-
Deepak Chopra, MD
"EFT offers great healing benefits."
Emotional Freedom Techniques® Where emotional relief brings physical health
Self help method often works where nothing else will No Drugs Involved ~ High Success Rate
EFT Resources
Getting more out of a massage with mental EFT
Note: This article assumes you have a working knowledge of EFT. Newcomers can still learn from it but are advised to get our Free EFT Get Started Package or our Affordable DVDs for a more complete understanding. For more, read our EFT Info and Disclaimer Document.
Hi Everyone,
As Hassan Haider from South Korea says, "You can use the massage to identify pains in your body you might not have ever been aware were there - and then you can use EFT to tap them - and their underlying emotional issues - away."
Hugs, Gary
I had a wonderful massage last week, from a truly skilled and intuitive masseuse. Let me say that in the past whenever I have had a massage, I inevitably have places in my body of great sensitivity and / or pain. When a masseuse tries to go deep into my thigh, for example, my muscles instantly tense up and I don't get much out of the massage at that point. I freeze and lock up on the table - not fun. That kind of thing just tended to happen sometimes and, along with pain in various places, I just took those things for granted as part and parcel of a massage.
For example, my feet are typically quite painful and I have a hard time enjoying a foot massage without tensing, flinching, and my face scrunching up, usually while also groaning. I always figured - hey, that's what a massage is for, to pound on these pains, and maybe I'll get some relief!
I also tend to be a bit disassociated from my body and myself. I don't have a finely tuned awareness of what I am feeling on a moment-to-moment basis. When doing EFT, I often have trouble knowing what my level of intensity number is, for example - even when I'm tapping on a physical pain. And if I ask myself questions like: "If this emotion was located somewhere in my body, where would it be?" or "If this anxiety were linked to a memory..." I often have trouble coming up with any kind of answer. More to the point, I'm really still learning to be aware of myself, what my body is feeling and what it wants and needs, etc.
Getting back to last week's massage. I realized near the beginning of my massage that instead of just enduring the pain, I could start to tap on it. Furthermore, I wasn't even aware of how bad my lower back was hurting until he started kneading his fingers into my spine! I could identify one particular lateral muscle across my shoulder blades on each side, both of which were incredibly painful - a muscle I never would have noticed before, and certainly hadn't realized was so sensitive.
These are just two examples from the first 15 minutes of a 2 hour massage. I immediately started mentally tapping for the pain, round after round, starting with the pain in my lower back. By the time he had moved somewhere else and then back to my lower back ten minutes later, the pain was significantly lessened. Of course, in a clinical sense it's hard to say what was benefiting me more, his magic hands or the tapping, but in my experience I don't typically experience drastic pain relief over the course of a massage. Either way, I continued to use my masseuse's experienced hands as my own personal diagnostic tool for the trauma that I was storing in all the muscles of my body, and continued to mentally tap on whatever came up for me.
Lastly, I realized that a massage doesn't need to be painful! The whole thing can feel good, and there's no reason certain parts of my body "have to" hurt. Needless to say, I think it may have been the best massage of my entire life. I'm booking another one this week! I would suggest this idea to anyone who can identify with not necessarily being as aware of their bodies as they'd like to be. You can use the massage to identify pains in your body you might not have ever been aware were there - and then you can use EFT to tap them - and their underlying emotional issues - away.
Thanks,
Hassan Haider
