore. Read Julia's testimonial here.
If you have a chronic pain, could there be an emotional explanation to it too?