Rising Sun EFT Group Newsletter, February 13, 2009
HOW EFT HELPED WITH A SUDDEN TRAUMATIC INJURY
A funny thing happened on the way to the wood stove recently… involving a close encounter with the concrete garage floor…! While carrying firewood February 1, I fell and broke my wrist. At least it was my left wrist and I’m right-handed. But it has been quite an experience. Of course, EFT and mind-body connections have been a big part of dealing with this and I’m doing great now. I’d like to share how EFT came to my rescue. This article is in three parts and the first installment is below.
When I was in our garage carrying my huge load of firewood in my arms and side-stepping my way through the bicycles to reach the extra wood at the back, it never occurred to me that I was doing anything dangerous. I didn’t realize how top-heavy I was until I somehow made a misstep and slightly lost my balance. Without the heavy load, I would have recovered easily. But with all that wood in my arms, I simply toppled over, no way to stop it. Most of my weight went onto my left wrist and I heard the bone snap.
When I picked myself up, I saw my wrist at a strange angle. Luckily my husband was home and whisked me to the hospital, which was only minutes away. I was holding my hurt wrist with the other hand and trying to do some mental tapping, but I will admit to you that I wasn’t successful in calming my fears. I know the injury sounds painful, but honestly the physical pain wasn’t so bad — my main experience was utter terror that I had hurt myself quite badly. I kept thinking “I’m scared… this is bad… I’m not okay.” Indeed, I was feeling like I might pass out.
They took me right in and checked my blood pressure. It had dropped to 50/40! So I was experiencing some shock. An IV was started in the other arm and now that I understood things and knew I was safe and getting care, I could really do some tapping. Mentally, of course, because both arms were incapacitated.
“Even though my blood pressure has dropped so low, I love and accept my body, and let’s turn up the blood pressure…(imagining a dial being turned up towards 80-90-100)”
My blood pressure immediately rose to a normal level and I felt much better. The IV had a lot to do with it, of course, but I’m sure the mental tapping helped too because I could feel the fear leaving my body. Later the nurse told me that people can pass out just from the sight of a body part not looking right, that is so frightening. Now that I understand this, if I’m ever in the position to help someone else, I would just talk to them and gently tap or press on points reassuringly, even just the hand points would help — or if touch isn’t possible, I would still talk and mentally tap for them with this message:
“Even though it looks bad and you’re really scared, you’ll get the care you need right away. You’re going to be okay. It’s going to be alright.”
My husband did some of this intuitively. In the car on the way, he kept telling me, “The worst is over. You’ll be in the hospital in minutes. You’ll be alright.” It felt good to hear those words. But my body still had quite a fear reaction.
I got the care I needed and plenty of pain relief. Throughout the X-rays and procedures, I kept mentally tapping and talking to my body.
“Even though this bone is broken, I love and appreciate my body… and I’m getting the care I need for this to heal.”
“Even though my wrist got broken, I love and accept my wrist…… sending reassurance to my wrist… it’s going to be alright”
“Even though it was scary to get hurt like that, it’s time for healing now…and I know my body has amazing healing power.”
I really do believe that the body is always listening and responds to reassurance and encouragement. I then felt quite calm during the two hours we were in the ER. Eventually the bone was set so I could be on my way. The X-ray had revealed a complete break of the radius with displacement. After it was put back in place, I was told that it would have to be re-evaluated in a week to see if surgery would be necessary.
At home that week, I tapped physically at times, but often went back to mental tapping because my right hand had to do everything (I’m typing one-handedly as we speak) and would be too tired to tap! My wonderful friend and colleague Ingrid Dinter had just broken her arm a few weeks before and she guided me in some tapping. These tappings were right on target and brought tears — and really cleared some emotion. For example:
“Even though I can’t believe this happened.. can’t believe this happened, can’t believe this happened…”
“Even though I heard the bone snap… awful sound, awful sound…”
I did tap through the week for the bone staying in alignment… but alas, there was no magic. When it was re-evaluated, it was found that I would need surgery. I’d been told that a break that bad usually does, and when I saw that it wasn’t perfectly aligned, I welcomed the surgery. I was willing to do whatever it would take to support my arm to have a full recovery. Part 2 of my article will be about using EFT for my surgery. I will, however, skip now to the happy ending and tell you that the surgery went great. Only three days later, I’m feeling terrific, confident that I’m on the way to complete healing. EFT has been great support every step of the way, even though much of my tapping was done silently in my head. Just imagining tapping the points was all I could do much of the time, and it really worked!