EMDR: I’m Already Blown Away

As I said last week, I recently got trained in this crazy cool therapy modality called EMDR. After the training, I ordered my “gadget,” which is a little machine that does what is called “bilateral stimulation.” It has a cord connected to two little “pulsers” that you hold in each hand that pulse left, right, left, right. And there are headphones with a tone that plays in each ear in exactly the same way: left, right, left, right. And my understanding is that this bilateral stimulation somehow lowers the brain’s walls and makes it easier for any associated memories to float up, connections you might not otherwise make. And memories that are associated with what? With whatever is troubling you, known as the “target.” So you start with what’s troubling you and you sink right into it, eyes closed if you wish, pulsers and headphones alternating: left, right, left, right…

While this is going on, I’m sitting there totally wondering what’s going on inside the client’s head. I’m seeing emotions, tears, furrowed brow, deep releasing breath, calming down, agitated again, you name it. And they’re instructed to check in anytime and let me know when any memories or insights float up. And wow, I’ve only done it with five clients since I started this week, and we’re already blown away! And “we” refers to both me and the clients. I’ve only done it when it seemed pretty obvious, and one of those times it really wasn’t that obvious and didn’t really do much. I can see where more practice will help, though. Everything is a science and an art, after all, and we become more skilled with practice. The other four, though, were huge successes. I mean, I was high-fiving them at the end of those sessions, because the connections and associations that naturally arose, seemingly out of the blue, were just amazing! Talk about lots of bang for your buck… We never would’ve connected those dots in one session, and maybe not ever. And I’ve already been doing a way faster version of therapy in most cases! So I’m super psyched.

So I wanted to share that with you. I’ll share more details with future cases, as I always do here, but suffice it to say that this stuff is legit, and it can greatly speed things up. I mean, the last one was ridiculous! I told my client that it was years of therapy in an hour. And that’s exactly what it was! No exaggeration. We accessed an old, deep pain that was not going to be accessed by talking. I know this because we’ve been working together for a while now. And we’ve been doing great since our first session, but we weren’t touching the feeling, the buried pain. It took a while, but when we got there that pain really opened up and released. And now it’s out. At least the process of releasing has started, and we know exactly how to release the rest. And the memories that floated up before that pain were just amazing. She was right back there, recalling the most minute details from many, many decades ago. Like, many decades ago. And my jaw was dropped.

This is just a different animal. The associations that come up, which are other memories, result in everything in the person’s life making more sense. And what’s more, the feelings are felt and are thus finally released. And insights float up as well, undoing super old beliefs like “I’m not okay as I am.” And these beliefs never were true, but they were learned long ago, and they’ve been running the show ever since. One client finally sees that she’s always felt guilty, and she now knows exactly where it came from. I don’t know that we ever would’ve discovered that doing what we were doing, and she was blown away. And it’s all because we both got out of the way and let her mind go where it wanted to go, using the bilateral stimulation. It just frees up these memories and insights. Wow. So that client now sees that it’s okay to feel good. Wait, it’s okay to feel good, that’s all we accomplished in an hour? Freaking wow. Not bad for an hour’s work. So happy Thursday to you, or whatever day it is now as you are reading this. And until the next time, peace out. And holler if you want to try some EMDR! I can’t make any promises, but it really is all about getting out of the way, sinking into the bilateral stimulation, and letting the mind go where it wants to go to release stuff and connect some dots. So cool…