Barbara's inspiring breast cancer recovery. Her family doctor told her, “Your results are nothing short of miraculous.”

By Jeanine Crombé

Today, I would like to share with you a remarkable success story of one of my clients, Barbara. She used EFT to assist her in her breast cancer recovery with 9 surgeries, 8 rounds of chemo therapy, and 31 rounds of radiation.

Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2006 and doctors told her she had probably only 6 weeks to live. One of her friends told her about EFT, and advised her to learn EFT and learn it very fast!

It was at that point that I first met Barbara when she had signed up for an EFT Workshop. She was astounded by the eye-opening results with other workshop participants and with herself. These EFT results made her decide to include EFT in her healing treatment plan.

Barbara started EFT in February 2007 and used EFT twice a day from that day forward, and she tapped 'on everything', either by herself or with me.

I worked regularly with Barbara over the phone, because she lives 8 hours away. During her chemo treatments, she had violent reactions of vomiting and pain. We tapped on making friends with the chemo and intended that it would heal her body instead of destroy it. We tapped so her body would easily accept the chemo and control the pain. We also pre-paved the way with EFT before each treatment.

At the initial EFT workshop, I did a mini-session with Barbara in front of the audience about her husband who had recently passed away. This is a sample of some of the phrases that were included in this demo-session:

Even though I am still grieving for my husband…

Even though I still can’t believe he passed away so suddenly and left me behind, I try to accept that he is not with me anymore.

Even though I thought I was done grieving, I am amazed about all the unresolved emotions I am feeling right now, I choose to start finding peace somehow; I know in my heart I will always love him.

EB I am still grieving my husband

SE I still miss him so much

UE It is so hard to believe that he is gone

UN All this sadness in my heart

CH It happened so suddenly, I am still in shock somehow

CB All this heaviness in my chest

UA It is not fair that he left me behind, I feel so alone and helpless

BN Will I ever find inner peace again?

TOP OF HEAD I know he will always be with me in my heart

This is a sample of some of the phrases we used during the chemo treatments:

Even though I am so scared of this chemo and what it will do to my body, I love and accept me and my body.

Even though they told me I will get violently ill and have a lot of pain and I am so afraid, I deeply love myself and I try to accept where I am today.

Even though I don’t know how I am going to make friends with this poison, I am afraid it will destroy my body, I choose somehow to find the courage to start to become friends with the chemicals.

EB This fear of the chemo

SE This fear of what the poison will do to my body

UE This chemo is going to make me sick

UN I am afraid my hair will fall out

CH What about my finger nails and toe nails!

CB Who will take care of me?

UA Will my friends abandon me?

BN I won’t be able to work, who is going to take care of the bills?

TOP OF THE HEAD I am afraid I won’t be able to handle this intense pain

EB What if I would change my mind about what the chemicals will do to my body?

SE What if I would ask the chemicals to be my friends and heal me?

UE I want to live!

UN What if I would look at the chemicals differently?

CH I choose to believe that chemo will help me get rid of this cancer

CB I choose to see chemo as my ally

UA I instruct the chemicals to only go to the cells that are sick

BN I envision that the chemo is gentle to my body and that it gives me very little pain and discomfort

TOP OF HEAD I thank by body for easily accepting the chemo and for being so strong

We also pre-paved the way with EFT before each treatment. (We didn’t do this for the first treatment; however, we did do this for all of the subsequent treatments) This is a sample of some of the phrases we used for pre-paving’ the way:

Even though tomorrow I will have my second round of chemo, and I am afraid I will be violently ill, I choose to accept myself and my fears.

Even though I am terrified that this time is going to be worse than the first time, because that is what the doctors and nurses told me, and I believe them, I choose to believe today in my own power and in the power of what EFT can do for me.

Even though I am so afraid I will have a lot of pain and I will be in bed and suffer for many days, I choose this second round of chemo to be much easier on my body than the first one.  

EB I choose to release my fears about tomorrow

SE I accept I am terrified and I am tired of dragging along these fears

UE What if I can change my experience?

UN What if the pain is going to be much more manageable for me?

CH What if I am not going to be violently ill this time?

CB I choose to be able to handle this round of chemo easier and EFT is going to help me with that

UA Imagine I will recover much faster!

BN I choose to be able to eat already on the first day, and I know I can manage the vomiting with tapping

TOP OF HEAD I am in the process of healing my body, and I choose to have a significantly better experience tomorrow than the first time

As a result of this tapping, Barbara was able to eat on Day 2 instead of on Day 9.  With the first round of chemo, she vomited for 5 days and was bedridden. This time she didn’t vomit at all, and could manage the surges with EFT and did do some laundry on Day 2.

Her chemo treatments were scheduled in cycles of 3 weeks. After her eighth and last treatment, she was still able to walk in and out of the hospital on her own feet, while other patients in her cancer group needed a wheel chair, came with an ambulance, or didn’t come at all anymore….

The nurses were surprised at how well Barbara was doing after her last chemo treatment. They told her, ‘we don’t know what you are exactly doing with that EFT, but keep it up’. Barbara looked so much better than the other people in her cancer group that some people questioned if she actually had received chemo treatment at all! Her family doctor told her literally: Your results are nothing short of miraculous.

Barbara felt very much supported and likes telling her story to others about her amazing experience. We also did an experiment 3 weeks later (to satisfy a skeptic EFT newbie) at one of my EFT Retreats and tapped again surrogately, without Barbara’s knowing this time, and the EFT results were again astonishing for her!

Another aspect in Barbara’s story is how she used EFT to control the intense pain and how EFT was much more effective than any of her strong pain medication. Here's an example where we managed the actual pain:

Even though I have this lightning bolt of pain in the back of my left knee, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

We tapped on each point with the same phrase: this lightening bold of pain in the back of my left knee

Focus on how she felt about the pain: This is a sample of some of the phrases we used on how she felt about the pain:

Start tapping the Karate Chop for the Set-up:

Even though I am afraid that if this pain keeps up, I won’t be able to walk anymore, I deeply and completely accept myself and my left knee.

Even though I am terrified I will lose my quality of life if this pain gets worse, I accept how I feel even if I don’t like it.

Even though I would have a much easier time to get rid of this pain right away if my thinking was in a better place, I choose to stop judging myself and accept myself and my pain for now.

EB I am so afraid I won’t get rid of this pain

SE What if it gets worse?

UE It is so difficult to walk

UN I am getting impatient

CH I am worried I won’t be able to walk anymore like I used to

CB I feel sad about the loss of my quality of life

UA This remaining pain in my left knee

BN It is hard to get up and down the stairs

TOP OF HEAD I want to let go of my worries and my pain

We focused on the emotions located in that part of the body which is experiencing pain. This is a sample of some of the phrases we used:

Even though I have this anger in the back of my left knee, I accept who I am and how I feel.

Even though I have this resentment in the back of my left knee that I always have to do things alone and it seems like nobody ever really walks with me and supports me, I accept myself as a strong and independent woman.

Even though I have this sadness and I feel alone on this journey, I choose to remember all the people who are helping and supporting me right now.

EB This anger in the back of my left knee

SE I always need to do things alone and I feel resentful about that

UE Nobody supports me, I always need to walk alone in life, no wonder my knee hurts!

UN I feel alone on this journey

CH I feel sad

CB Most people have abandoned me now that I have cancer, and that makes me deeply sad, I thought they were my friends

UA Today I choose to be my own best friend

BN I choose to let go of my bothersome emotions so my knee can heal

TOP OF HEAD I choose to believe I am a strong and powerful woman, no matter what!

After the 8 chemo treatments, Barbara started radiation treatments. With radiation a person’s skin gets crispy, black, and splits open. With 31 rounds of radiation, Barbara could not prevent her skin from becoming black. However, with EFT she prevented her skin from breaking open and she avoided skin infection.  These are some sample phrases we included while tapping for the radiation treatments:

Even though I am still recovering from my chemo, I am not looking forward to these radiation treatments because they are so scary to me, I deeply and completely love and appreciate myself.

Even though they told me that my skin will become black, crispy and split open and I am so scared of infection, I deeply accept myself and the way I feel right now.

Even though I feel sad that I couldn’t prevent my skin from turning black, I still feel grateful I could prevent my skin from getting infected, and I love and appreciate all my efforts and courage in getting the best results possible in this scary situation.

EB Radiation is so scary

SE It is making my skin all black and crispy, I am so scared!

UE It seems I am able to prevent my skin from splitting open

UN I choose my skin to be able to handle all this aggressive treatment

CH I am so grateful for my strong skin

CB It is so hard to look in the mirror, I feel so sad and scared about the way I look right now

UA I feel completely emotionally spent, I want this to stop!

BN I thank God for giving me so much courage to go through this

TOP OF HEAD I choose to look into the future and know that one year from now I will feel so much better!

We also made an extensive inventory of all the trauma and emotional issues. We discovered, and are still working on major patterns and are still collapsing them with EFT.

In our tapping sessions and conversations, Barbara and I discovered that the underlying issues mainly revolved around feeling victimized. Barbara sees it as a triangle: whenever she felt victimized she saw on one hand a persecutor and on the other hand a rescuer. She discovered that the major issues of her life were entangled in this triangle of ‘persecutor – victim – rescuer’.

This provided us with a very good framework for tapping. One of the major patterns we discovered was that she often wanted to overextend herself and go well beyond the call of duty. In turn she was taken advantage of and taken for granted. This made her often feel like a victim with several people and circumstances. We tapped for her need to overextend herself and she discovered the underlying issue of ‘not feeling good enough’ or ‘not feeling worthy enough’. We discovered a lot of sadness, sorrow, and grief about the many significant losses in her life. Also the feeling of not being understood, or misunderstood played a very important role throughout our tapping sessions.

GC COMMENT: This is a good place to aim at the specific events in her life (eg, when specifically was she overextended or felt not good enough). These can be core emotional issues underlying the cancer.

On March 11th, 2008, doctors told Barbara she was cancer free! Even though they told her in October 2006 that she may have only 6 weeks to live!

Today, Barbara still uses EFT and keeps on improving her health, for instance, she has regained the majority of her vision by using EFT. Her scratchy voice recovered after 3 months of using EFT, but she still would love to sing again!

The end result was so powerful and life-altering for Barbara. Everyone, including doctors, nurses, and patients, clearly noticed how EFT made a tremendous difference in her healing process.

With deep gratitude to Gary and EFT,

Jeanine Crombé, B Ed