Dear EFT Community,
Although finding the root cause of a problem often leads to rapid relief with EFT, sometimes persistence in tapping on the symptoms and emotions about the symptoms themselves is the key. Following this approach, Summer Joy was able to eliminate episodes of excruciating pain in her jaw, teeth, and face, which was diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia–cause unknown.
– EFT Universe
By Summer Joy
Here is an account of my success with EFT despite never actually finding a core issue. Persistence seemed to be the key that eventually brought an end to my pain.
Last spring I suddenly had an attack of terrible pain in my left jaw, affecting my teeth roots and the whole left side of my face. I am a fairly stoic person, but the pain was truly excruciating. I quickly discovered that ordinary pain killers had no effect whatsoever, nor did high-strength painkillers even begin to touch this pain. It quickly developed a pattern of coming in waves of terrible intensity, numerous times, every day and night, lasting for an hour or more per episode. Within a few days, I went to see my doctor, who informed me I had trigeminal neuralgia, that the cause of it is unknown, and that there is no treatment for it, other than invasive nerve or brain surgery or long-term use of an epilepsy drug with side effects (I don’t even have epilepsy). He mentioned that this is said to be one of the worst pains known to humans (and I readily admitted I’d rather go through labor than endure this pain!).
Now that the pain had a name, I immediately found on the Internet everything I could about the condition, all of which supported the same opinion and offered no treatment. I continued to suffer, eating always brought on an attack so I hardly bothered to eat, and my sleep was constantly disturbed with pain. In August, the holiday I’d been so looking forward to was punctuated every day by numerous terrible bouts of this facial pain. Three months passed with this daily pain ruining my life, and I was feeling absolutely desperate. Then I came upon a mention on the Internet about an acupressure point to stop the pain, but of course the location of this point was not given, nor could I find any information about it.
However, this gave me the idea of asking an acupuncturist I selected from the phone book. She was unable to tell me the specific pressure point but she mentioned a technique called EFT and told me to look it up on the Internet. Within minutes I had your site up, and was flooded with relief to discover that there might actually be some way I could help myself. I am the sort of person who considers my health to be my own responsibility, always trying to find out as much information as I can about a health problem and what I can do for myself, not relying on others to “fix” my health problems. So I found the idea of EFT fit in very well with my philosophy and was eager to try it. And incredibly, I discovered that the manual was generously offered as a free download!
I spent a lot of time over the next few days studying the manual, scouring the website, and perfecting my use of the tapping technique. Using the Basic Recipe, as per the manual, I tapped many times a day for the TN pain, and managed to short-circuit quite a few episodes. However, it always returned. I pondered long and hard on any emotional causes, what was happening at the time of onset, core issues, etc., and tapped on anything and everything that came up, although nothing of any intensity did.
Then it occurred to me that I should tap on my fear of the pain, as believe me, I did have a lot of fear of impending attacks, the pain I would then have to endure, and the fact that there was nothing I could do to prevent attacks. This fear was often at level 9 or 10. So I tapped persistently on the fear for a few days. No one-minute wonders for me, or even one-day wonders, or one-week wonders. But I just kept reminding myself of what I’d read on the site, that persistence with EFT sometimes will eventually bring results.
And then the attacks suddenly stopped! One day I woke up and just somehow knew the pain was gone forever. And indeed, to my unspeakable relief, this has proved to be the case, as that was several months ago. All in all, I spent about 10 days of tapping many times a day. I never came up with an emotional issue for the origin of the pain, but I read on the site that it is sometimes not necessary to actually find the origin or core issue. And in the end, persistence did pay off, so my advice to anyone not achieving immediate success is BE PERSISTENT!
I cannot express enough gratitude to the people who are exploring and, most important, sharing this wonderful tool, and for the generosity of their gift. I only wish I had been able to discover it much sooner. I am heartened to read accounts in the newsletters of a few enlightened conventional doctors who are taking EFT on board. However, mine certainly didn’t mention it, and when I told him of my success, he laughed and said, “I might have known you’d be doing something weird!” So, unfortunately, I don’t guess he’ll be recommending EFT to any of his other TN patients. I believe most of the conventional medical profession remain closed to such ideas about healing, even if their patients do get results. Since I learned about EFT, I have shared it with my husband and several friends, told a physiotherapist about it, and I’ve turned a friend who is a holistic vet on to the technique. I am using it on my dog with a stubborn skin condition. It is wonderful to know that I have a tool that I can use to help myself, and to help others, including my grandchildren and pets, with physical and emotional issues.
Over the years, I have worked a lot in my personal life with visualization, affirmations, and gratitude, and one of the first things that occurred to me with EFT is that I should tap for gratitude at the end of my tapping sessions, including my gratitude for EFT and having discovered it. I enjoy reading the articles in the newsletters, and I really love the philosophy of tapping for everything–why not try? No, despite the article in the newsletter, EFT did not fix my car’s mechanical problem, and I really did feel silly out there tapping on the bonnet, mirrors, door handles, and around the headlamps. And no, I also haven’t won the lottery (yet). But I am using it as one of several tools to help line up energy for us to find our perfect new home when we move back to Canada from the UK in a few month’s time. Nothing to lose giving it a try, so I work on that every day.
All the very best to everyone involved in the gift of EFT.
