prejudice

I know that as an analytical science nerd I have some serious prejudices against things that sound New Agey. Scientific and New Age minds have such different ways of looking at the world that a lot of the time they seem pretty much mutually exclusive. However, since I got sick, I have come to the conclusion that the middle of the road is the way to go. When the medical establishment blew off MCS, they handed treatment over to the 'New Age wackos,' and since, let's face it, most people don't have much of a scientific background, things got weird from a science standpoint. That's how you get a physicist who takes the concept of 'detoxing' very seriously; it's a New Age concept, but it works for my illness. (The concept of aromatherapy, on the other hand, makes me completely nuts. Don't get me started.)

So today we're going to address Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), in which I understand you tap yourself in various bodily locations and repeat something along the lines of "Even though I feel this anger, I deeply and completely accept myself." It's a negative emotion followed by a positive statement, so theoretically, by doing this persistently, you can get rid of that resentment from the time a bunch of jerks illegally brought a keg into the freshman dorm rec room and made so much noise you couldn't hear the Dolly Parton tv special you were watching. (Not that that still bothers me.)

According to these fantastic testimonials, EFT will change the world. And, as it says here on the front page, it's affordable and you can get started for free, which is always a big plus.

The upshot here is that I'm willing to accept that EFT helps some people, and if EFT helps a lot of people with MCS, I'm sure I'll hear about it and hop on the bandwagon, but now I'm going to tell you a secret. Months ago, I was having some trouble with some chemically-induced irrational anger, and someone I now know was an EFT person talked me into trying it. Think about the anger, tap yourself in this complicated fashion, and repeat the sentence you would, as a repressed nerd, never say out loud unless someone pushed you into it, and lo and behold:

I was really, freaking angry.