• Do you feel annoyed, angry or bored often?
• Do you say or do things when feeling upset that you later regret?
• Do you isolate yourself from others and tend to keep thoughts and feelings inside?
• Do you try to be invisible so no one notices you?
• Do you feel that you are not as good as others?
• Do you have nightmares or have a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep?
• Have you experienced difficult events in your life?
• Do you use drugs or alcohol or do things to harm your body to numb or escape the uncomfortable feelings? Or do you do this to fit in because you don’t feel connected to others?

If you are experiencing any of these, you are not alone. And the good news is, there is a way to feel better and experience positive feelings again. Many times, the reason we experience emotional distress or shut down is due to events that happened to us in our past. These are events we might call “traumatic” which means at the time, they felt overwhelmingly stressful and potentially threatening to our safety or the safety of someone we love. These are events such as abuse, bullying, divorce, accidents, loss of a loved one, violence in the home or community, etc. When these events happen, the brain stores a snapshot of the event and in it contains all the feelings, thoughts, and body sensations connected to this event. Now ideally, when something difficult happens, our brain processes it so that we learn from it (think – I touched a hot stove, OUCH- it hurts, leading our brain to learn not to touch a hot stove again, with no lasting negative effects such as being scared of all stoves).

With traumatic events, our brains can’t easily do the work of processing the memory. And when left unprocessed, future life events can activate that old snapshot, triggering the negative feelings, thoughts, and body sensations we had when the bad stuff happened… and we don’t even realize it’s happening! It’s called an “emotional flashback” and we are left dealing with those hard feelings and thoughts and often not understanding why we feel the way we do.

EMDR therapy helps the brain organize and process those stuck memories which means that they won’t have the power to make us feel angry, sad or scared, or to make us think that we are not worthy, not good enough or not safe. This can prevent us from acting in ways that we later feel bad about, like yelling or becoming aggressive, shutting down, or using unhealthy means for us to numb out and avoid our feelings.

One of the many things that happens when we do EMDR is that we move our eyes from one side to the other while thinking about the negative event. This is not new for your body; in fact you move your eyes every night from side to side when you are dreaming. This is called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep cycle. EMDR therapists like me have gone through extensive EMDR training and can guide you through the process.