Agnes contacted me to complain because a link on my website was not working. Who knew that email would carry a solution to her digestion problems!

Managing my website by myself sometimes leads to a few imperfections. Some people are generous enough to indicate them to me, so I can sort it out, to the benefit of the next readers. That's exactly what Agnès did. She was looking forward to tapping on my free tapping script "life is so great"; unfortunately, it linked to the Slugs Phobia script! So she "complained", rightly so! As I noticed in her contact form that she'd found my website because she was searching about EFT and digestion, I directed her towards my free script on that topic. That's where it begins to be interesting.
She quickly answered "The script about digestion? Brilliant! Within 30 minutes of tapping, my constipation problem was solved... and I'm hungry!!! Too bad I have to wait for lunch! :P"
That was enough to get me curious, so I asked Agnès if she'd be willing to say a bit more. Her detailed and honest answer could probably help some of you, and I am grateful to Agnès for sharing this here. I added in a few comments along the way.

Bonjour Christine,
In answer to your email, if my mail got you curious, I can say that yours took me very far back in the past.
Actually, I don't really suffer from a chronic constipation, usually I even have rather regular bowel movements; my digestion however is very, very slow, and a meal that would be a little richer than usual or an annoyance of some sort (I realised that by reading your email), is enough to feel that I cannot digest food: I put on weight, I feel bloated, constipation, I feel heavy in fact. And it looks a minor issue compared to other existing pathologies, but it is very difficult for me to experience, since I don't feel well, and physically as emotionally, I feel that all that I eat is just pilling up in my belly without ever getting out. So I just build it up and up, until I feel I'm just a "weight"! Working in shifts probably doesn't make it any easier.

We often turn a blind eye to our chronic "slight troubles", thinking it's not that bad. True enough. But these slight troubles are draining our energy on a daily basis. As Agnès is taking note here, her symptoms are aggravated by life's daily annoyances. If on the contrary each annoyance was treated as soon as possible, could these slight troubles go down all by themselves? Could some energy suddenly be available to you again to use it purposes that would be more pleasant to and/or efficient for you and your loved ones? Which "slight troubles" are life's daily annoyances feeding in you?
Fortunately, Agnès decided to take action...

I also realised a few days ago that each time I was having these troubles, I was "waiting for" something unpleasant to occur in my life, which created in me fear or any other negative feeling, hence the impossibility to eat (or very little), or even, depending on the intensity of the annoyance, the urgent need to evacuate it all in the loo. Which seemingly solved my problem. ( I tapped on this aspect.

Congratulations to Agnès for linking cause and effect. A step towards the solution?
There are as many ways to manage stress than there are human beings. There's no better or worse. What is yours? Also we could stop once we have one result (like Agnès' initial relief after her first 30 minutes of tapping) and let old habits get back in. Agnès choose to further follow the link. When you start tapping as Agnès did, go for it and let it bring you in unexpected directions. It usually leads to surprising and liberating discoveries. Persistence, persistence... Which connection could you follow?

but now, how can I digest, if "nothing helps me there"?)

Those who never ever thought "nothing works for me", please throw the first stone. All of the others might want to tap on such a widespread belief. Stay tune for a new tapping script on that topic!

I tapped for two days using "What if I could digest it all easily?"

Persistence, persistence... result ?

And that lead me to wonder what was feeling heavy in my life (my constant worry for my 19 years old daughter and the relationship it creates between the two of us), and when I felt like a weight (when I was ill, and I was very frightened, and doctors didn't know what I had), I tapped using other worksheets "Unroot a deeply rooted guilt" (that I didn't give my daughter a "conventional" family) "Life is so great", "What if I could feel love instead of worry?"
Tapping brought up that anger I had about a medical doctor. Without telling me, he had given me an anxiolytic to cure my bloated belly. I was young, it was yet another treatment, and I didn't think of looking at the leaflet, my belly was eventually un-bloated, that was the main thing!

Fortunately, most doctors now explain the proposed treatment. This being said, Agnès' experience reminds us that, as difficult as it might be, understanding the highlights of a treatment we're given, and why it was chosen, are important aspects of any healing. If you can't do this, maybe a loved one can help you on this? You don't dare asking for explanations? What about tapping the associated feelings out?

Except that after the treatment was finished, in ended up with withdrawal symptoms; of course there had been no proper withdrawal approach. I can still see myself sitting on the toilets (definitely the theme....) crying without knowing why, and my daughter, very young, who thought that this was due to her not getting ready fast enough, and was telling me "I'm doing as fast as I can, mummy". I remember that same day, after I dropped her to sports, crying again, alone in the car, and ringing my mother because I didn't know what was happening to me.... And I remember too, the days that followed, the shaking, this sick feeling in my belly, as I would gulp a frankfurter sausage or a banana for breakfast because nothing else would do.
For 2 days, my belly deflated, I lost weight and I could "evacuate", but it was only partial, and today again, status quo, I'm stuck again.

Again, persistence, persistence... The "evacuation" topic (on an emotional and physical level) comes back quite often. It is usually a clue to explore. What could you let go of in your life to feel free?

So I'm continuing on "What if I could digest it all easily?" as I was doing since Friday. And this unexplained disease is coming back forcefully to my mind. A disease that remained without a name, that doctors (15 altogether) qualified as "nerves", it is so much easier... A disease that really frightened me and is still today ringing far too strongly in me. A disease that made me feel as heavy as a cannonball, a weight to my ex-husband, my parents who thought I was "neurotic", my daughter. It's only with a second disease, still nerves, said doctors. I was so ashamed of myself that I didn't dare going to them for prescriptions, for them to take me seriously.

I believe shame is nearly equal to guilt on the top of the list of destructive emotions. Shame according to whom? WHO is judging you?

For 2 years and a half, I had terrible pains in my belly (again) and in my lower back, they told me to calm down, to be "zen"... Easy, no? And I was thinking "my poor girl, how can you get yourself in such a state?"

We often are our harshest judge. What judgements do you have on yourself, your situation, your health? What if this judgment had been misguided?

One day (at last) I had a jaundice!! And then they took me seriously.. In emergency, I was operated on twice, to remove bile duct stones and remove my gall-bladder... And of course pain disappeared.
This is the first time I manage to really cry it out in 10 years... And even if that made me realise that I had so much rage in me, it feels good and now I can tell you "I'm enjoying it"

Getting free from traumas we unconsciously locked up in ourselves is not necessarily an easy step, particularly when you are choosing to do this on your own. It can be a good idea to get professional support when facing such strong memories as "is still today ringing far too strongly in me".

I am going to keep tapping in the next days and see where it leads me.
Thinking that I had to wait that slugs come to visit me on a Friday 13th, for me to really work all this out [...]. They say there is no coincidences, only appointments. I can believe that. After months of searching on internet, I never saw your website. Our appointment was for this Friday 13th.
Thank you for switching up your tapping scripts! I had never emailed for that kind of things, but I so wanted to tap on "life is so great". Here we go!
I don't know if my writings could help others, but the few emails we exchanged gave me the opportunity to to work on a problem that, unconsciously I guess, I was putting aside or didn't want to face.

Everything happens in its own time...

Keep writing your scripts, they ring true and are easily fitted to our own lives... and please, most of all, keep switching them from time to time. It can create so much good.

Well, I'm daring you to find the other mistakes on my website!

One year later

Agnès got back in touch. She's grateful that her belly is no longer bloated. However digestion is still very slow. She's about to start tapping again, after a few months without tapping because...

...I had reached saturation point, always working on myself. A little bit of a "mini care-burn-out", that made me physically sick and tired, and everything was feeling life a "ordeal". Even tapping on any simple or tiny issue. I had no courage. I moved so much through my past, (which is not that bad, though), that just thinking that a tapping round could drive me quite far felt like a hard summit to climb. I just couldn't.

This article is not really a case study, but I wanted to share it with you as it contains many learning points. It might help you...:

• - to follow your intuition when you bump "by chance" onto an unexpected memory when tapping.

  - To identify your feelings as soon as possible so you can EXPRESS them, "express" as in communicate them AND extract them from your system. It took 10 years and wandering slugs for Agnès to let go of this deep anger. How long have you been keeping deep inside some feelings you'd rather not carry around?

  - To accept that sometimes, we need to take a holiday from ourselves! NO guilt. You'll get back to it when you're ready. Unless all your problems are solved and none of life's drawbacks can undermine your invincibility? Hurray!

  - To persist and identify every small improvement you could be grateful for. Agnès might have been able to go deeper in her exploration and unroot her digestion problems in more depth, not mentioning that disease that "is still today ringing far too strongly in me" by getting help from a professional. When a trouble is bothering you to such an extent, just ask yourself that question: is it worth getting help?

  - To make sure you understand any treatment you are receiving.

  - To tell me when something is not right on my website! :-)

As you are reading Agnès' story, what thoughts does it bring you about your own situation? What recurrent trouble would you like to let go of? What if it was possible?