Joanna's shoulder pain was not really strong, but working on it allowed Joanna to address deeper decision making issues. Here is how...

Joanna got curious one day as I was talking about EFT to someone else. Since she was showing interest in knowing more about this seemingly magic practice, I asked her if by any chance she wouldn't have some sort of physical discomfort, so I could demonstrate to her what I was talking about. She said that she had a slight pain in her shoulder and lower back, which she rated as a 4 (0 to 10 SUDS scale).

I explained the principle and showed the points very briefly, and just asked her to repeat after me whatever I would be saying, and to imitate my gestures.

She was really focused, as we went through :
"Even though I have this pain in my shoulders and in my back, I completely love and accept myself".
keeping a standard reminder phrase "this pain in my shoulders".

I couldn't really ask Joanna to re-rate her pain after the first round, since she was more interested in noticing that she actually felt it a bit more acute now in her left shoulder. I had discussed the "chase the pain" process earlier on in the conversation, so despite Joanna's quizzical look, this showed consistency between the theory and the practice. Something was definitely happening!

The second round used the "choice method", together with a little bit of humour to take in consideration her reaction, which can only help :

"even though I still have this pain in my left shoulder, and this process really does look ridiculous, I still love and accept myself completely, and I choose to release that pain".

Reminder phrases now included a variation from the initial statement (the remaining pain, the fun part of it, and mainly the choice to release).

We got more progress there, and the pain got down to about a 2. We did another round on the same idea, and that was the pain done with... except that she could now feel "nodes" on the back of her left shoulder, while before it was a diffuse tension mainly on the top of her shoulder.

"even though I have this tense nodes on my left shoulder, I love and accept myself, and I chose to untie these nodes and release the pressure."

The node disappeared conveniently, but when Joanna moved her left shoulder, it was now cracking. Apparently an usual reaction when Joanna had had a tense back for a few days. She was now ready to believe anything was possible, but still looked at me doubtfully, as we went on :
"even though my left shoulder is cracking when I move it, and that might be a bone and cartilage issue, I still love and accept myself completely and I choose to move my shoulder freely... and silently".

Actually, I did think I might be pushing it a bit far, but as we were taping, I informed her that we do "try it on everything", so why not! Testing her shoulder, the crack was still there but definitely lighter.

I went on asking if she had any idea about where all this tension came from. Actually, she had a very good idea. She had to choose between 2 job offers, and would have liked to get the two, since they both presented very positive sides, but it was totally incompatible.

"even though I need to make a choice and I can't, I love and accept myself completely, and I choose to trust myself is making the decision that is best for me and for everybody else."

We didn't tap much after these 2 rounds. I explained about the palace of possibilities and suggested that she'd identify the "writing on her walls" and start taping on them one by one. While writing her diary, she already had noticed some of her thinking patterns (I'm thinking too much, I can't decide....), without realising how restricting they could be to her.

As the conversation went on, Joanna came to realise that making choices had been a recurrent issue in her life, from an early age. We were interrupted by another friend, but I'm looking forward to hearing from her successes with her palace of possibilities, and I'm delighted to have a new EFTer in the world!

Keep tapping!

Christine