Moving Out of Trauma - The Hardest Part of EMDR Therapy
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There hasn’t been a week that has gone by in a while where I have not talked with at least one person who has heard about EMDR therapy but has either had both some questions or also some fears in trying EMDR therapy. The questions I often hear is “Is EMDR therapy right for me?” “I really don’t want to dig up past trauma, but I know it’s impacting my life now.” or my personal favorite “Oh! This is why I’ve been feeling anxious, on edge, irritable, having nightmares every night, or fill in the blank with a trigger experience. Wait, that means I have to actually work through this crap?!” And I get it, I really do! Realizing we have work to do on ourselves can often be enlightening but it can also be overwhelming when we just want things to get better. As people consider EMDR therapy or even when internally they are still on the fence about EMDR therapy, there are a couple of things I find at the root of these fears, which is what I’m going to discuss in this blog.
Why Am I Passionate About EMDR Therapy
EMDR Therapy Phoenix - Kandace Ledergerber.
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I'm so grateful that I get to do this work, and what feeds my passion for this work is what I call "Witnessing the AHA moments." So often, when working with clients, I find that everyone experiences shift, growth, change, and healing in small increments. So small that sometimes they may not even realize it. But when enough small moments have accumulated, there is this light bulb moment where a client acknowledges, "I don't have to put up with this," "I can set and stick to that boundary," or "I don't deserve this treatment; I deserve better." These are such unforgettable moments to witness and to be a part of. However, before these aha moments come, there is a slow and steady progression toward change and healing. And I, honestly, and indeed, love pointing those out to people, like, "Hey, did you see that thing you said/did or that thought you had? Look how different that is from where you were three months ago!"
The Inner Light Everyone Was Born With
I took part in a yoga teacher training here in the West, with its roots in Hatha yoga. Hatha yoga's origins are traced back to Gorakanath, a Hindu yogi and founder of Kanphata Yogis. Because my understanding of yoga comes from the Hatha yoga tradition that has been Westernized, I also want to recognize the colonial violence that has taken place as yoga has been Westernized. As it is primarily offered in areas of white privilege, the roots of yoga are often removed, in which yoga has become known as more of an exercise class. My intention in becoming a yoga teacher and using yoga principles and techniques in sessions is to help the person in front of me heal from trauma and find harmony with their minds, bodies, and souls. I take a holistic approach from this understanding to gain a picture of the whole person and help them heal in all corners of themselves.
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I want to share a few terms I learned from my yoga teacher training and a metaphor I find can capture what it's like to be human. The first term is "purusha," which means beautiful, inner light. This purusha is within every single one of us, we are born with it, and it never goes away. However, our ability to tap into it can become more complex over time and with different circumstances. This is how one might see a newborn baby. They are so new, pure, and beautiful. And we all started this way. That little pure, beautiful baby is still within us. The term I want to introduce is the "citta" which is our heart-mind, perception, and how we see the world, which can sometimes become clouded. The metaphor I want to share with these two terms is this: Say you are driving along in your car. Your windshield is your citta. It is how you see what you see. If it's raining outside, if their mud on the windshield, if it's a beautiful clear day, all of these things impact how we see what we see, but it doesn't change what the truth is on the other side of the windshield or us as the person who is driving. It may be more challenging in those moments to tap into our purusha, our pure inner light, when we're going 75 miles an hour, there's mud on the windshield, and it's raining when we are just trying to survive. Sometimes more than others, it's hard to tap into that truth, and we probably experience some heightened emotions as we try to navigate the mud or the trauma we share.
So many people live in this fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode where they are trying to get out of survival mode at the end of the day. If you think about it from a biological standpoint, when we go through something traumatic, our brains, to a certain degree, go offline, and our bodies go into survival mode. And when the trauma is said and done, our bodies and brains have a hard time understanding that we are safe again and that there is no need to continue in survival mode. If you had a stressful drive, like I mentioned in the metaphor above, and got to your destination, it might take a few minutes for your body to reacclimate and feel like you can truly relax and breathe.
The Hardest Part of EMDR Therapy
I find that people who come into EMDR therapy have this humming anxiety underneath the surface about the processing part of therapy. With this fear and thought, they will have to relive that trauma, think about it, feel it, and experience it to process it. Now, I am not going to lie to you. The processing part of EMDR therapy is hard work and is not a vacation on the beach. I often equate EMDR therapy to cleaning a wound. If you think about it, like, when you were a kid, and you fell off your bike, you probably at some point got your knee or elbow skinned and had to go inside and clean it off, find a way to get the gravel out, clean it and apply disinfectant. It wasn't fun, but it also had to be done so it didn't get infected. EMDR therapy (and other healing modalities) is the cool running water, the disinfectant, and the salve that helps the healing occur. I find that this is the hardest part for many people, grappling with the thought that they will have to bring stuff to the surface, often things they have been pushing down for many years, to heal from it.
I want to honor that the healing process is challenging and can be exhausting and trying. And that even though healing is needed and desired, the actual process can sometimes be complicated and come with a roller coaster of emotions. And, given this, I will share that almost every client I have worked with in EMDR therapy, in the end, has said something along the lines of "That was so freaking hard, AND I'm so glad I'm not living in that crap anymore."
Some Comforting Factors We Build To Buffer the Hardest Parts of EMDR Therapy
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Most people that seek me out for EMDR therapy already don't feel like they are on solid ground. They are battling constant anxiety chipping away at them, irritability and frustration that comes out at every turn, nightmares, people pleasing, and a struggle with finding their voice and confidence. So before we do any of the processing of past trauma, which undoubtedly is typically the culprit behind the crippling anxiety, trauma triggers, rage, and people-pleasing, we do resourcing. Resourcing is like building a toolbox of coping skills that allows that person to feel like they can take a step back from a trigger and breathe for a moment. They can use a resource to feel like they are on solid ground. Even if the anxiety, trigger, irritation, people pleasing, etc., is still there, it is less intense, and the overwhelm they experience is less overtaking. This also helps when we get down to processing the trauma because if they become overwhelmed when processing the past trauma that led them to have those symptoms, we can return to the center and re-ground. It is crucial that when we are processing if a client starts to feel out of their window of tolerance, we can pause and use a resource to return to the center. The window of tolerance is the idea that we all can deal with distressing materials and experiences. If you leave this window, you might feel anxious, on edge, and jittery, or you may feel numb, depressed, or zoned out. These echo those survival patterns, and if a person is experiencing these in therapy, it's essential to pause because good processing does not come out of force and operating out of survival mode.
I encourage you to always share with your therapist what you are thinking and experiencing and if something becomes too much. And it's for this reason that I always encourage every person to find a healer that they click with so that the trust in the relationship can be the foundation. Because, after all, when you are processing past trauma and some of the hardest parts of your life, you need someone beside you that you trust and feel will catch you if you fall. In addition to a trusting therapist, I encourage you to find a therapist who will be your GPS, a guide to help give you options but allows you to be in the driver's seat. After all, trauma takes away our choice, and I think it is a critical part of the healing journey that that choice and that power is given back to the survivor. This includes the choice as to if we slow down in therapy if we take a detour, and if we have to change directions altogether. I can always give suggestions and observations, but at the end of the day, the client has to feel good about our work and where we are going.
The last method I want to share that help in the hardest parts of EMDR therapy is to try and let go of judgments tied to old survival patterns. I hear this often in therapy that clients will judge themselves for their anxiety, irritability, lack of self-confidence, or what they should feel should be easy within set boundaries. In these moments, I encourage them to do this: you can't judge yourself for patterns you formed out of survival mode; it will take time to allow yourself to step out of these patterns, just as it took time to develop them. But bit by bit, inch by inch, mile by mile, you can break out of the trauma that has kept you stuck. It is certainly a journey, but remember, it is worth taking.
If you’d like to listen to the podcast episode this blog was inspired by, you can find it on any major podcasting platform by searching “Moving Out of Trauma” or by visiting our podcast website. If you’re looking for an EMDR therapist in the Phoenix area, feel free to schedule a free 15-minute consultation to see if what I provide might be a fit for what you are looking for.
My specialties include EMDR Therapy Phoenix, Online EMDR therapy, EMDR Therapy Tampa, Sexual Abuse Therapy, and Anxiety Therapy
