We have all experienced pain. Maybe a headache that sent us to bed, or a biggie like a car accident and our body is damaged and in pain. Our understanding of pain has been very 20th Century and is now just being looked at in depth. We see a physical issue using an x-ray or MRI and assume that that must be the reason for the pain. There is a broken bone or a degenerative disk. We can see it, so it must be so. But it is a lot more to do with how the brain understands pain.
An example of this is phantom pain. A person has lost their leg or arm, but still feels the pain in the amputated limb!! The pain is perceived in the brain, even though there is no longer pain in the limb.
MRI studies have been done on people with back problems and probable degenerative disks. The studies showed that there was no correlation between the amount of degeneration and the level of pain reported.
Now I want to say very clearly, I believe that modern medicine is wonderful, and I am so glad to live in a time where we have access to modern medicine. If you hurt yourself in an accident go to the Doctor. They are your first port of call. Have the break set, get the cuts stitched up, if it is something like acute pneumonia, take the antibiotics.
But then it is time to look at the pain. There are some studies that suggest that up to 80% of the pain we feel after an accident is emotional, not part of the injury. Some people are still suffering pain 30 years after an accident. Chronic pain, where the only help is more painkillers. What is going on here? What is getting in the way of the healing?
I was visiting a friend and she was in so much pain with her back that she was unable to get out of the chair without excruciating pain. I suggested we tap on it. She rolled her eyes, but agreed (she was in that much pain, that anything was worth a try) I asked her when the pain first arrived. When her mother became very sick a few years before. But the pain had slowly gone. Then it came back 4 weeks ago, and now she could hardly move and nothing she did before was working. So, what happened 4 weeks ago? Her mother had died about 2 months ago and 4 weeks ago was when they had finished packing up her Mum’s home!! The pain had come back worse than ever. We tapped on the grief, the sadness, the feelings around her mother becoming sick. We tapped for about 10 mins. The phone rang, and she got up to answer it with no problems at all. She didn’t even think about it. She came back after the call and looked at me with a quizzical look. “I just did that, didn’t I? I just got out of the chair and walked across the room with ease. What just happened?”
We are working on all levels of the body. We use aids such as a plaster cast to help hold the bones still so the body can heal itself. We use stitches to pull the skin together so that the body can heal itself. And when you heal the emotions, you can free up the energy in the body, so it can heal itself. We use the tapping to clear up the energy, to clear the trauma, to get it out of the way, and let the body heal.
If you have been in pain for the past 1 year or 30 years we can tap on the initial injury, we can tap on the initial trauma that caused the injury, and all that has happened in the years since you’ve been in pain.
If you have been in pain for a long time, you wake up in the morning and you look for the pain. You expect it. Your brain is searching for it.
With that question, when the body feels pain when it finds that same negative experience of the pain, the amygdala is firing that fight or flight response, it is firing the stress response. Pain itself is a stressful issue. It is no fun at all. You are hurting, and you can’t do what you want to do. You feel angry that the pain is stopping you. All these things pile up on top of each other. And then you experience chronic pain, this is happening day after day.
When we do the tapping, we calm the amygdala, we calm the nervous system in the body and actually tell it that it’s safe to release, tell it that everything is going to be ok, the body relaxes, it opens up the flow of energy and this lets the body heal in so many different ways.
Maybe the injuries were sustained in a car accident. There are the actual physical issues that were sustained, but also, the trauma of the car accident, the fear, and anxiety. But often much more. It’s the reaction, the emotional reaction, to the events around the accident. Research suggests that there is a period of 24 hours after a significant event when the brain encodes the event. This means that you are in an accident and you are hurt, you have whiplash. Some people heal from whiplash, some people don’t. The difference could be the experiences that you have next. The jerk of a person who treats you, and you get angry with them, now you have a negative memory being encoded with the whiplash.
Children have accidents regularly. They might bump their head. The reaction of those around them will be encoded. Some will laugh it off, others panic. That initial reaction becomes part of us when we get older.
When the accident happens, you might have the experience of a Doctor saying, we will never be able to do something. Imagine, you are feeling week and vulnerable and this smart person says, “you will always have this problem” Talk about a limiting belief. Those beliefs become part of your expectation.
I injured my back severely when I was 14 years old and spent many months in hospital unable to walk or move very much. I do remember the Doctors saying that I might not be able to walk again, but being 14, and knowing everything, I dismissed what they said, and walked out of the hospital. How lucky was I to not take on their pessimism? I did take on the belief that I would be in pain for the rest of my life. I have finally eliminated that belief too. All my back pain has gone over the past few years, except when I get stressed and it is amazing how quickly it will come back, in exactly the same place!!!
Using the power of tapping we can change the experience of pain.
Tap on those limiting beliefs. What have you been told about your issues? What do you believe is true about your pain?
What was the diagnosis of your pain? What do you think about that diagnosis and how do you feel. Do you feel angry, sad, depressed or can’t believe that you have this diagnosis?
The meaning and the interpretation that we have around the event is affecting the pain in our body. Tap on all those issues.
Give me some pain relief NOW
Sometimes the pain can go away instantly, and I have seen that time and time again. The 1-minute wonders in the tapping world and they are so exciting, but that does not always happen. Sometimes the pain will go from a level 8 to a 6. This is exciting, it means the shift is possible. Even a shift from an 8 to 7 means that something is moving. If this is what happens don’t get discouraged. This means that it is opening the door. Get excited about what is possible. When you start addressing these issues around pain relief and go deeper, you explore exactly what’s going on and the possibility for not only the pain to going away but for your life to transform. I see this when people explore these issues, when they clear past traumas and anxieties and this chronic pattern of stress, everything that might be getting in the way and causing the pain can change. Your life will be so different. I know that pain relief is the first goal, and I get it, but so much more is possible beyond that.
You are able to release the pain and also create a new abundant life for yourself. Commit to tapping on the issue every day. Take it one little step at a time. Say to yourself that you will release one more little bit each day, around pain relief, around the diagnosis around the anger and around what happened. Just set the goal to let go of one little thing a day. The next thing you look back a month later and you’re a new person.
Click here if you would like a video to follow to help you when you are feeling pain.