Carpal Tunnel Relief with EFT

Here’s a 5 minute “Carpal Tunnel Quickie” from Gary Craig that you might find useful:

Early this morning I walked into a local real estate agent’s office and saw “Karen” wearing a brace on her wrist while working at the computer.  Here’s how the conversation went…

GC:  Does that brace mean you have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

Karen: Yes, it’s really bad and my doctor thinks I need surgery.

Note:  I hardly ever see Karen (we have a passing acquaintance) and she didn’t know anything about EFT.  Until this morning she didn’t even know it existed.

GC:  There’s a new muscle relaxing procedure that might help.  It’s gentle and is modeled after an Einstein discovery.  [offering her my hand]  Stand up.  Let’s give it a try for a few minutes.

Karen:  Sure.  I’ll try anything.

GC:  There’s about a 50% chance it will help you and it only takes a few minutes to find out.  It takes longer to explain it that it does to do it so just follow along with me.

Karen:  OK, but I would at least like a hint about what you are doing.

GC:  Sure, Einstein discovered in the 1920’s that everything, including our bodies, is composed of energy.  What I’m going to do is stimulate certain known “energy points” by tapping on them with my fingertips.  By doing this we balance the energy in your body and, if successful, it should relax some of the muscles in your body, including those in your wrist.  The result would be less pain.

Karen:  OK…but it sounds weird.

GC:  I know and maybe it IS weird.  But you can take comfort in the fact that no one has ever accused me of being very smart.

Karen:  [laughs]

I then assess her 0-10 intensity and she reports a pain of 7 as her arm hangs normally to her side and a pain of 10 when she bends her wrist backward as though typing.

GC:  [doing the set up while tapping on the karate chop point]  Repeat after me.  “Even though I have this pain in my wrist….”

Karen and I then go through the EFT shortcut process for “this pain in my wrist”.  The result?  NO CHANGE IN HER PAIN.  This is when it is good to have a preframe such as “There’s about a 50% chance it will help you.”

GC:  Sometimes our physical ailments are contributed to by angers, fears and that sort of thing.  I don’t know if that is true with you…and maybe you don’t either…but it is worth a try.  Follow after me [doing the set up while tapping on her karate chop point]  “Even though I may have anger, fear, guilt or who knows whatever emotion….”

From here we did a shortcut round for “any anger, fear, guilt or other emotion I might have”.  The result?  Her 0-10 intensity dropped from a 7 to a 3 as her arm hung normally at her side.  It also dropped from a 10 to a 5 as she bent her wrist back as though typing.  Included in this result was that frequent astonished look that we have become so accustomed to see.

Karen:  What happened?

GC:  I guess we got lucky.  Let’s go a little deeper.  Of all the emotions I mentioned a few moments ago which of those might be a little more current?

Karen:  Anger.  I’m really p_ssed at my husband.  He’s been an absolute jerk lately.

GC:  What’s your husband’s first name?

Karen:  “Robert”.

GC:  OK.  Let’s do a round for your anger at Robert.  Repeat after me [doing the set up while tapping the karate chop point]  “Even though I’m p_ssed at Robert and that anger is in my wrist….”

We then finished the EFT shortcut round while tapping for “Robert in my wrist”.  The result?  The 0-10 intensity fell to 0 as her arm hung normally at her side and it fell to 2 when she bent her wrist back as though typing.

All that in less than 5 minutes.

At this point we terminated our mini-session because her phone rang and people walked into her office.  About 5 hours later I was in the vicinity and poked my head back into her office.

GC:  How’s the wrist?

Karen:  The improvement is still there.  What did you do to me?

GC:  Maybe it was magic (smiling).  You can call me Weird Willy from now on if you want.

Karen:  Count on it.

We both smiled and went about our day.  Please note that her Carpal Tunnel Syndrome may or may not “come back”.  If it doesn’t then hooray—no surgery.  If it does then it is most likely because other emotional stressors are “lodging” in her wrist.  In other words, her wrist, being a weak point in her body, may be acting as a barometer for her various unresolved negative emotions.  At least that’s my non-medical conclusion from many years of experience.  While she will have to discuss these issues with her physician, she now has the opportunity to at least manage her pain with EFT.

Follow-up:  One year later I visited Karen in her office.  She was typing on her computer with no wrist brace and had not had a problem with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome since our brief session.

Rick comments: As a massage therapist as well as an EFT expert, I have seen so many times that using EFT to address the emotional aspects of chronic pain can bring significant relief on its own. It can also be combined with sensitive touch to assist the tissues to unwind (which can also often bring total relief to carpal tunnel pain). The combination of the two should be, in my opinion, the “do no harm” initial approach to this condition.

Discuss Carpal Tunnel Relief with EFT in the team member forum