(From the book TAPPING by David Feinstein and Donna Eden):

Margaret was a 48-year-old waitress who had been living alone since her divorce three years earlier. Her two adult daughters and three young grandchildren had moved to different states to follow their husbands’ employment. Margaret got to see each family for a few days about twice a year. These visits were the most gratifying part of her life, but the families were so busy that they didn’t come to see her, and she couldn’t afford to take time off of work to be with them nearly as much as she would have liked.

Margaret’s husband had announced that he was leaving her for another woman two days before her 45th birthday. She never saw it coming. The period around her birthdays became a time of immense sadness, and this sadness seemed to intensify and become longer each year. Margaret had a few close friends who she had known for decades. One of them was in therapy with a social worker who was learning EFT and needed practice clients. As Margaret’s 48th birthday was approaching and her sadness building, her friend encouraged her to schedule a session.

After carefully listening to her description of the divorce and her sadness about it, the therapist asked Margaret to feel into her sadness and imagine it as a color. It was a dark, heavy, smokey blob in her chest and neck. Margaret rated its intensity as a 10. Her breathing was restricted and her throat was tight. She was guided through the same protocol you have been learning: “Even though I have this heavy, smokey blob in my chest, I accept myself and my feelings.” This was followed by tapping on the 12 acupoints, using words like “this sadness,” “this tightness in my throat,” “this smokey blob in my chest”; then the Integration Procedure; and further tapping. 

This got the SUD on her sadness down to a 7, but when she went within to rate it, rage at her ex-husband filled her. It was a high 10. Her main take-away from the divorce had been that she wasn’t good enough. She had failed him. It was her fault that he left her. Her daughters had expressed a great deal of anger at their father for leaving, but in her heart of hearts, Margaret felt she was to blame. Suddenly and unexpectedly, three years’ worth of buried rage surfaced and overwhelmed her. 

The session then focused on helping her to accept the anger. She responded well to a series of statements such as, “Even though I could kill the bastard, I accept myself and my feelings!” The session then moved into an imaginary dialogue (p. ##) where she expressed her anger to her ex-husband, mincing no words, as she tapped. By the end of the first session, her imagery about her sadness wasn’t as dark and heavy, and she rated it as a 5. 

That night she had a dream about her father. Her father had left the family when Margaret was four. In the dream, Margaret was in a courtroom and the verdict was that she was guilty. Guilty of being responsible for her father’s abandonment of the family. She ruminated about this for the rest of the week, until her second session, where that was the topic. By the end of that session, she had dealt with the guilt she had been carrying her whole life for the breakup of her family, and she had made a connection between that and the ways she had been carrying the blame for the demise of her own marriage. The result was a tremendous release of energy. She was almost euphoric about a giant load having been lifted. 

By the time of her birthday, she wanted to celebrate, for the first time since the divorce. She asked the friend who had referred her to the therapist if they could go out for a festive birthday dinner.