Being persistent with a headache pays off after many seeming failures

By Linda Wood

Article: A few months ago, I was driving from Iowa to Minnesota, a four hour drive, to stay overnight in a motel before flying out the next morning for the Denver Masters Boot Camp.  With the conference in mind, and trying to find ways to pass the time while driving by myself, thoughts of EFT were running rampant.  Suddenly, I found myself focused on the thought, ‘When EFT doesn’t seem to work.’

I began scanning my memories back over the numerous EFT sessions that I’ve done throughout the past several years and thought to myself, “You know, I can’t remember a time when EFT didn’t work.  It might not do exactly what we want or expect but I feel it always does SOMEthing.”

Eventually my mind wandered off into other directions.  Before long I had arrived at my motel.  I parked the car, got out some of my luggage and headed for the check-in desk.

Blocking the entrance was a young man with a darling little dog.  I suddenly realized the dog could be a Chihuahua.  I excitedly asked him, “Oh, is this a little Chihuahua?”  He said, “Yes.”  I then went on to explain that my son and his wife have one and they are so into them that they even go to monthly Chihuahua meets so their little dog can play with other Chihuahuas. 

By this time, the little dog had come over to me and was brushing against my legs.  I then said, "Wait a minute.  This is not a 'normal’ Chihuahua.  They aren’t usually this friendly."  In fact, I have to bribe my granddoggie with Cheerios to get her to come to me.  He said, "Oh, mine’s pretty friendly because I take her everywhere I go, but she is being extra friendly today."

Instinct said that the little dog wanted me to pick her up so I did.  This is not something I would normally do, as dogs can be so temperamental.  I thought that she must need some healing and must recognize that I could help her.  So I stroked her and sent energy to her as she quickly nestled right down into my arms just like a little baby, enjoying every minute of it.  After a few minutes, I put her down, bid my farewells and went on to check in.

I took my luggage up to the room, then came back down to get the rest of my stuff out of the car.  Now the man and his dog were sitting inside the lobby of the motel.  He called out to me as I walked by and asked if I had some aspirin.  Bingo.  Open door for EFT.  I grinned slyly and said, "I’ll look and see if I can find some but would you be willing to trying something really daft first?  I have a really strange tapping technique to try for things like headaches and would just like to see what it will do for yours if it’s OK with you?"

He chuckled and said, "Sure, why not?!"  I then asked him to describe his headache to me:  "Hammer beating against my head."  "What number (what level of intensity)?"  He said, "A 9 (on a scale of 0 to 10)."  I said, "OK, just do what I do and say what I say and we’ll see what happens." He readily agreed and began following me as I led him through the tapping and repeating his former words about the hammer beating. 

We did one round before I asked him to check and see what had happened.  He said, "It came down to a 7, then shot back up to a 9 out of 10." (Hmmm…bigger piece spiking up here.)  Rather than try to go after those emotions, instinct said to continue going with the pain.  Two more rounds and it just wouldn’t budge. I asked, "OK, is there anything bothering you lately?  What’s been going on in your life?"

"No, nothing at all," he said.  I asked, "How long has it been since you’ve had some water to drink?" "Yesterday," he said.  "Would you mind going and getting a drink of water for me?" He did, and came back with half a bottle of water left.  We continued with another couple of rounds.  "No change," he said.

My next step was to tap ON him rather than with him.  Suddenly he began to get very nervous.  He said, "I’ve GOT to check my blood sugar.  I’m diabetic."  By this time I was thinking back to how my thoughts on the way there had been about when EFT doesn’t work.  I thought, "Oh, oh.  This might be one time it doesn’t work.  Oops.  Best watch what I’m thinking about in the future."

He got out his paraphernalia for checking his blood sugar and did his thing.  Eventually he said, "Oh, that’s weird.  My blood sugar reading, is normal!"  I asked how long has it been since it’s been normal.  He said, "I don’t even remember the last time it was normal."  "Hmmm….So it IS doing SOME thing," I thought.

I again asked him, "Are you sure there isn’t something bothering you?"  "No, nothing.  My truck is in the shop but it’s still under warranty so that’s no problem."  OK, keep going, I thought.  I asked him a few more questions about how often he gets the headaches, etc.

Next round went something like, Even though I get these headaches often and they are very intense yet nothing is bothering me, I don’t know where they come from or why I get them, I totally accept myself. 

Something began to loosen in his energy system with this round and he suddenly offered, "Well, a few months ago I was in the hospital for a week with my diabetes, my Dad died, my wife asked for a divorce (and of course, I knew his brand new Semi was in the shop) but I‘m all perfectly OK with all that."  I thought, "Ah ha!  Nothing wrong eh?"

Having been almost ready to give up until this recent stuff suddenly bubbled up, I then suggested that we try a couple more rounds and if it didn’t change then I’d find the aspirin for him.  He agreed.  I’m sure that by this time even he was thinking this was enough of this silly stuff.

I started the next round with:  Even though I have all these things that have happened yet nothing is wrong because I’ve shoved them all into my head and they are beating like a hammer trying to get my attention,  I love and accept myself and all this stuff.

As we kept tapping through the points I asked him about his wife divorcing him.  Oh, that’s OK; I’m over that - no problems.  I suggested we just try a round on that to make sure there’s nothing there (that didn’t bring up anything).

How about seeing your children?  Oh, she will let me see them as much as I want (we did a round on that - no visible emotion or bubbling thoughts on that).  He was still rating the headache at a nine out of 10.  How about Dad dying?  "Oh, that’s OK – we made our peace.  I left home at the age of 10 but we had time to make up before he died."

Again, ready to admit defeat, I said, "Well, if I give you an aspirin, how long will it take for it to work?"  He said it would probably be at least a day or two before the headache would go away, even with taking regular doses of aspirin.  And if he didn’t take anything it might last for two or three days.

I said, "OK, let me just give you an aspirin, then we’ll do one more round to check out the ‘dad stuff’ and if that doesn’t bring anything up we’ll call it quits if that’s alright."  He agreed.

Even though I left home at the age of 10, my Dad and I did have a chance to make our peace, and I love and forgive myself and I love and forgive my Dad for all those years of misunderstandings.  I now know that Dad was doing the best he could, given his circumstances and I was doing the best that I could given my understanding of the world at that time.  I’m grateful for having the opportunity to make up with my Dad before he died.  I do forgive him.  I know I couldn’t have gotten along with my stepmother anyway.  That wasn’t Dad’s fault.  I love and forgive him for anything that might have been left unsaid or undone and I forgive myself for the same.  We love and accept ourselves and are lucky to have had the opportunity to make our peace.  (Two or three rounds on the love and forgiveness.)

Suddenly, he again became very agitated and said, "It‘s still a nine and I’ve got to go to the restroom.  I’ll be right back."  I watched as he walked towards the restrooms and thought to myself:  "Well, I’ve done all I can do for now.  I’ll just wait for him to come back and I’ll tell him that’s the best I can do for today and I’ll be on my way.  Maybe there are times when it just doesn’t work.  Maybe I‘ve brought this to myself by previously thinking about it."

Suddenly he started back across the motel lobby shaking his head, turning it, bending with it and eventually he looked at the motel clerk and said, "Wow, I don’t believe this.  This is weird.  I can’t believe this is happening.  It’s all gone!  It’s just not there!"  He walked back to where I was and sat down, still gently shaking his head and said, "You should get some flyers to hand out or something.  This stuff is amazing.  I‘ve never had this happen before."

I thought to myself, "Hallelujah!"  I wished him well and went on my way.

The whole time I was working with this man and sometimes tapping on him, the little Chihuahua lay right next to him in his chair, head down on his paws yet totally alert as to what was going on as if he was thinking, "I knew you could help him."

However, one interesting thing that the Chihuahua did was that every time I was tapping on this man and came to the underarm point, the Chihuahua would rise up and kind of snap just a little as if to say, "Don’t tap that point."  She didn’t mind the hands, the wrist, or any other points near her so it couldn’t have been because it was too close to her.  That was the only spot.  Once I noticed that I tested it about two or three more times to see if the Chihuahua reacted the same each time and she did.

Had the Chihuahua not gotten my attention in the first place, I might never had stopped to chat with this man and he might never have asked me for an aspirin.  Bet he thinks twice before asking a stranger again!  

Lessons in all this for me were, Persistence!  When a pain goes down then spikes back up, a new and bigger piece is trying to get our attention.  When it stays there, it’s saying, "You’ve not yet gotten to the piece!"  Every time there was a shift in energy, this man began to get agitated and needed to move or do something.  When he got up to go to the restroom at the end, he was still a nine.  As he walked back it suddenly all dissolved and was gone!

Linda Wood

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