Hi, good friends:

 I have had three bouts of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (cancer), so in the sense that it hasn't conquered me I am a survivor -- partly successful, I'm convinced, because of the practice of visualization.  I purchased the EFT DVDs about 3 years ago at which time I was in remission from cancer.  I practiced EFT only on myself for personal growth and motivation primarily, but for occasional pains and a stubborn and annoying condition of tightness in the jaws.  I would like to say I experienced a bunch of one minute miracles.  I would even like to report success after a persistence of tapping.  But I can't.  Now, I don't have one micro-ounce of doubt that EFT works for others!  Those DVDs can't have been faked!  No, it's me... but still I plod on, and I will continue to plod on as long as Gary Craig has his newsletter and as long as there are wonderfully supportive people like you offering suggestions.

 Now, here is my question -- my problem:  The last time I went to my oncologist he informed me that I had a spot on my spleen.  He admitted to knowing about it for about a year but was watching its growth pattern and any interrelationship with with a simultaneous negative pattern in my blood.  He didn't know whether the spot was malignant or not.  However, the pet scan he subsequently had me take removed all doubt.  It was cancer all right, but he thought it would be prudent to watch it some more.  Ultimately, the only option would be to remove the spleen.  It was not an option to remove the offending spot because (if I understood him rightly) the spleen is so infused with blood it would merely collapse.  Besides... "the body can live a quite normal life without its spleen."  Etc.  Etc....

Be that all as it may, I choose to take the Shakespearean stand of "out out damn spot!"  With no medical training under my belt, I still have a strong intuitive inclination gnawing away at me that the spleen is not a "disposable organ".  What I've Googled about it and read in other sources confirms this.  It is key to the balanced operation of the immune system by producing "killer" T-cells which gobble up old and defective cells in the body (that can be pre-cancerous) and dispose of them.  How neat is that!  Bottom line: I WANT MY SPLEEN, HERR Doctor!

Now, for the last six months I have been visualizing 50 minutes each day, 25 in the morning and 25 in the evening, picturing in my imagination the spleen from various angles, inside and out, as I wandered through various chambers and down bloody corridors that probably bore no resemblance to reality, but I was a T-cell warrior (truth be known, I was their general), and I zapped those pesky cancer cells to oblivion.  I haven't had a followup pet scan so I don't know yet whether their picture (frozen in one instant in time) will have caught up with my imaginings -- or whether there will be a lag time.

Here is where you wonderful people come in -- if you will come in!  In addition to advising me how I should tap on learning to get to the point and be consise... do you have any suggestions on how to use EFT to attack that spot from a slightly different angle?

What I am doing now at each pee-break (and I am a heavy coffee drinker!) is this:  Initially, at the beginning of the day, I do the complete set up and two rounds with "Even though the pet scan revealed a spot of cancer on my spleen, I completely love and accept myself and I forgive myself for anything I might have done to contribute to that cancer.  Then, after each pee-break I alternate the following on each meridian: "Even though the pet scan revealed a spot of cancer on my spleen, I forgive myself for anything I might have done to contribute to that cancer..." on the inside brow then continue on the outside of the eye with, "and I choose to use EFT to release the wisdom already in my body to make that cancer disappear and return my spleen to perfect health."  I go back to the first one for under the eye and the second one under the nose, etc., finishing the process at the top of the head with the "I choose" part.

So... if any of you have any advise to offer -- I mean any, Any, ANY advise on tapping away that spot please do share it with me.  I'm sure it would be helpful to others facing similar challenges.

 I love you guys.  God bless you.

 Jay

Hello Jay,

I am not the most experienced practitioner here but I wanted to say how beautifully you write, I am sure this will get you a lot of postings...

I would say that you have already got some inside knowledge of what is going on and that your visualization approach has most likely helped you and is helping you right now.  Also, you could tap on your actions as the T-cell warrior, zapping away, and encouraging all the good cells and all your system...

You say little on your back ground.  What has been going on in your life, apart from drinking lots of coffee which might not be good for you.... 

As you have explored visualization, how do you visualize this spot on your spleen? What does it make you feel that is is there (if it is still there...)? What do you imagine it could be about? These questions could give you some answers to tap on...

Your tapping script and technique sounds fine...You might want to adapt it to how you feel on the day, clearing out some of the passing emotions...

You say you did not have success on your tightness of the jaws, is this still a problem? What are the emotions behind this?

I hope this helps, keep us posted

Fabienne

Hi Fabienne,

 Thank you so much for your thoughts upon which I've made copious notes.  I loved your idea of tapping on the T-cell warrior's actions.  It will add an additional dimension to the visualization.  The little dickens is a hard worker, albeit brutal in his attacks on the cancer cells.

Yes, the tightness of my jaws is still a problem, in fact more of a problem.  I discontinued tapping on it for a while.  You see, the awareness that I am clamping my jaw comes on me all at once and it is uncomfortable, almost on the verge of cramping.  Once I'm aware of it it goes away.  Tapping on it put my jaw under such close scrutiny in my mind that it seemed to make the discomfort, when I noticed it, more acute.  I don't remember the EFT practicioners mentioning a "churning up" process by which a problem can get worse before it gets better.

A little background:  I'm 68, married, still working full-time as an insurance man.  I've been selling insurance for some thiry years, though, so I feel very little stress from that.  It is rather month-to-month financially, now that I think about it, and since I am on commissions if there is any time I would tend to be more stressed it would be just before payday -- when I look up on the computer how much I earned for the month.  I would like to retire but I don't see much possibility of that happening.  I've joked to my clients that someone will come into my office some day when I'm 95, see me slumped over my desk and say, "bring on another agent.  This one's gone."

Right from the onset I've taken my cancer as a challenge.  EFT has begun one more tool in my belt.

 Thank you for being here, Fabienne.

 Jay

Hello Jay,

You sure have a very casual approach to leaving parties...Somehow, I think there might be a little more to it than that...Aren't you tired of the responsibility of earning, aren't you longing for a little respite and good time before the exit?  Perhaps, it is the opposite, you don't really want to let go of your working life because it is too challenging to retire, have "nothing to do" or you really need to earn? I wondered if you would like to explore how you really feel about continuing to work...

The jaw problem suggests a certain tention that builds up and when you consciously tell yourself to relax, it subsides...When you give it attention with EFT, it amplifies...It is true to say that the more you give attention to any symptoms the more they seem to show up...Are you kind to yourself? Do you have support? Do you have relaxation time?  Sometimes, symtoms intensify with EFT when you are close to core issues but not quite there, is this the case?

I am pleased you like the idea of tapping and visualisation...I think you could write how you feel (to yourself or to us) and tap along to it, just really be yourself...just an idea...

You say that cancer is a challenge for you and you seem to keep a real sense of fun, have fun with this battle! Thank you for sharing,

Blessings, Fabienne

Hi,

Talking about disease states is tricky for me because I still am a certified holistic health practitioner. That said, I have worked with people who have had emotions eating away at them.

That's what we are talking about here, emotions that are eating away at you that are manifesting themselves physically. In the case of the spleen, look for an obsession that is eating away at you.

Hi Fabienne,

Good to hear from you again.

Oh, yes... I am terribly tired of the responsibilities of earning and am yearning more than you can guess for a little (read "a lot of") respite.  But, don't think I'm not having a good time now.  I have my writing, my reading, my personal development and Disneyland every two or three years.  Seriously, I feel blessed that I have the good health to work and I earn a fairly decent income.  Stress time is just before payday (and it's not that big a deal!) and it's not long lasting.

And, you seem to be right on about the jaw issue.  I have a feeling I'm digging all around core issues when I tap the jaw problem.  Thank you for pointing that out.  I'll work on it some more and keep you aware of my progress.

 You are a wonderful resource.   Thanks for being there...

 Jay

Thank you so much, Chip, for taking the time to respond to my request.  Zap!  I think you hit the mark.  As with anyone who tends to control his emotions overly, those slippery little guys make up -- in spades -- for not being allowed outward expression by reeking havoc on the inside.  In my case, they feed on, or are fodder for, a couple of obsessions that come to mind.  I'll work on them.

As soon as I finish this I'll visit your website.  My eagle-eye detected a freebie!

Thanks, again,

 Jay

You'll excuse me, I presume, for having the temerity of yanking this thread back up to the top, but, frankly I'm stoked!  I have been picking your brains about EFT techniques to add to my visualizations with the hope of getting rid of that troubling cancer on my spleen.  Remember?

To bring you up to speed on the cancer growth progress in a paragraph.  The first CT scan that mentioned any problem with the spleen was 4/16/2007 which described a 1.56 cm. lesion in the lower lateral spleen (the CT scan from 11 months earlier showed: Spleen: Normal).  On the 9/19/2007 catscan it had grown to 1.77 cm., and suggested a PET scan to further refine the results.  SIGNIFICANTLY, this was the first time my oncologist mentioned the lesion on my spleen.  I had the recommended PET scan on 9/24/2007.  It revealed a lesion of 2.3 cm and suggested it was Lymphoma.  If my math is correct the increase over a 5 month period was .74 cm.

So... Sept. 19th marked the date my morning and evening visualization processes began.  25 minutes each.  I explained in an earlier thread how I went about the visualization.  I don't remember the date I added EFT to the recipe.  I may have mentioned it in my earlier meanderings.  The important point though is that I used EFT about 10 rounds a day along with the two periods of visualization.

Today, I got the results from my latest CT scan (2/28/2008).  Are you ready for this?  I quote the report: "The subcapsular rounded low attenuating lesion in the lateral aaspect of the spleen is slightly smaller when compared with the prior study.   It currently measures 1.6 cm in size whereas previously it measured 1.77." Italics are mine.

No matter that in my visualizations I have for the last couple of months imaged the spleen as cancer-free.  The important thing I will carry into my next 6 months of visualizations is that the cancer has been shrinking -- without chemo, without radiation -- but by using  far more profound medicine: the mind and the balancing of the energy system in the body, through a quirky comedy routine called tapping ...happy birthday, one-two-three-four-five.

 Blessings to all of you fine searchers.

Jay

Hello Jay,

O Joy, valiant warrior!  It is great to hear your news.  I guess you have to continue doing what you have done, add a round of gratitude to your resourceful body...Well done!

Keep us posted.

Love and light, Fabienne

Oh!  Thank you Fabienne for the suggestion on gratitude.  I probably fell into the trap of thinking I did it all myself!  Ha!  Gratitude is in order and a big thank you for your always timely suggestions.

Love and blessings,

 Jay

Congradulations Jay.

Thanks, Chip....  There's something encouraging about corroborative measurement.  Wouldn't matter if it were 1/10th of 1 cm as long as it's shrinkage.  No chemo.  No radiation.  No miracle drug of conventional science.  I tell you, I'm stoked!

 Jay

Good Morning, Jay!

With great interest, I read your accounting of your experience with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and the “spot” on your spleen. It brings many thoughts to mind.

Although as a minister I’ve worked with many people over the years in dealing with various forms and stages of diseases, as an EFT practitioner I’m currently working with two clients who are both in the advanced stages of cancer; one with breast cancer and one with Lymphoma.  

You originally asked for “any, any, any advice” on “tapping away the spot”…while I could not offer any “advice”, I would like to share with you some of the discoveries that my clients and I have made that may give you a little different approach in your tapping and visualization.

Quoting your original post: “I practiced EFT only on myself for personal growth and motivation primarily, but for occasional pains and a stubborn and annoying condition of tightness in the jaws.  I would like to say I experienced a bunch of one minute miracles. I would even like to report success after a persistence of tapping.  But I can't.  Now, I don't have one micro-ounce of doubt that EFT works for others!  Those DVDs can't have been faked!  No, it's me...”

First, I really want to compliment you on giving it your best! You are certainly not the first one to have this kind of experience with EFT. One of the issues that many face is that EFT “seems to so well work for others” but when we attempt to apply it to ourselves, especially for those “bigger” problems we face, results do not appear forthcoming. Many at that point walk away thinking that it must “be me”. Since you stated that you “don’t have one micro-ounce of doubt EFT works for other…those DVD’s can’t have been faked…no, it’s me” my assumption is that this is the experience that you have been having with EFT.

This is very important to address before we begin working with the actual spot on spleen.

Now it may actually be a belief that EFT won’t work “for me” but I suspect a longer held “life view” belief. Again, this is all assumption and that’s why working with a practitioner could be very beneficial to ferret out what’s actually going on. When I read your words, what I “feel” is that there is an underlying global belief that “feels” like “I can’t have (or get) what I want”. Having read your statements about your age, still working selling insurance (after 30 years) and the month-to-month financial stress that comes up for you, some form of not being able to have what you truly desire could account for many of the limitations you accept as your daily experience plus only a partial success with the visualization to diminish the spot on your spleen. If this is indeed a core belief, a central theme, or a repeated experience in your life, then EFT could certainly neutralize, if not eliminate, that pattern with a little detective work.

One of the things that has come to my attention, after being at a profound loss for a while in how to actually approach advanced stages of manifested cancer using EFT, is that aiming EFT (or visualization for that matter) at the symptom(s) (the tumor or the spot) may not significantly reduce it. The biological process at work is a part of a larger, more complex, system and therefore, the healing approach may need to take into account a broader perspective. This indeed proved to be the case in working with a client with an advanced form of kidney disease. The very graphic visualization he employed, although very creative and inventive, ultimately had little overall effect in stopping or reducing the advance of the disease. When we began to work on a somewhat different level, addressing the “logical biological” outcome from a series of originating events, underlying beliefs, and their associated negative emotions the disease went into remission quickly and has stayed in remission now for 7 years.

My suggestion to you is to look at the time when the spot on your spleen first appeared (even though the doctor waited a year to tell you about it), think back 1-3 years before that time and ask yourself “What emotional “loss” or “shock” occurred in my life during that time?” “What completely unexpected event occurred?” “What loss or conflict occurred?”

It's traditionally been believed that cancers of all forms with the exception of leukemia originate on the Level of Consciousness of "Grief" (loss, self-devaluation or regret); however, this is changing in the metaphysical community now with the understanding that there is almost always a "shock or conflict event" involved in some way. I'll be interested to see if this pattern can be substantiated in your case.

If there is indeed an unexpected event or series of events, then we have a starting point to actually get down into the originating biological process, the meaning of the specific location in the body that the disease manifested in, and the subsequent negative emotions that are still active or can be triggered by additional stress.

Once we discover a starting point, then we can devise appropriate EFT set-ups to address the actual origins of the cancer, support your visualization work ("out, out damned spot"), and set intentions to keep that spleen that you want to keep for the balanced support of your immune system. I think you are doing excellent work and I know that EFT will work for you, if we can find the right door.

My very best to you,

Kim

Hi Jay

For what it's worth, this can be a self-esteem conflict relating to the blood or blood/body injury in some way. Some emotional conflict which is interpreted as an attack against the blood usually in some sense, it can even be the emotional interpretation of a blood transfusion. If you track back to before the doc was first aware of it, and look for emotional themes of that nature, you should find something to tap on. Best of luck

Hugs from Scotland

 - Stewart

God bless you Kim! 

I am so moved by the depth of your thought in consideration of my concerns.  Many of the conclusions you arrived at through your reading of my excessively rambling narrative were right on the nose -- one so right on the nose it might be said you bloodied it!  I do feel, in a very global way, that I can't have what I want, always seemed to receive so much less than my performance deserved.  Also, lingering somewhere in the shadows has been, and is, the feeling that I don't deserve what I want.  The word "performance" it appears was not a poorly chosen word.  There is also a feeling connected with the undeservedness of it all that there is a lack of authenticity about my being -- that I am sort of watching myself "acting" my way through life.  I've always lacked a basic connectivity with... what? reality?  I don't know....  Even in writing this there is a feeling of phoniness, of posing.  And, it all seems to be part of the same bland stew: Undeservedness and inauthenticity (if there is such a word).  I hope there can be found a sort of rambling, disjointed truth in all this.

 As far as the spot of cancer on my spleen goes, I wonder if I made it clear in my earlier posts that I have had three prior bouts of Lymphoma?  The onset of the Lymphoma was about ten years ago.  That was followed about every 2 to 2 1/2 years by another challenge.  As far as the emotional environment preceding each of these... they tend to blend one into the other -- except for the first and (by virtue of its nearness) last, this one, the spleen tumor.  As far as the first one goes, much had to do with the general stress inherent in the insurance business.  A few other things were "eating away" at my emotions, but they would be of the sort we saw a couple of people on Gary's EFT DVDs hum to him.  It was causing me a personal grief at least as profound as the financial stress I was undergoing.

My oncologist explained to me that Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (unlike other cancers), once it makes its first appearance, never leaves the person's body.  It just migrates from one lymph node to another.  I must admit that was one piece of information I'd rather not have gotten.  I think he saw it register in my face because he followed it with, "But, most people don't die of Lymphoma.  One fire gets put out and you wait for the next one to flare up."   He must have thought that was comforting.  To me it just begs the questions: What determines which lymph node the malignancy will glom onto?  And, how can one account for the time between "fires"?  With all the lymph nodes there are in the body why aren't there dozens of tumors springing up at the same time?  In a sense (and I'm just playing around with ideas here) the "land-lock" nature of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma might be a paradigm for the rampant stress bubbling away in some people's bodies.  In my case, the tightening of the jaws might be an outward symbol of it.

 Anyway, Kim, if any of this gives you some insight or points to a starting point for me, I consider it a blessing to hear about.  Thanks again for all you've done.

 Jay