My Experience with EMDR therapy which is also known as trauma therapy.
Trigger warning. This post talks about abuse.
You are probably wondering from the title of this post what EMDR is, why its relevant and what is in it for you. The reason this deserves an entire post is because it was the catalyst to my healing and transformation as a woman, a mom, an entrepreneur and a partner.
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress associated with traumatic memories. Believe it or not we can heal our brain from traumatic memories just as much as a body can heal itself after an injury.
Growing up in an abusive (sexual, physical, verbal, emotional), broken home as a child, my life and brain were completely altered. I stood absolutely no chance. My brain wasn’t able to fully develop like it was supposed to, because I couldn’t trust my own parents and caregivers (my abusers), I was always on fight or flight mode, and I wasn’t able to be a child. I had to grow up quickly and learn how to survive.
Becoming a mother was what really drove me to become curious on how to unlearn behaviors because I essentially got tired of my own self-fulfilling destructive behaviors. I knew that I now was someone’s entire world. I had to be better for him. How I showed up for him and now my daughter, is who they will become. Everything I say and do is what they will say and do when they become adults. That is why trauma and history repeats itself.
“The unexamined past becomes the future of the next generation.” – Unknown
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” – Carl Jung.
After much research I became fascinated by the brain. I knew I needed to heal it in order to change myself and I also knew I wanted to do it holistically. That is how I started to stumble across adaptogens, meditation, hypnosis and therapy.
I went to talk therapy for a couple of years, and while that helped, some, I still felt like I wasn’t changing internally. It just felt like a weekly session of venting about the people in my life and not getting anywhere. I was repeating the same pattern over and over and over.
Hypnosis is unbelievable as well. If you are ever curious about it and want to learn more head over to To Be Magnetic. They make it accessible and want to make you reach for the stars with their manifestation process.
Meditation is still a huge part of my self-care regimen on a daily basis. It helps me tap into my intuition. I will write an entire post on this because it is transformational, but it still wasn’t enough for me to change my behaviors. Although, I was WAY more mindful and it helped me become more self-aware, it did not change my deeply ingrained patterns. I needed more.
That is how then I ended up making an appointment for EMDR. I kept hearing about it in podcasts, over and over again, so I knew it was a sign.
So here is my personal experience with EMDR.
The first appointment was all about learning and my history. She right away could tell me so many things that were happening in my life and why, by just a short amount of time. I felt seen probably for the first time in my life. She got my treatment plan set for the next time I came in. I know they tell you to make sure you can trust your therapist before doing EMDR because you can retraumatize yourself if not. I knew right away that I could trust her.
The second appointment was the one where we went deep into my subconscious. This is the day I found out my abuse started before I was even 1 years old, then at 3 and then multiple times after that. I hid it from myself for 32 years. I froze it in my memory. I started to hysterically cry while lying on the couch, I started to shake, my feet felt like they were literally FROZEN. After an hour of digging more, releasing, and reprocessing, I came back to the room.
My life changed after that. Everything that I knew to be true was not real. I felt sick to my stomach. My brain would hurt. I cried a lot. I let go of a lot of people. This happened for about 11 more sessions. All of these symptoms were just a sign that I was healing. Facing the pain was very intense but after I reprocessed it, I felt so insanely good -> “the only way out, is through.”
1 thing I learned from this whole experience – my worth was tied to it all. I didn’t feel worthy of feeling good, looking good, and living the life I wanted to.
This is why, now, I am on a mission to help YOU feel good, look good and find your worth. I literally have done the work inside and out, have tried every healing modality you can think of, so that I can help you fast track to living your best life, instead of having to do years and years of trial and error. Or worse, not change at all.
Penny for you thoughts?
Thanks for being here.
Xoxo
Alejandra
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