Saturday, June 02, 2012

update on EFT

Last week I learned that modified EFT really helps me. Six years ago, I learned that straight-up EFT really pissed me off.

What I learned comes from Planet Thrive, which is one of the good EI sites, which means positive instead of oh-my-god-we're-all-going-to-be-sick-forever. A guy who goes by 'T-Can' did DNRS like I did, but after a while he got stuck. My progress lately has been as good as stuck, even though I'm a lot better than I was. His solution, instead of inching forwards, was to try something else, so he tried EFT and WHEE and HAMR. I freely admit that I don't yet have a clue about WHEE and HAMR, but his version of EFT totally works for me. You don't have to say any stilted phrases. You tap various accupuncture points while singing the first line of 'Happy Birthday' (or a similar simple something) and then counting to five. Maybe if I hadn't tried DNRS first it wouldn't have worked, but with that as a background, the procedure is easy, I understand the point, and there's a part where you get to pat yourself on the top of the head. (What can I say -- I'm easily amused.)

So now I'm sleeping with an ordinary polyester pillow for the first time since 2004, and I have to say that it is a huge step up from a rock-hard balled-up organic cotton blanket for a pillow. I use power tools without fear that I will remove fingers or lose an eye. I can run two miles cross-country without stopping one day and go for a bike ride the next day, where my husband says I keep up better than I have in years. I sat in a doctor's waiting room for half an hour that two weeks ago I left immediately, despite my success repeatedly sitting in an accounting classroom last semester. (Seriously, I don't know what that doctor's patients do with their spare time, but it smells like they recreationally soak themselves in bug repellant.)

The biggest change for me is that when I feel weird, I can do the tapping, or just some of the tapping (the points on your hands are inconspicuous), and I feel normal. Not like I normally felt up until last week, but just straight-up normal. That little edge of tension that I just couldn't conquer goes away. I haven't felt normal since 2005, and I distinctly remember it. It lasted for about three hours after an acupuncture visit that cost $50, and since no one can afford $50 twice a day and maybe once at night seven days a week, what I'd heard was that acupuncture treated symptoms, and feeling normal for a little while gave you the confidence to go make yourself really, really sick before you saw the acupuncturist again.

All I have to do now is catch up on things like deferred house maintenance and figure out what I want to do when I grow up -- accounting or engineering. One of my doctors remarked that engineers are old and sick by the time they retire, but people who work for themselves can work at a reasonable pace until they're eighty, so those extra years in school might be totally worth it.