The client, who we shall call Mrs Brown had come to see me wondering if EFT could help relieve the pain in her leg. At the age of sixty-six, this painful vein which the client, although undiagnosed, referred to as a varicose vein had plagued her for almost twelve years. It often became dark, raised and painful after standing for a period of time. This was the first time Mrs Brown had ever used EFT so I spent some time with her before treatment to reassure her. I also encouraged her to be very aware of thoughts, feelings and images that came to her during treatment as many clients on their first session can ignore what they are being presented with, because they think it is insignificant.

To start with we focused on the current pain present in the leg which Mrs Brown rated as a nine out of ten subjective units of discomfort. It was incredibly painful. I asked if the pain in her leg could be an emotion what it might be. She felt that it was an ‘angry pain’. I used standard EFT to work it down from a nine to a zero point five. The client then had an image of a silver waterfall but was unable to identify what it was about. As we worked on, the image changed to ‘a magnificent lion’. Mrs Brown was actually laughing at this point because it seemed so silly and almost random, but I was aware that something must have been unravelling. We tapped for the image of the lion and Mrs Brown had giggled somewhat throughout, until suddenly I saw the laughter leave her face completely. Whatever had come up was obviously considerably serious. She was very aware of an image of ‘watchful eyes’. I asked what they might represent and she said that she didn’t know but that they were watching her very closely. Suddenly Mrs Brown said, ‘I know what it is – it’s my mother,’ and became emotional and tearful at this realisation. I then intervened and took over, using a technique called heart math breathing to calm her. When the emotion had reduced I used ‘matrix re-imprinting’ created by EFT master Karl Dawson which is actually used for inner child work (parts of the consciousness that split off from the rest following a trauma experienced by the child). Usually, with this method I would guide the client to tap on the younger image of themselves which dissolves emotion and trauma incredibly quickly. On this occasion I guided Mrs Brown to tap on the image of her mother while discussing what she felt was necessary. Mrs Brown had been angry at her mother for a long time, feeling controlled and inadequate since she was a child. However, since her mother had died 15 years previously, these feelings had stayed within her and she was unable to resolve them. She apologised for being angry at her mother and told her that she loved her. It was an emotional but incredible experience for Mrs Brown to tell her mother things that she wasn’t able to when she was alive.

As we finished I asked what her mother was doing in her leg – she said that she felt it was because she had held onto the anger for so long that she couldn’t move on. That statement had such significance within EFT because the legs can be related to ‘moving forward’ and Mrs Brown was totally unaware of that.

It validated to me so strongly the connection between emotions and the physical body, which admittedly hadn’t been so concrete before. Now I look for the emotional contributors to the illnesses and ailments of my patients in every case, because it proved to me that the body truly uses metaphors to express what is going on inside. I hope that after reading this article you will investigate the metaphors being expressed within yourselves, for better health and understanding of the most incredible system on earth – your body.