How I Healed My Sprained Ankle in Days

Doc Said It Should Have Taken 6 Weeks to Heal

By Angela Treat Lyon

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I had been in LA at a very intense CEO retreat, and decided to spend time afterwards at a friend's just resting and getting all the new ideas I had learned settled in. After a couple days, feeling a bit rested, I went out and started walking up to the local store, only 2 blocks away.

Halfway to the store, I was looking at a really lovely garden along the way, didn't notice a differential of heights in the paving of the sidewalk, and I slipped and twisted my ankle very badly.

A long time ago I learned that when an accident or trauma happens, it's as if the energy running through in our bodies is like the amount of water from a fire hose trying to run through a garden hose - there's suddenly too much, way too fast. So I learned how to cover my mouth with my hand and scream loudly from the bottom of my belly to allow that too-much energy out.

This I did, several times, and it alleviated enough energy that I could think straight enough to lean on the tree there, and then sit on the little grass verge and start tapping. I looked around to see if there was someone who could help me back to the apartment, but the usually busy street was completely empty!

I felt so discombobulated that I didn't bother with the karate chop - I just tapped on the collarbone points, and said,

• I fell down!
• How could I do that?!?
• I feel so dumb!
• I wasn't paying attention!
• Duh!
• Look at those paving squares!
• Anyone can see they're at least an inch different in level!
• Who wouldn't fall on that!

That resolved and calmed another level of the pain and shock. I stuck my leg out straight and dared to look at it for the first time, and I could see that it was turning a little blue and beginning to swell up over my sneaker top.

So I continued tapping away on my collarbones -

• I'm MAD!
• I feel so stupid!
• I'm all alone and I forgot my cell phone and who would I call anyway (my friend was out of town).
• Here I am all alone in LA with no one to help me back to the apartment, what am I going to do?
• I'm out of food and I can't even get to the dumb store!

I could literally feel the energy flowing from above my knee, down my shins and out my foot, into the ground. Suddenly an immense feeling of gratitude and peace came over me, and I tapped:
I'm all alone but I'm OK.
I'm so grateful I'm leaning against a tree, and that I have grass to sit on and not some icky alleyway trash!
I feel so glad it's sunny and not cold and foggy or wet.
I'm glad that when I do get back, my friend's apartment is comfy and safe.
I know I'll get food somehow and I refuse to worry about it.

I sat back against the tree and closed my eyes a second. Then I heard, "Oh! Are you OK? You don't look homeless, can I help you up?"

I look up, and there is a gal about my age, reaching down to help me up! I took her hand, got up, and - no surprise, really - no pain, and the swelling had gone down. Turned out she was from Hawaii, too, so we had a little laugh about it. I walked to the store, bought some food, and headed back to my friend's.

After putting the food away - I wasn't hungry anymore - I drank a bunch of warm water to stay hydrated, covered up to avoid shock, and put ice on the ankle, as the walking had started the swelling up again. I tapped and tapped:

• I'm in a bit of pain,
• it's swelling again,
• I should have come straight here and didn't,
• dumb me,
• I feel shocked and disrupted,
• I can't think straight, and so on.

Finally I forgave myself for being so silly, and fell asleep.

Later, another friend came by, gave me a touch-for-health treatment, swabbed the ankle with liniment and put an Ace bandage on, and even walked up to the local Indian restaurant for take out for both of us! I felt so blessed, and other than the annoyance of being stuck horizontal, everything was so sweet. I don't know how to describe it any other way.

She had told me that she couldn't remember her dreams, so I showed her how to tap for it, and we tapped about five rounds. At the end of it, she was bright as a candle, and I felt better, too. Love those borrowed benefits!

That night, the swelling was down, but I kept tapping for it, as I had to fly home the next day. I tapped on:

• worrying about getting to my flight,
• getting through the check points,
• heavy bags,
• not being able to put my foot up during the flight,
• worrying that my foot and ankle would be as big as a balloon at the end of the flight, and hurt...

But the airport was easy - they stuck me in a wheelchair and I flashed through the checkpoint and onto the plane. It was difficult to navigate to the restroom during the flight, but I was able to shift to a seat nearer the front. I tapped mentally about my foot swelling up and not wanting to be disabled for a week afterwards - or however long it takes to heal these things - almost the whole trip, and actually was able to sleep. Then I was shuffled off into another wheelchair, and helped to my ride home so easily it was like a dream!

If this had happened to me five years ago, the only thing I'd have known to do was that scream-into-my-hand thing. But now, only three days later, my ankle is only partially swollen, it never did turn as black and blue as it could have, never did hurt very much - and I have only taken an anti-inflammatory once, on the flight home.

In the book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, he discusses a man named Dr. Paul Ekman who studies faces. Ekman says about an experiment he and a fellow researcher were doing: "We discovered that that expression alone is sufficient to create marked changes in the autonomic nervous system. When this first occurred, we were stunned. We weren't expecting this at all. And it happened to both of us. We felt terrible . What we were generating was sadness, anguish. And when I lower my brows,...and raise the upper eyelid,...and narrow the eyelids...and press the lips together...I'm generating anger. My heartbeat will go up ten to twelve beats. My hands will get hot...."

He also says, "Emotion doesn't just go from the inside out. It goes from the outside in." So he surmises that what you decide to do with your face can significantly affect how you feel - that our face isn't just a mirror of how you feel, it IS how you feel.

When I was sitting there under that tree, I made the decision to smile and tap, just to see what would happen.

In the past, without tapping, smiling or hand-screaming, I'd have been a scared, worried wreck, and I'm sure my ankle would have been a huge, painful, black and blue lump. Using what I now know about my mind, body and energy system, I was able to create an entirely different experience. I'm so grateful!

much aloha -
Angela Treat Lyon

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Author's Bio:

© Angela Treat Lyon 2006.

Easy, free info on EFT: EFTinEveryHome.com.
For more stories and case studies, check out EFTBooks.com.
Tapping sessions on specific issues: LittleRedTappingBooks.com.
Coach with Angela: Lyon@EFTBooks.com 

1 Comment

yoki
Posted February 20, 2011 04:22 PM

what does tapping mean can you not talk or are you deaf or something

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