Help for Patterns You Can’t Think Your Way Out Of

This week I am completing my training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. I began the training in January 2025, and have been deepening into the practice and learning for almost a year. This week, I will complete the ten hours of consultation with a certified EMDR therapist required to be considered ‘EMDR trained’. 

I have been really impressed by how this approach helps loosen old beliefs that were formed during hard times and still show up in the present in unhelpful ways. Many people I work with say they understand their past logically, but their body reacts as if the danger or pain is still happening. In those moments the body seems to say, “That was not okay, so I am not okay,” especially when something in the present reminds them of an old experience.

EMDR can shift how a memory feels, so that it stays really and truly in the past instead of popping up unexpectedly when someone gives you a similar feeling to what you went through before. I did some EMDR therapy myself to get to know how it feels as a client to process past experiences this way. I liked the way it tapped into an inner calm and connected feeling, and gave me a wider perspective on things I’ve been through. I also appreciate that EMDR has a physical movement component in the trauma processing phase, which felt grounding and gave me something to focus on. 

EMDR is built on the idea that the mind knows how to heal when it feels secure enough and has a clear process to do so, and in many ways that echoes what communities have understood for generations. We cannot return to the past but maybe we can find ways to reconnect to these principles for finding peace with it.