Halfway through the session today, I realize we are in wrapup mode. This lovely woman who’d lived with fibromyalgia for 31 years was pain free at this her eigth session. We’d started out with a round of tapping and checking in, then I asked about her pain. She told me she didn’t have any sitting right there, but if she stood up she’d feel pain. She stood up. She felt no pain. The look on her face was such a gift of surpirse.
We end up with a full session anyway. First emotion on being pain free – FEAR. “I’m afraid the pain will come back.” Tap, tap, tap. There have been a couple times in the past, for the slightest bits of time, sitting in her recliner, when she had been pain free. No idea why the pain left at that time. No idea why it came back.
“It’s a bod boss,” I say, “this fibromyalgia. Even when the pain is gone its still the boss, just anticipating it might do something again, surprise you again.” Tap, tap, tap.
“This is different,” I say. “do you feel it. You’ve been involved, these past two months, in paying attention to your life, and to your mind, and your body, and your spirit. And you’ve been feeling better and better as the weeks have gone on. You’ve been aware of yourself, and pain free must be what your body, mind and spirit want, or you wouldn’t be here in this place now.” Tap, Tap, Tap.
A feeling of anger comes up. It’s around one of the core issues we dealt with back in the second session.Tap, tap, tap. I remind her that she used to blame herself for the childhood trauma. She had felt like it was her fault. Lately, she says, this anger has been coming up more and more. This is how I can be helpful as her coach, “Once you stopped blaming yourself, then there was finally space to get angry.”
Another insight. “Way back in that third session you recovered your awareness that you are WORTHY, those were your words, you’d been feeling so unworthy for so many decades. Maybe this anger was always beneath the surface, anger at the person who was to blame, maybe it was your way of subconsciouly remembering that you reaally always have been worthy, this anger was your connection to your self worth.
I ask where she feels the anger in her body.
“It makes me scrunch up my shoulders in tight anger.”
“That’s interesting. And you have a pulled shoulder, and that’s the only thing that still gives you pain right now.”
We start tapping on this shoulder pain. It doesn’t go away completely, but it does decrease. It does seem like there’s a connection – for sure, at a minimum, she’s released another emotion that she’s been holding onto for many decades.
We spend the last few moments remembering the previous sessions. “Like an onion,” I say, “We just started peeling the onion.”
“I’m not worried about your pain anymore,” I tell this woman. “If it comes back, we tap. I’m just not worried. All we did was pay attention to mind, body, and spirit, and you ended up free from pain. I truly believe this is where your body wants to be. If you slip away from pain free for some reason, we’ll just pay attention some more. ”
31 years of fibromyalgia. End of pain today. A day to remember.
P.S.
Next morning I see this woman going into a coffee shop and give a shout to catch her attention.
“How are you?” I ask. I am wondering about her knees and her fibromyalgia pain.
“I left yesterday and I didn’t have any pain in my shoulder! And today, I don’t have any pain either.”
Angry shoulders – they were slipping out of joint and needed to be reset each week by the chiropracter – angry shoulders at peace – no pain.
P.P.S. I wasn’t raised this way – to see out of joint shoulders relieved, and chronic pain disappeared. I think I have some tapping to do for myself, to let these experiences settle into my bones. To say the least, I feel excited.