When people think of Emotional Freedom Technique, their first thought is releasing emotions stored in the body from traumas–war, sexual, accident,–phobias, loss of a loved one, relationship issues, etc. But not nearly as many realize that EFT can be used for chronic and acute pain, including pain that has “a physical reason.” In this
article I’ll discuss relieving both emotionally-based physical pain and just plain physical pain.

A client had back pain for twenty years, starting at a time when she was moving rocks to build a stone wall. At that time, she was in the process of breaking off an affair that was going nowhere, but she really didn’t want it to end. It came out that she had emotionally built a stone wall to hold back her feelings for this person. When these stored emotions were released twenty years later through EFT, her back pain subsided. A physical injury was relieved by releasing emotions.

We have been so conditioned in our culture to “buck up,” not show our emotions. “Big girls don’t cry,” sing the Beach Boys. Show no fear. Don’t get mad, get even. Get on with your life. Not in front of the kids. We have become so guarded that the emotions that should be guiding us are stuffed and stored within our bodies.

Candice Pert, PhD, author of The Molecules of Emotion, tells us that neurotransmitters are released simultaneously with the onset of an emotion. These neurotransmitters attach themselves to receptor sites through out the body, creating a physical response that corresponds to the emotion. Emotions that are not expressed and are stuffed, continue to have an effect on the body long after the event the person is responding to is over.

As a general rule, some emotions are stored in predictable places. Anger is stored in the liver and thyroid. Sadness is stored in the pancreas. Resentment is stored in the joints. Traumatic events such as a sexual assault can involve many emotions and can be stored in many places all over the body. These people may have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia but are really expressing their emotional pain from the traumatic event. In this case, relieving the emotional pain with EFT can have a dramatic effect on the body.

So how does EFT work on pain? For a quick review of how to do EFT, get my free ebook, The EFT Quick-Start Method. That will give you the basic instructions. In this article, we will focus on set-up phrases that can be used for pain.

A woman who had an appointment with me called to cancel. During the night she had dislocated her shoulder. A chiropractor had reset the joint, but she said she was in too much pain to have her session. I asked if she wanted try to relieve the pain before she got off the phone. (EFT can be done just as effectively over the phone as in person.) She agreed.

In this case, we just worked with the pain.

Even though I have this pain in my shoulder, I deeply and completely accept myself.

We tapped though several rounds and the pain was relieved. She decided to continue with her scheduled appointment as planned.

Often it is helpful to create a metaphor for the pain, such as, “It feels like someone stuck me with a knife,” or “It feels like a throbbing golf ball in my foot.” You then set up the tapping round like this:

Sometimes you have to find the emotion associated with the pain. Just last week, a man phoned in to my conference call and complained of neck and shoulder pain. Doctors suspected a pinched nerve and had scheduled an MRI. We tried tapping on the pain itself with little effect. Upon questioning, we found that he was under stress. Three years earlier his wife had died, and now her kids were forcing him to sell his house because they needed money. The pain in his neck responded to tapping on resentment toward his wife’s kids. His shoulder responded to tapping on anger at having to sell his home. This session was recorded and you can listen to this session by clicking on the link.

In the same session, a woman complained of soreness in her thumb. It hurt with a shooting pain when she tried to open a jar or squeeze her deodorant. She was looking for a way to prevent surgery.

An excellent book by Louise Hay, called Heal Your Body, lists the different parts of the body and gives the emotions associated with that part of the body. I refer to this book often when dealing with pain. I have found that Louise Hay’s descriptions are either right on target or they are at least in the ballpark.

The way the woman described her pain, it sounded like the pain was in the joint at the base of her thumb. As mentioned above, resentment is stored in the joints. According to Louise Hay, the hand represents issues of holding or letting go. Upon questioning, the woman revealed she was trying to save a relationship that was breaking up. We tapped on:

Even though I have resentment about letting go of my relationship, I deeply and completely accept myself.

The pain in her hand cleared. You can listen to this example in as well.

Cases such as these, where pain can be eliminated with EFT, are common. I would go so far as to say that most pain can be relieved with EFT.

&copy 2007 Chip Engelmann

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