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February 2021: The woman comes in with pain in her left shoulder that radiates into her upper arm. Rotating her upper arm in the shoulder joint and abducting her upper arm are only possible to a limited extent and cause pulling, stabbing pain. She is no longer able to open her bra clasp at the back because her left shoulder joint is severely restricted in its mobility. She has had these symptoms for about a year. Physiotherapy and physical therapy have not brought any improvement so far. The shoulder joint is part of the musculoskeletal system and thus belongs to the new mesoderm.

What had happened? The left shoulder of a right-handed woman is a self-esteem conflict with the theme “I am a bad mother or a bad child.” We quickly found out why she believed she was a bad mother and what led to this conflict being resolved a year ago: her husband was an alcoholic and three years ago it got so bad that she decided to move out of their shared home with the children, also for their protection. She moved into an apartment with the children. The children suffered greatly from their parents' separation, and she had not expected them to miss their father so much. After she moved out, her husband began rehab. Then, in early 2020, the whole COVID madness began. The couple decided to move back in together for the sake of the children, partly because he was now sober. That's when her pain in her left shoulder began. Due to the vicious cycle of recurring local relapses (you repeatedly damage your self-esteem with your shoulder because you have pain and your shoulder is therefore “useless”), the pain became chronic and increasingly restricted the mobility of her left shoulder joint.

We worked on her shoulder for a good half hour using EFT. Afterwards, the mobility of her shoulder was restored and she was pain-free. She could reach behind her back with her left arm again and reach the bra clasp with her hand. Comparing both sides, there was no longer any difference between her left and right arms after the EFT treatment. The EFT rounds focused largely on feelings of guilt, self-judgment, and shame. But we also addressed the symptom itself and associated beliefs such as “I've tried everything—nothing has helped so far” or “the physical therapist said that all my muscles in the shoulder and neck area are hardened” or “I can't imagine that the pain will go away with a little tapping”—were also addressed and transformed into positive thoughts using EFT.