Years ago, I was on a short, two-hour flight when grief overtook me.
There may be no worse place to have an emotional meltdown than 30,000 feet in the air, surrounded by two hundred people packed together like sardines, with nowhere to go and no way to escape what you are feeling.
I had the window seat. I remember staring out at the endless blue sky, desperately trying to divert my attention.
But I couldn’t stop crying.
I was an expectant grandmother, and the child we had been waiting for was lost, never to be.
I had already loved this child. I had imagined her, claimed her in my heart as my own. And suddenly she was gone.
It felt as though something had been ripped from me.
The wound was fresh, raw, and exposed.
Beside me sat an older woman in the middle seat, her husband beside her in the aisle. I tried to keep to myself, but eventually I ran out of Kleenex.
Without saying a word, she reached into her bag and handed me a little travel pack of tissues.
That simple act of kindness opened the door.
We began talking, and I told her why I was so sad.
At one point, her husband leaned toward her as though he wanted to say something. Without even turning toward him, she gently elbowed him as if to say, Not now. She needs me.
And then this stranger introduced me to something I had never heard of before:
EFT — Emotional Freedom Technique, also called tapping.
She explained that while acknowledging what I was feeling, I could gently tap on specific acupressure points on my face and body.
Right there on that airplane, she went through several rounds with me.
Tap.
Breathe.
Name the grief.
Tap.
Acknowledge the loss.
Tap.
Allow the body to feel what the heart was carrying.
As I told her more of my story, she smiled and joked that with everything I had been through, I might be black and blue by the time I finished tapping.
Then she said something that stayed with me:
If this technique could help veterans struggling with PTSD, perhaps it could help me too.
I didn’t magically stop grieving that day.
EFT didn’t erase the child I had already loved or make the loss less meaningful.
But something shifted.
My body began to settle.
My breathing softened.
The intensity came down enough for me to sit with the grief rather than be completely overtaken by it.
And perhaps that is one of the most important things I have learned about nervous-system regulation:
Healing is not always about making the emotion disappear. Sometimes it is about helping the body feel safe enough to experience the emotion without drowning in it.
EFT eventually became another tool in my wellness toolbox.
And whenever I tap, I sometimes think about that woman on the airplane.
She probably had no idea that a miniature package of Kleenex, a compassionate conversation, and a few minutes of tapping would become part of my healing journey.
Sometimes our teachers appear in the most unexpected places.
Even 30,000 feet above the earth.
Even in the middle seat.
Even while we are crying.
Sometimes help arrives quietly, sits down beside us, and says:
Here. Try this.
Why it works: Tapping appears to interrupt the body’s stress response by encouraging a state of calm. As the nervous system settles, the brain often begins to perceive previously distressing experiences with less emotional intensity. This creates space for healing, new perspectives, and healthier responses.