EMDR Therapy: Pandemic trauma

Anger, fear, and powerlessness

quietly pervade the consciousness of people around the world. Stress and burn-out, grief, loss and resentment abound. And what started as a temporary crisis has become a chronic problem with no end in sight. EMDR Therapy can clear the trauma of this crisis.

For the past 2 years, the goal-post of safety and calm was jockeyed around. Just when a moment of respite was achieved, a tidal wave of existential threat emerged. So, how have you made it this far?

You are resilient. 

Leverage your resilience. Wake up the parts of you that provide nurturing, protection, wisdom, and peace toward yourself. Strengthen your inner resources. EMDR therapy is not only a form of exposure therapy, but it’s a strength-based resilience building process. Change your narrative. Flip your belief system from one of victimhood to one of empowerment.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. When talk therapy isn’t enough, it’s time for EMDR therapy. EMDR targets and clears trauma. It creates space between the thoughts, memories, and images that hold you back. It won’t change your circumstances but, it will change your relationship with them.

“You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.”  -C.S. Lewis

You got this.

Since trauma is stored in the body, it feels like an invisible time capsule of fear that can be detonated at any time by the subtlest cue. In the face of danger, it kept you safe. But, now it’s just an overly active central nervous system response that could be harming you. EMDR calms the central nervous system and brings you peace of mind. 

“New Beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” -Lao Tsu

EMDR therapy prompts your brain’s natural healing processes.

It stimulates the flow of information across left and right hemispheres, similar to REM sleep.  Information is balanced by traveling through regions of your brain responsible for emotion AND reason. So, when a memory is triggered, it’s just a memory. It no longer is felt viscerally causing a whole body cascade reaction. It has become an unfortunate event of the past, not a source of trauma in the present.

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can feel the way you WANT to feel.

If thought patterns are neural pathways, and neural pathways are plastic – i.e. malleable, then when you change your thoughts and thought processes, you change your brain structure. This neuroplasticity allows you to improve brain functioning via reprocessing of old material.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” -TS Eliot 

Even though pandemic life’s ever-changing reality is a drag – and keeps you looping in doom and gloom, you can choose something different today. EMDR therapy is not magic but it can transform your life and well-being.