For many years I had a massage therapy practice, and I still see a few of my old clients time to time.“Diane” has been coming to me for almost nine years, ever since she injured her neck in the workplace. Every month or two her neck and shoulders would get so tight that she'd end up with a migraine headache. When the pain would get too bad, I'd do my bodywork and she'd feel better for awhile.
A few days ago Diane came in for yet another massage. Her neck was so stiff she couldn't turn her head side to side—she had to move her torso. She said her pain was a 9 out of 10. I really had no idea whether it would work or not, but I decided to try EFT before doing any bodywork. I felt all fired up from studying for my certification, and ready to tackle anything.
I had Diane tap on the karate chop point and say “Even though I have this neck ache....” and then we went through the basic recipe, 9 gamut and all. She went from a 9 down to a 6 or 7 right away. From there I had her say: “Even though I still have some of this neck pain....” and as we tapped “This remaining neck pain”.
The pain dropped down to a 4 or 5, then after another round down to 3. At this point I decided to ask if she thought there was an emotional contributor to the pain. “Oh yes” she said, “anger!”. So we did a round or two on anger:
“Even though this pain has kept me from living the life I wanted to live.”
“Even though I'm angry at my workplace for not protecting me.”
“Even though I'm totally sick of this pain and angry it won't get better”.
After that a few more rounds brought it down to zero. Diane was amazed! She was moving her head from side to side and swinging it all around—no more pain. I had been watching the clock and in just ten minutes we'd accomplished far more than 75 minutes of intensive massage therapy.
I told her that I didn't know if we'd solved the problem forever, but if it came back then she'd be able to tap on the pain as soon as it was noticeable, and before it got very bad. She loved the idea of being in control of the situation, after so many years of feeling victimized by the injury.
We won't really know for a month or two if the EFT caused a permanent resolution of Diane's neck issue, but my guess is that I just lost my last massage client. And that's fine by me. Getting results like this is tremendously satisfying!
