EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

Before we talk about what EMDR is, it is important to understand what EMDR does. When we have yucky things that happen to us, we have many mixed-up feelings and many mixed-up thoughts. We do not feel good in our minds, bodies, and hearts. It is like carrying bags of mixed-up stuff. When we are so busy carrying all these bags, we do not have space in our hearts, minds, and bodies for the good feelings and thoughts. EMDR can help clients by making those bags smaller or even get rid of them so clients will have space for the good feelings and the good thoughts.

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When clients receive EMDR, one of the things they do is move their eyes from one side to another while they think about the yucky things that happened to them. Most clients don’t know this, but they actually do this every night….yes we move our eyes every night while we are asleep and are having dreams. This is called Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep cycle.

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When yucky things happen, the brain has a hard time putting all the pieces together and as a result, triggers are created that relate to the trauma. EMDR helps the brain put all the pieces together so the yucky stuff can leave us and the good stuff or the things we learned from it can stay so we get stronger. Then, the brain can chew up and digest all the triggers, as well as the yucky feelings we may have in the body.

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Why continue to carry bags of yucky stuff in our minds, hearts and bodies when we can be free from them and find our happy and exciting feelings again?