Three months have passed, I see. The reason I don't post is because I'm happy... not all the time, obviously, but mostly. Happier, in fact, than I've been for years. My husband and I are getting closer and closer, my home life has settled down, and we are tackling the challenges around us reasonably well. If something blows up, it's quickly mended. Life is on the turn, a permanent turn, for the better.
I do EFT every day - it's part of my routine now. I've also taken up meditation, and find the two extremely complimentary. In fact tapping is a good way of reaching a more relaxed level very quickly. Relaxation means I get more things right - I work more efficiently, I communicate more effectively with my loved ones, and life is generally better. If something is bothering me, I tap it away with EFT and can get on with my day.
I'm going to do the EFT Level 1 training in July - not because I want to set up a commercial practice (I already have a vocation) but because I want to be more confident in using EFT with my friends and family. I realized at the weekend that I am quick to offer to help friends relieve their physical pains, such as headaches and toothaches, but shy away from applying EFT where the pain is emotional. There is still much I want to learn about, and do better, and training seems like the most time-efficient way to make a marked improvement.
I gather a handful of people are still dropping in here from time to time, which is why I thought I'd come back to let you know how we're all doing. But you can safely assume that if the blog is silent, the answer to that question is 'very well, thank you.'
I came to the blogosphere in distress, and leave in peace.
Blessings to every one of us.
6 comments:
It's good that you are happy now, and your path ahead clear. Please remember kindly those (some on your blogroll here) who still live with pain or distress, bravely and with difficulty.
I wouldn't forget you, signs, any of you. I send nothing but kind thoughts in the direction of all those still in pain or distress and truly hope that life gets better for you too. No-one deserves to suffer with ME: especially since it seems to fall more often than not on those who put everyone else before themselves. I haven't forgotten the sufferings of ME, and in fact my husband's health is still not as good as we would have it and he is still sometimes impaired - but it is nothing like the bad old days. The experience has been very painful - but what we have learned has been valuable. I wish all of you the best possible outcomes you can imagine; we'll be working towards ours in relative privacy now, but I shan't forget you.
I'm glad you've posted again too and glad you are all doing so well.
As Signs says there are still those of us out here who haven't had such a turnaround. I tried EFT too: downloaded the vids from the site you mentioned and the manual but all to no avail. Made no difference to me --- horses for courses ;-). Still, I'm sure you are sincere in your enthusiasm and in remembering those of us who have not been so successful.
Hope all continues to trive.
Cusp, hi, and thanks for your comment. I'm not surprised you weren't able get relief from EFT - my experience with my husband suggests that people with ME are too compromised, energy-wise, to be able to make it work when they self-apply. My husband couldn't get any results with it either. What has worked has been *me* doing EFT (both on myself, to allow me to handle things better, and with/for him). ME is such a complex and deeply embedded condition, affecting the very thing that EFT needs to work (your energy flow) that it needs necessarily to be worked on by someone else. Obviously a loved one is ideal because we come free (!) - a trained EFT practitioner is costly, and most people with ME have already tried too much alternative therapies (unsuccessfully and expensively) to want to try another. Plus there is always the possibility that the particular EFT practitioner you engage isn't able to find the right approach, which can happen.
I am only a beginner, and am still learning with respect to my husband's ME but can at least do enough to allow us to have a "normal" life and start to heal the damage that long-term illness (accompanied by a fierce depression) did to our relationship.
All I would say is, I think it is very hard - maybe impossible - for a person with ME to use EFT on their ME with any significant success. But if someone who loves you is able and willing to learn EFT, there is a possibility of finding a way through. However, it takes a lot of effort and dedication from that person, and they probably need to look towards getting advanced training!
There are, of course, different roads for everyone, and the one that has worked for us is not necessarily going to be the way through for others. And none of it is easy. ME is the biggest nightmare I could have imagined; and worse for the fact that so many people people still fail to take it seriously. For you, cusp, and all the other ME sufferers who have been so supportive to me over the last four years (on and offline), I pray you all find a way through to the better health that you all deserve. You will remain in my thoughts.
After reading your blog I am at a loss as to why you attributed your husbands obvious emotional problems to the neurological illness ME.
My husband's emotional problems were as a result of the ME. Though I do know a couple of ME sufferers who seem to handle it with great equanimity, he was unable to do so. He was very angry at what he felt was his life having been "taken away" from him and became depressed. This is a reasonably common reaction to having ME - and not an unreasonable one in the circumstances (he lost many things he valued as a result of ME). The fact that he had emotional problems with having ME, however, does not remove the fact that he had ME. GPs often make the same mistake, qualifying ME as some form of depression or a purely 'mental' illness, rather than recognising depression as a reaction to ME.
Because ME is so often misunderstood and, at worst, is categorized as some kind of psychiatric disorder, there is a need for it to be taken seriously. It is certainly a neurological disorder; one where both neurology and immune system are significantly impaired. My husband was extremely ill for four years with symptoms that are entirely consistent with ME. At times he could not get up and down the stairs in our house without great difficulty (including needing to use a stick for support) and could not undertake the simplest of activities without pain and exhaustion. He had breathing difficulties, persistent brain fog (he could not read a book for over two years), insomnia, pain and heaviness in his legs, extreme allergic reactions and many other of the ME symptoms you will no doubt be familiar with. His ME was no less real - physical, neurological, immunological - than the ME that you or someone close to you is experiencing.
Perhaps you doubt that he has/had ME because you cannot believe that he might have found a route to recovery as a result of this particular therapy. I appreciate your skepticism and would have shared it myself once upon a time. But our understanding of disease is about as limited as that of our forbears; we are understanding more and more that the body and mind are not separate but are inextricably interlinked.
Science is beginning to uncover evidence that many illnesses previously thought to be entirely physical have a strong emotional component. For example, in a recent 10-year study of 3000 people, women in marriages where they felt unable to express their feelings were 10 times more likely to die of heart disease than other women, even when all other risk factors including diet and smoking were account for (see the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine).
My belief is that by the end of the century we will understand that *all* illnesses (including cancer and MS) are to a significant extent psychosomatic - which is to say that what shows up in the body begins in the brain. This does not suggest we can 'think ourselves better' from serious illness, but there are certainly methods of electrical re-balancing (such as EFT) that are already making a significant positive difference to
sufferers of serious illness.
Dr Bruce Lipton, 20-years a cell biologist, gives a good and readable account of the new scientific discoveries in this area in his book "The Biology of Belief". There is growing evidence that we are not controlled by our genes but by our minds: our thoughts can affect gene expression, for example: we can "switch on" the genes implicated in certain diseases through our belief that we will get that disease (because it is 'hereditary'. As these discoveries filter into the mainstream, our thinking about the disease process will change.
All this is of small comfort to those currently suffering from ME (either directly or as a partner) and for that, I apologise. But there is great hope, I think, that as our understanding of ourselves as electrical (not just biological or chemical) entities advances over the next decade or so, ME sufferers will stop having to fight for ME to be taken seriously.
I hope you, too, find a way out of the nightmare of ME.
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