MM and MJ, as I shall call them, had reached a crossroads in their lives together. After 30 years or so of marriage, their relationship was suffering and neither wanted to be divorced as old age approached. MM had had multiple traumas in her life dating back to early childhood. Although she was undergoing counselling, she felt she needed something more.

She contacted me out of the blue by e-mail on finding my website, attracted by the idea of a retreat. I wasn’t running any at that point, but her message really touched me and I proposed something individual, tailor-made to their needs.

We arranged to meet online so they could gauge whether I was the right fit. In our meeting, I asked about their needs and introduced them to EFT with a practical demonstration. They went away resolved to go ahead, booking their flights almost the following day – and started tapping individually before the event.

We met up at ‘The Mill’, our venue for the next few days. In the introduction, MM and MJ outlined in front of each other what they hoped to get out of the retreat. After airing their concerns and establishing some ground rules together, a joint EFT session helped me identify where and how to begin our work together.

Since MM’s need seemed more urgent than her husband’s, I started with an individual session that quickly took her to her initial traumatic event as a young child. Although she had worked on this before using other therapies, she was amazed at how quickly after the session the distressing images in her head disappeared.

After lunch, it was MJ’s turn for an individual session. He had come along mainly for his wife in the hope that she might find some inner peace, but within minutes we identified an issue of his own, also dating from his childhood, which really surprised him. Because of what we discovered, I ended the session and the first day by giving him a reflexology session.

While both parties were pleased and surprised by what the first day revealed, I wasn’t surprised to learn that MM had had a difficult night in which a lot of undesirable emotions had re-surfaced. EFT can take the lid off a lot of issues that have been long contained. So the real work began, addressing some of these long-buried and unacknowledged issues.

I started with individual sessions for MM followed by MJ. As a result, both now felt able to identify what they were missing from the other in their marriage. The group session that followed brought up a lot of issues for MM in particular, so I finished the day by giving her an aromatherapy massage.

After starting with a resume in a joint session of what we had done thus far, a key issue identified on the first day became the focal point of our morning. By the end, MM and MJ found a way of dealing with it and as a result felt mutually supported and united as a couple. I was able to reinforce this sense and tidy up some loose ends during the afternoon individual sessions.

When I arrived, both parties looked brighter and couldn’t wait to tell me how much better they felt. MJ told me that for years he had wanted to go to bed with his wife at the same time – and this had happened at last the night before. Our initial joint session ended with strategies for coping with potential situations that might arise in the future. We finished with individual sessions combined with reflexology treatments.

On concluding the retreat, I proposed a follow-up session on Zoom for a time after they had settled back into their daily lives back home in Ireland.

When we spoke about three weeks later, MM looked brighter, happier and altogether different. Both reported feeling so much better about themselves and their marriage, more able to communicate openly instead of bottling up resentments, anger and other negative feelings.