by Russell Cunningham
Verena and I enjoy working together in our self development business, but in 2005 when she spent a month in Switzerland it wasn’t easy. I was running the business, seeing my clients and some of Verena’s. I had a dog with 9 puppies to care for, and a fourteen your old stepson, who was more hindrance than help. I was working over 16 hours each day, and getting about 5 hours sleep.
I had an upcoming workshop in Shepparton for a group of 50 people. It’s usually a two-day seminar that I ran for smaller groups, but I was condensing it into half a day. I needed time to edit the content, but I was too busy. As the day approached I became anxious because I wasn’t really prepared. At one point I even imagined having a car accident on the way and phoning to cancel the seminar.
It was 5am the morning before I was due to deliver the seminar, when I woke up drenched in sweat. There was severe pain in my right kidney. The blood in the toilet bowl confirmed that I had a kidney stone. I had a similar problem about 15 years earlier. It was a serious condition, and I was in hospital for several weeks on a drip with antibiotics.
Next thing I knew I was in an ambulance on my way to hospital. Karen the ambulance officer was drawing a syringe and said, “This is morphine for the pain.” I said, “No, I don’t want that.” I knew that if I took the morphine I might avoid the symptoms, but I also would avoid having the learning. Then I would have to create some other uncomfortable situation to get the lesson.
So there I was in the ambulance trying to use EFT and other techniques for my condition, but I wasn’t able to focus. I wasn’t feeling any better when I got to hospital. Again, they wanted to give me Morphine and Maxilon, but I knew I needed to clear this myself.
Then I remembered how Eckhart Tolle talked about the pain body, and becoming the observer of the pain. I imagined stepping out of my body to observe the pain, and asked “ what is the learning to be gained from this pain?” The answer from within was loud and clear. “Gratitude”
I gave thanks for the healing and tapped two rounds using EFT, and the pain was gone instantly. For the first round of tapping, I said, “Even though I have this pain in my kidneys, I accept and love myself deeply and completely.” For the second round I said, “Thank you for this healing.”
I felt my kidney in disbelief. I rubbed to see if the pain would come back, but it was gone. I told the nurse I was feeling fine, and wanted to go home. She said, “No, we have to do scans. We got your blood and urine tests back. You have infected kidneys and probably have kidney stones.” I said to myself, “I had kidney stones.” The nurse said, “We’ll have to do scans later this afternoon.” She was surprised when I said “I’ll be in Shepparton by then.”
I came home, passed a kidney stone, took a shower, dressed and went to Shepparton. The workshop went well. No one there knew about my condition until the end, when I shared this experience with them.
Kidney conditions are often about fear or anxiety, and kidney stones may be associated with unresolved anger. I had both at that time. I had the anxiety of doing the talk that I wasn’t prepared for in front of a large group of people. I also had the anger and frustration with my stepson who wasn’t helping with the puppy toilet training, and I was overwhelmed with work as well.
EFT is an amazingly powerful tool, but clarity and focus are needed in order for it to be effective.
Russell Cunningham is Director of Australian Institute Of Self Development Phone 03 97 222 678 www.selfdevelopment.com.au
He and his wife Verena run EFT workshops and are NLP Masters. Russell is also an NLP Trainer, business and personal success coach. He employs Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to help people overcome obstacles and reach their full potential in their career and personal lives.
Posted by Angie Muccillo 
