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Pain

Injury

Integrating the Parts:

Important Note: This article was written prior to 2010 and is now outdated. Please use my newest advancement, Optimal EFT. It is more efficient, more powerful and clearly explained in my free e-book, The Unseen Therapist™.  Best wishes, Gary

Hi Everyone,

This article by Deborah Donndelinger will be primarily useful to seasoned therapists who are used to working with "parts."

Hugs, Gary


By Deborah Donndelinger

Integrating the Parts:  Healing a Shoulder Injury

I’d like to offer an approach to EFT that is working very well for clients and me.  I learned it by working with my own coach and EFT practitioner, Kathleen Rick.

I call it Integrating the Parts - EFT-Style.  The premise is that symptoms we have can be seen in terms of masking a disowned part of ourselves, a shadow part.  By describing and addressing this energetically, we can get past the psychological reversal, explore the underlying causes, and integrate this part back into ourselves, all using EFT.  It’s a very intuitive and creative process so I’d recommend folks be very comfortable with their EFT skills before using this.

The three steps are:

1. Develop rapport, explore the issue, and clear out psychological reversal.
2. Get specific, describe the issue in energetic terms, and tap on the response to that description.
3. Move the energy into the body and tap on the response.

I’ll explain it in terms of a recent success with a friend of mine, Ann.  Ann has had a shoulder injury for over a year.  She’s done regular acupuncture, massage, and other energy work with some improvement but was still in pain and had limited range of motion.  She’s quite athletic as a triathlete and was disappointed that she had to give up swimming.  Ann couldn’t move her shoulder without pain and a popping noise and had a limited range of motion.

I had helped her recently with a headache and was delighted when she asked if I could help with her shoulder.

1) Rapport and explore.

Because I know Ann as a friend, it was easy to connect and feel comfortable enough to do our work.  I also had the advantage of knowing what’s going on in her life.  One event is her upcoming, and long anticipated retirement from a public service career and the other subject we talk about is her complete happiness being single.  (By the way, I thought the shoulder was going to be about her relationship and I was completely wrong, reminding me once again of the importance of following what’s in front of us and not prejudging.)

As I asked her about her shoulder, I got a very clear idea of it being a battle and that she had no identification with her shoulder at all.  So the first aspect we tapped on was the feeling of fighting the shoulder, that the shoulder was in direct opposition with her, that it was a win-lose situation, and the shoulder was winning.  Some of the phrasing we used included:

Even though I am fighting my shoulder, and I might lose…

Even though I am in a battle with my shoulder, and my shoulder is winning…

Even though my shoulder might never get better…

After a few round of this, she was able to feel like she and her shoulder could work it out - that it wasn’t a win-lose situation.  I now felt ready to move on.  I see this step as getting past the psychological reversal and finding the opening to continue.

2) Describe the issue energetically and tap.

I know others practitioners use color, shape, size and such to describe specific injuries, pains, emotions.  I tend to be less sense-based and more energy-aware; this approach I’m using is just another way to describe the issue.

I asked Ann to imagine her shoulder as an energy and imagine where in her body or energy field it would be.  I had the sense it would be outside of the room but she named it as hovering outside of her actual shoulder.  I asked how it felt to her to have it here and we tapped on that reaction.

Even though I want to keep my shoulder energy away from me, I love myself and am open to the idea of accepting my shoulder.

Even though I don’t want my shoulder energy near me, and I’m getting angry…

Even though I feel angry at my shoulder for being there and not moving, I love and accept myself, even my shoulder.

Even though my shoulder is saying no and won’t move…

What she realized is that her shoulder was representing the part of her that didn’t want to change and move on.  This retirement is very much wanted but the shoulder was holding all of the “I’m not changing” energy that she hadn’t been aware of.  Once she was at peace with her shoulder energy being where it was and what it represented, we were ready to move on.

3) Integration

At this stage, I normally ask clients to imagine bringing the energy of the issue into their body.  They often will feel some apprehension or fear and that will be the next aspect to tap on.  In this case, as soon as I suggested to Ann that she imagine bringing the energy in, she had an intense emotional reaction where she immediately felt her shoulder energy moving into her heart.  She was crying and processing a lot, however, the energy was shifting and I didn’t feel a need to tap, which surprised me. 

But as I said, the energy was moving and she was quite capable and willing to process it.  For other folks, I would have slowed it down and tapped as we went.  After sitting with this for a few minutes, she opened her eyes, moved her shoulder and said it felt great.  Her range of motion was greater, there was no popping noise, and she had no pain.  She and I were both amazed.  When we followed-up a few weeks later, her shoulder was still feeling great.

Besides sharing the wonderful success story of Ann and her shoulder, I wanted to outline the overall approach that got us there.  Integrating the Parts is very simple, and yet powerful, just like EFT itself, and is yet another technique to add to our EFT tool-kit.

Thanks to all my EFT coaches (I’ve had a few!), especially Kathleen Rick who’s teaching me so much.  I hope others can benefit from this.

Deborah

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