After over 10 years of incorporating EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) into my practice, I’m pretty accustomed to miracles. Raging chocolate cravings disappearing forever in one session; rape trauma resolving in an hour or so, when months of conventional talk therapy had failed to help; crippling low self-esteem healing in weeks – these are normal occurrences in my working day.
But this case totally blew my mind. A 12 year old girl, whom I’ll call Emily, was brought to me by her mother, to see if I could help with an excruciating, unexplained pain she was experiencing in her left arm. X-rays, ultrasounds, blood tests and the orthopaedic surgeon they had consulted, had failed to establish the cause of this pain.
With nothing to lose, I decided to teach Emily EFT and apply it to her pain.
As we went though the opening formalities, Emily sat nursing her left arm, wary of making any movement that could cause her pain. She could not raise her arm above 45 degrees in front of her, or to the side, without triggering searing agony in her left arm. This girl was really suffering!
It turned out that she had experienced two traumatic events in recent months: her beloved grandmother had died, and she had been bullied and excluded at her new school.
We began doing EFT on the loss of her grandmother. There were several aspects that were deeply distressing to Emily, especially the fact that she had arrived at the hospital after her grandmother had passed away; and the memory of seeing her dead body, and the looks on the faces of the relatives huddled around her, as she entered the hospital room.
We worked intensively on Emily’s memories of every sight, sound and feeling associated with these traumatic events. Then I asked Emily how her arm was feeling. Her eyes widened in surprised as she reported that the pain had dropped from 9/10 to around 4/10.
I asked her to raise her arm out in front of her, and she found, to her astonishment (and that of her mother, who was sitting beside her) that she could raise her arm well above 90 degrees without pain.
The following session, Emily reported that the pain was almost entirely gone, and her range of movement was practically normal. She had been doing EFT at home, working on issues at school that were bothering her.
This time we worked on the memory of being excluded in her first year of high school, by a group of girls whom she had counted as friends. We tapped on her feeling of being lost, confusion at not knowing what she had done to deserve it, and feeling powerless to fight it (unarmed, perhaps?).
By the end of that session Emily’s pain was completely gone and she could fully raise her arm in front and to the side without pain or restriction.
Next time I saw her, Emily reported that the only time her arm hurt now was when she felt stressed – and now she knew how to tap the pain away! She had been working on her feelings toward her stepfather and her mother reported noticeable improvements in their relationship.
Sceptics might dismiss Emily’s outstanding results as merely the placebo effect. If so, give me the placebo effect any day, over toxic pain medications and anti-inflammatories! Emily not only conquered her arm pain, but now knows how to resolve any emotional pain that crops up in her life. What a precious gift to be given at such a young age.
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