After a long period of pain and misery, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia about 3 years ago, and while there was relief that I finally knew what was wrong, there was also despair at my rheumatologist's prognosis -- fibromyalgia is a chronic disease, and you will have to learn to live with it. 

I am currently on 2 pain meds, one considerably stronger than the other, but I still have frequent bouts of pain. 

I know how important it is to get to root causes with EFT, and I want to work on the fibromyalgia, but since I really have no idea when it started, I'm at a loss as to how to do that.  Since I don't know what time period to look at, I can't really search for memories that might be important. 

I've definitely got the mechanics of EFT down, but the art of knowing when and where to look, and how best to approach problems clearly needs work.  Any suggestions as to how to potentially pinpoint the causes of my fibromyalgia and deal with it would be greatly appreciated.

Pat

 Patty,

One thing you could do is tap on the emotions you have about having the fibromyalgia. I would also tap and rant about those feelings until it is all out. Then--close your eyes and listen for insights.

Hope this helps,

JoAnn SkyWatcher

Patty

I suffered from chronic fibromyalgia and was nearly disabled with it as a young woman so I can empathise with you.  I have no trace of it in my body and am now fit, active, healthy, windsurfing, skiing, horse riding etc.

Rue Hass has some good stuff on working with chronic pain and fibromyalgia. http://www.emofree.com/Pain-management/chronic-pain-rue.htm

In honesty I found I had to look at a few things, diet was important, giving up the junk food, excees tea and coffee, sugar, chocolate, cow dairy and refined foods did make a difference with the pain.

What I did discover about FMS is there is a link with the breathing.  If you do not take full deep breathes and only breathe in the upper part of the chest this can interrupt sleep patterns.  People deprived of sleep for 4 days can start to develop symptoms.  Using EFT for constricted breathing can be helpful and any emotions that are held in the chest.

I find a personality trait in FMS sufferers, is a sensitive personality that wasn't fully acknowledged, a need to be perfect, pushing oneself too hard and often thrown into the mix some physical trauma. There is also a link to anxiety and adrenal exhaustion.  FMS symptoms can occur after a trauma or very stressful period. 

It is a complex condition but you can get results tapping for the physicial things you experience, definitely how you feel about having the disease and the fact that you have been labeled 'incurable'  I like the reframe on Mastering EFT, incurable means the cure is within!

Maybe you could think about what was going on for you about a year before symptoms started and that might give you some insights.  Any loss, trauma, accident?

Hope this helps and gives some hope

Gill 

A MUCH younger woman.  I still feel young:)

Gill 

Hi Patty,

As a family nurse practitioner, I deal alot with fibromyalgia. I understand, to some degree, how you feel about the diagnosis. It's like "good news...bad news."   The good news is now we have a diagnosis, the bad news is "now what?" There does seem to be some evidence that many with fibromyalgia have some history of abuse, which may be repressed. I'm not saying that's true in your case, but I believe that EFT is going to be more of a help than medications, in the long run. I'm an EFT "rookie" and must admit that I don't use it in my clinic (I am employed by an MD, so EFT isn't exactly standard medical practice...yet!)

Attitude is everything. If you are truly motivated to help yourself, your quality of life will improve. I do believe medications can help. As far as the EFT, you will probably get alot of help here. Certainly statements like "Even though I have this pain, I deeply and completely accept myself." Remember to truly say it like you mean it! Other symptoms such as difficulty sleeping, sadness, etc. can also be addressed.

Remember to laugh...find funny movies, tv shows, books, tapes, etc.

Good luck,

Dave

Gill,

 I was most intrigued by what you said about breathing.  I have been asthmatic most of my life, and the last time I had a lung function test, I had 70% lung capacity, so I don't ever really take a deep breath.  I think that constricted breathing was covered somewhere in Gary's DVDs, so I'll have to go back and watch that presentation again.

You described me perfectly in your paragraph about FMS personality traits.  I've always had that "have to be perfect" feeling, and nothing less was acceptable.  I've definitely had enough anxiety over the last few years.  I went from being a respected professional and having a job that I loved to being totally disempowered and having a job that I hated.  I've worked on dealing with the stress of the job, but had not considered it in relation to my fibromyalgia.  Looks like I need to go there.

I'll give your suggestions a try, and see what happens.  I'm planning to retire at the end of this year (finally getting away from the miserable job!), and I have every intention of having a healthy and happy retirement, and dealing with the FMS would certainly move me toward my goal.

Pat

Hi Patty,

MANY variables are involved as the ladies above stated.I also got rid of my Fibro and I specialise in it and have for 16 years as a massage therapist. Many things helped but there were many hurdles.I was born with it since my grandfather was sprayed with mustard gas in the war and that depleted Iodine levels in my mother,then me.

Fibro is NOT all emotional tho it does play a huge part and every patient is different so their is no cookie cutter answer.Try avoiding ALL Chlorine,Bromine and Flouride and tap to neutralise any in your system these are all halides and create multiple chemical sensitivities they displace iodine in the thyroid. thats a start for you.let me know how you do.

Also tap on not feeling safe and Type A personality woman are more at risk as they tend to juggle more and feel overwelmed (suffocated)

 Sass 

Gill Wightman:

A MUCH younger woman.  I still feel young:)

 Me <--- looks over the top of his glasses at Gill. 

<grin>

First of all, thanks to Sass and Dave for their suggestions, and thanks to all who have responded for your support.  For the first time since my diagnosis, I feel like I'm not alone in this, and that's a good feeling.

Dave, I'm pretty sure that you've hit the nail on the head about the abuse.  I have no memories to substantiate that, but I have all the classic behaviors of someone who was abused, and if I read about abuse, or view something related on TV (or watch Gary's DVDs!) I tend to get very emotional.  I will be starting to work in a few weeks with Sophia Cayer, and I hope to get to the bottom of this issue, as well as a few others. 

With an eye toward helping myself and others at the same time, I created the Tapping Buddies website, and I'm hoping that lots of us will be able to connect with someone that can share our EFT learning journey. 

I will be spending the next couple of days planning an EFT strategy for dealing with the fibromyalgia, and I'll definitely check back in here to share my progress along the way.

Pat 

I need someone to throw me a lifeline right now, in the worst possible way.  I tapped for about a half hour on my fibro related feelings of sadness, pain, anger, hopelessness and so on.  Then I moved along to my weight loss issues, using Carol Look's weight loss protocol, which I've been using, but today I tapped into more feelings than I have previously.

I was tapping on:

•  "Even though I eat to avoid my feelings"
•  "Even though I'm afraid of my feelings" 
•  "Even though thinking about my feelings makes me chest tight"
•  "Even though I know if I started crying I'd never stop"
•  "Even though I think things happened to me that I don't remember"

This is ground that I hadn't been brave enough to cover previously, and now my intensity is off the scale, and I can't seem to get it down.  I've got pressure in my chest and I can't stop crying. 

Help, please?

Pat

Patty,

I applaud your willingness to do this work. I can tell that it is difficult. I will give you some ideas, but if it becomes too much you may want to find an EFT practitioner that you trust, and work with them.

However, it is possible that you can do this yourself. I would recommend that you bundle together all of the feelings that you are experiencing:

• the fear of not being able to stop crying
• the fear of remembering what you have buried so deeply
• the fear of dealing with all of this stuff

• there is a part of me that does not want to deal with all of my stuff, and I deeply and completely love and accept myself
• there is a part of me that doesn’t want to let go of all of my stuff…
• I am terrified of all of my stuff…

Usually what I do is muscle test to see if what is psychologically reversed is gone (I don’t know if you know how to muscle test).

Consider “tapping and ranting” about all of my stuff and see if you can get it all out—so, the intensity goes down. BTW, do you tap on yourself while you are crying? It can help.

Hope this is helpful,

JoAnn

JoAnn,

Thank you for the lifeline.  It's been an uncomfortable day.

I have found an experienced practitioner, and will start working with Sophia Cayer in a couple of weeks, but I'm trying to work through as many issues as I can on my own, in order to maximize my time with Sophia.

I will follow up on your suggestions right now, which will hopefully allow me to get a decent nights sleep.  Yes, I do know how to muscle test, although I find it difficult because of my degenerative arthritis and fibromyalgia. 

I appreciate your help and advice.

Pat

Pat,

You are welcome!!!

 JoAnn

Pat

You sound like a therapists dream!!

When the tears come simply keep tapping, you don't need words.  It sounds like you are doing a really good job of opening your lid, all the phrases you are using are ones I know for sure Sophia will use for you, but the danger is you get what you asked for, all the feelings coming up for you to look at.

Thats not a problem at all, but it is scary for someone who has been keeping the lid shut tight!  I had a similar experience this week where I 'tapped' into a deep well of pain about my mothers death 7 months ago. I could only describe it as the bung being taken of a lemondade bottle that had been shaken.  It all spilled out and I had a day of crying and tapping.  It felt very good.  I didn't think, I just tapped.  Some of the feelings were strong, but you don't need the words when your in the feeling.  Just keep tapping until it clears.

I am not sure if you can do this yet, but this is what I do with clients at the end of a session or myself if something comes up and I know I want to deal with it with a therapist.

I imagine I have put it in a box and wrap it or lock it and put it up on a high shelf.  Then I tap for:

"Even though I have all these emotions and memories that feel too painful to look at right now I know they are there and I promise I will look at them when the time is right but for now I am going to put them on the shelf and get on with my day..."

I find with some super decicated clients they get a bit of a fright when they realise just what might be in there when they think Wow, this tapping is great and try it at home and find suddenly all this 'stuff' is there that they never let themselves admit and thats the scary part.

General tapping on "Even though I have all these problems I deeply and completely accept myself "quite a few times a day will prime your system well.

Once you have experienced relief from a painful emotion or memory you will gain confidence and you'll start to get excited when this happens because you will know that soon your going to get rid of another pocket of pain or toxic emotion and you will feel even better.

The way I look at it its like this:

If we had a bucket of water and there was mucky sludge in the bottom, to scoop out and remove the sludge we are going to muddy the water for a while.  Every time you reach down to get out more yucky stuff we do feel a little as if we have been all stirred up, but then it settles and then eventually if we keep scooping it out all the muck will be gone.

Thats what happens, sometimes the waters are stirred but don't worry they WILL settle.

There is a wonderful book I can recommend to you called Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine.  It describes the affects of trauma on our system.  He also explains that for children the effects of physical, sexual or emotional trauma are all exactly the same.  If going by symptoms alone it could be easy to make the mistake that there has been some sexual trauma.  I find many clients, once they get over the fear find there was emotional trauma, such as an emotionally missing mother or something else.  So their fears about what they might find were actually worse than what happened!  It really is a helpful book.  However if there worst fears are real EFT takes care of that just fine as well.  F

Just remember whatever happened, it didn't kill you, you sruvived, and your body just remembers the feelings of what happened at the time.  And feelings aren't real, they are stuck energy so we can deal with that!

 Gill

Pat there have already been so many great replies, but I just want to add to it to reinforce what the others have said.  As scary as this is, it is a real sign that you are ready to heal.  It takes a lot of courage to do what you are doing, going there on your own.  I've found that when I hit the sobbing and fear welling up it's an amazing opportunity to clear a lot of past emotional baggage, if I can just hang in there and keep tapping. 

As Gillian said, when you are that tuned in to the issue there is no need to speak at all, when this happens when I'm working on my own I try to remember what we do as practitioners supporting someone and remind myself to just keep tapping and keep breathing.  It helps to try to keep things in perpsective and remember that the pain and fear is coming from a past time, essentially from a former you who lacked the skills and awareness you have now, so it can seem too scary, but it wouldn't come up if you didn't have the resources to deal with it now.

I find that when this happens the most effective things for me are to:

1.  Stop talking

2.  Keep tapping no matter what

3.  When the intensity starts coming down a little, start talking to the part of me inside that has been holding the pain for me, and reassure that part or parts that it's OK, whatever happened is over now and I am there for them and can listen to their pain and help them to hold it.  I reassure them that it's safe and OK to let it all go.  I find this is very powerful, talking to the younger me and reassuring her.

4.  I then do some gratitude tapping thanking myself and all parts of me for doing this work, saluting our bravery and determination to heal.

5.  I find it's important to honour how I feel and stop when it feels like I've done enough, and reassure the parts inside me that I will be back.

Do you have a means of calming your energy like Reiki for example?  I remember reading in one of Silvia Hartmann's books that EFT shifts so much it can have a strong effect on our energy system, and she has observed that it is easier for those with something like Reiki to help sooth the energy after dealing with big issues.  My partner always insists on putting me on the Reiki table after we've worked on something that had me sobbing and I really appreciate it.  If you don't know Reiki, then yoga nidra is very supportive.  You can download a free audio with a very relaxing 40 minute yoga nidra sequence from http://www.freeyoganidra.co.uk/  It is very grounding and relaxing and I find it can be very supportive in calming down my system after tripping onto something big.

I salute you for the healing you are doing.  Remember most of all to listen inside and only go where you feel OK going.  If you feel any concern about tapping, tap first on the concern about working on the issue.  It's great that you are reaching out for some help from Sophia too.

Very best wishes,

Jo