Using EFT and Recovering From Surgery

The Fountain of Youth World Summit with Rick Wilkes, EFT specialist and founder of thrivingnow.com.

KEVIN: What about, you know, and I think that some of your body worked deals with this because you were a massage therapist. What about someone who has surgery for something, say, for a knee injury or an elbow injury or a shoulder injury, and the doctor says to them, “Look, you’re not going to ever regain full range of motion?” Like, what can EFT do for someone who has experienced something like that, because I think this is one of the most fascinating things about it?

RICK: Oh it is. First of all, acknowledge that....

KEVIN: Oh, before you even say this, I want to say please to everyone out there. Please listen to this with an open mind because I know that some people might discount some of this stuff right off the bat, but please listen to this because there’s countless of examples for what it’s worth.

RICK: Oh, I don’t have problem with skepticism.

KEVIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RICK: In fact, I came to EFT not only as a massage therapist which to some may feel pretty squishy.

KEVIN: A-ha. Yeah.

RICK: I’m an electrical engineer and technologist by training.

KEVIN: A-ha.

RICK: I have decades of experience working with computers and designing processes and systems that need to work consistently and robustly and for me, EFT, if it did not provide the kind of consistent results that an engineer would find appealing, well, hmm, I wouldn’t be interested.

KEVIN: Ha! That’s a great point.

RICK: So, when I look at the energy of something, if I am in a doctor’s office and maybe half-dressed, feeling scared and a doctor says to me a long list of possible side effects of a medication or that these are the things that may go wrong or that may never would be restored as part of this surgery, we are in an altered state of consciousness.

KEVIN: A-ha.

RICK: Anytime that we’re in the presence of somebody that has authority, don’t we all feel a little bit different than our calm and confident self?

KEVIN: Yeah, absolutely.

RICK: Yeah. So let’s just first take the reality that doctors are now required to give you a whole slew of bad news that doesn’t apply to 99.9% of the people but they’re required by law to give you all this information in the interest of “informed consent.”

KEVIN: OK.

RICK: OK. Now, they also are looking at your body in a particular light. They do not necessarily appreciate the kind of intelligence that’s at work in the natural healing process because they come in at a point where your natural healing processes had been disturbed.

KEVIN: Sure.

RICK: They don’t even know what you might be capable of regenerating in terms of range of motion, flexibility, regeneration of the health and vitality of the joints of your body. So I’ll give you an example. It’s a personal example. I had back surgery, L5-S1 discectomy in 1999.

KEVIN: A-ha.

RICK: Now, I have spent a year in pretty intense pain before that surgery. I did not recover nearly as quickly as the doctor had said might be typical. But today, having used EFT and all the limiting beliefs about what that back injury might mean to me, the limitations that it might put on my flexibility, everything that I’ve heard about it. Today, my spine feels to me the healthiest it has ever felt. My spine at 13 was not nearly as healthy and vital as it is today. I am doing Zumba which is, if you are familiar with it, is a pretty high-intensity aerobics based upon Latin dance moves.

KEVIN: A-ha.

RICK: Well, there’s a lot of shaking of the low back and sacrum as part of Zumba.

KEVIN: Right.

RICK: And before I went to that class, there were some limiting beliefs about what was possible in my body that I addressed with EFT.

KEVIN: OK.

RICK: Today, I went to the class much more calm and confident and I’m seeing my body respond in a way that is certainly out, way outside the curve of what you normally see from people that had an L5-S1 surgery, even 7 or 8 years ago.

KEVIN: Got you. And why don’t you take us through to some of the things that you addressed with having, because I think, I think having a blueprint is so important because, you know, there’s probably a lot of people out there who have had certain injuries or certain, they have been told that they are limited. And why don’t you take us through a process that can say “Hey, you know, this is what you might want to attempt to do, you know, just try it and see what happens.”

RICK: Now, I suggest that first, people be comfortable with the idea of baby steps.

KEVIN: OK.

RICK: We’re not necessarily going to jump right out of a plane, OK? There is an evolutionary process. If you want to be a skydiver, they are going to take you to ground school.

KEVIN: Yeah.

RICK: And, what I say is, OK. What is this first limitation that you think you that have, based upon this surgery? And one of them that immediately came to mind is “I have to be careful.”

KEVIN: OK.

RICK: A-ha.

KEVIN: Great. Yeah. OK.

RICK: So, I felt like, “Ahh, I’ve got to be careful. I don’t want to reinjure myself.”

KEVIN: And be careful in terms of just anything, correct?

RICK: Anything.

KEVIN: Yeah.

RICK: Right. Anything. I have to be careful. There is this sense of “Hmm, I really can’t explore the edges of experience. I have to be in a more narrow comfort zone.” So, I did some tapping even though I feel like I have to be careful.

KEVIN: A-ha.

RICK: I’m open to the possibility that my back is stronger and more flexible than ever.

KEVIN: OK.

RICK: Alright. And as I did the tapping around, feeling the need to be careful, what I felt was my comfort zone expanding. Now that didn’t mean that I immediately left to doing breakdancing.

KEVIN: Right.

RICK: Right?

KEVIN: Right.

RICK: What I did is I started to explore. I started doing some dance around my studio. I put on some music, I started exploring the movement. Now the next thing that came up, Kevin, was when I was sore the next day. Now, who doesn’t try something new and feel a little sore the next day, right?

KEVIN: Yeah.

RICK: But if you’ve been through a year of chronic pain or you’re just starting to move back into a more vital activity, well, you’re going to be sore, and yet it triggered a sense of uh-oh. There was just a sense that there was no logical reason for it. My doctors aren’t telling me “Don’t do this.” Never go against the doctor who is saying “don’t do this” during the early stages of recovery.

KEVIN: Sure. Yeah.

RICK: You know. We’re not suggesting that you be stupid.

KEVIN: Yeah.

RICK: But your body has an intelligence and as you soothe the energy around it, like uh-oh. Once I soothe that energy, guess what, when I put my hand on my back, my back said “Oh, I feel good.” I said “Really?” It said “Yeah.” It is a little bit sore but we weren’t working on some scar tissue here, Rick. We’re just loosening that up. It’s starting to feel pretty good.” And I said “Well, OK. What might help soothe you a little bit?” And my back said, “Well you know, a little warm compress might feel really good right now.” And I went and took a nice hot bath and I put some warmth on my back and my back said “Oh, that’s really good.” Now here is the key. EFT helped clear the noise, this fear. And then, you’re listening to your own body’s intelligence.

KEVIN: A-ha.

RICK: You’re not trying to force your body to take huge leaps because “I have something to prove.” That's not the way the body's intelligence works. What it is, is if the noise is up, the fear is up, soothe that using EFT and then very intelligently listen to your body and say, “Well, what would be good for you right now?” Oh, five minutes of dance and movements.

KEVIN: A-ha.

RICK: Maybe a couple of jumping jacks might be good. “Hey look at me, I’m more strong and vital than I thought.” How about doing a gastroc stretch.

KEVIN: Uh-hmm.

RICK: I haven't been able to do that for a long time. That feels pretty good. How many should I do? Three? Well. Why not 12? I'm going to push it to beat the - that's where another aspect of this can be helped with EFT. That sense that you're having to fix yourself; the sense that, “Well, I was broken before and now I have something to prove.”

KEVIN: Huh.

RICK: That is just as much of a block to you, really enjoying your body, Kevin, if you're feeling limited. It's the whip aspect that so many people who want to be at peak performance, believe that you have to really push beyond, push beyond. If somebody is a pusher like that and they find themselves repeatedly being injured in little or big ways, that's an area to deal with with EFT as well. What's the belief that says you have something to prove rather than a life to enjoy.