Numbing and Walking a New Path: EMDR for Emotional Healing
A few months ago, I said to the universe that I wanted to do EMDR. I had heard about EMDR for emotional healing and how it had helped people with trauma. Growing up in South Africa, I witnessed a lot of stuff. And even though I practice yoga, self-inquiry and meditation, I had started to recognise that there were certain triggers that, no matter how much work I had done, just weren’t releasing.
Then, one day, I was signing students into class at Movati when I asked a regular student what she did for a living. She told me she was a therapist who specialised in EMDR. To learn more about EMDR, click here.
I had literally asked the universe for this just a few weeks before.
And so, she became my therapist.
It took months of going through my trauma history before we actually started the EMDR. She explained to me how, when we experience trauma, parts of the experience and the emotions connected to it can remain unprocessed, almost as though they have become frozen in time.
My First EMDR Session
I recently had my first EMDR session and I was completely blown away.
We worked on a memory that has been one of the hardest for me because I remembered the first part, which was already intense, but the rest of it I had blocked out.
I wasn’t trying to remember it. But I knew that whatever had happened was still causing me a lot of issues within myself and in my life.
It also happened that so much in my life was changing at the same time, which seemed to amplify everything and bring this particular event to the surface to be healed.
Before the session, my therapist had me reconnect with the 5–9 year old girl in me. I started painting again (lets be real – paint by numbers). The idea of connecting with her was so that she wouldn’t block the EMDR session in the same way she had blocked the memory at that age, if she felt unsafe.
And as we went through the session, I could see the hurt, the pain and the fear. Because I had already been practising connecting with and comforting that younger part of myself, a huge wave of emotion was released (it was unexpected).
And I realised something.
I wasn’t just blocking the memory.
I was blocking the emotion connected to the memory.
That was profound for me. I didn’t need to remember what happened to release it. I needed to release the trapped emotion around the event.
We then went into the belief I had created about myself because of this event and did more EMDR around that.
It has unlocked so much and continues to do so – a flood of realisations.
It has shown me how much we all want to be seen, heard and felt. And how our emotions also need to be seen, heard and felt in order to be processed.
Sometimes no amount of yoga or meditation, etc., can process something that needs to be felt in a different way.
The Ways We Try to Numb or Fill Ourselves
Some of us may not even know we are blocking emotions. Or how we are trying to fill a need for love, a need to be seen, or a need for connection with something that is ultimately never going to fill it.
We think it’s just normal living. But it takes an awakening within to become aware of it.
We buy something new and, in the immediacy of it, we feel elated. A little high. But then the unhappiness creeps back in once the novelty starts to wear off.
We turn to partying, drugs or alcohol to have “fun”, but when it’s over, or we live our regular lives, the unhappiness creeps back in.
Our body is sore from constantly “running” away from some internal pain, and we find something to numb it all out.
We look for a new relationship. Dating apps can really amplify this. We get that high from meeting someone new who is interested in us (because we feel seen in that moment – but they are not really seeing us). And then the conflicts come in. We realise the person isn’t meeting our needs, and we aren’t meeting theirs. So we think, It can’t be the right person. ‘There must be someone else who is better suited to me’. And then we find ourselves doing the same thing in the next relationship.
We work harder to become more successful. We share our achievements on LinkedIn, social media, newspapers, magazines. We receive admiration, Ah, finally. I am loved and seen. We may not consciously think that and feel we are achieving our goals, but underlying it, it’s there (because it’s from a place of reaching). Goals are good, it inspires change, but ultimately if there’s no presence behind them, they fall flat. And then we are alone in our homes and the quiet creeps in. And with it, maybe loneliness or sadness.
Because we realise that’s not it either.
The emptiness comes back.
Food, TV, and social media can be the same. We reach for something when we are bored, stressed, anxious or in conflict. It soothes us in the moment. It fills something. And then, soon after, that feeling is back again.
And when I look honestly at my own life, I can see that I have done some of these things too. Not necessarily in obvious ways, but in ways that kept me moving, seeking and filling rather than stopping long enough to feel what was underneath.
Even the Spiritual Path Can Become a Way of Numbing
You aren’t immune just because you’re on a spiritual path.
I know this one well.
I chased new knowledge and new experiences through the next training, the next thing I could learn, the next amazing spiritual experience (Ayahuasca, mushrooms). I was always looking for something new and wonderful and enlightening.
And I can see now that some of that was also seeking something to fill me up.
Even spirituality can become a form of avoidance.
And in some cases, it can turn into spiritual ego or superiority.
These are some of the things that can creep into our lives without us even realising it.
They look normal. They look okay on the surface.
But underneath, there can be a filling in.
From Seeking to Looking Within
Now I’m at a point where I’m not really interested in seeking anymore.
I’m stopping.
And looking within. The EMDR is unlocking what is already within.
After my EMDR session, I could see how that one moment of blocking a memory also blocked an emotion. And that emotion became connected to a deep-seated belief that caused me to see things a certain way, over and over again.
It influenced the choices I made.
For me, this is where EMDR and emotional healing have started to become more than simply remembering something from the past. It’s about understanding what an experience created inside me and how it may still be influencing the way I move through life.
The Forest Taught Me About Taking a New Path
This summer, I’ve spent almost every day in the forest.
The forest teaches me to slow down and be present. The trees teach me to be still.
One day, I walked my regular path in my favourite forest. The path is well worn and, because it was a weekend, it was busy.
I had packed a lunch and wanted to find somewhere near the water where I could sit by myself without people constantly walking past me. I knew there were a few places along the path near the water, but I also knew I’d probably be disturbed.
And then I asked myself: What would the 5–9 year old in me do? What would she do with this newfound freedom?
She would get off the path. She would find a new path to the stream where no one else would come down. She would be curious. She would play.
And there it was.
A little path (covered and not worn out) weaving through the trees.
I followed it and found a rock perfectly situated beside the water, covered in moss. It was so soft to sit on.
So I sat there and ate my lunch. I listened to the sounds around me.
And I felt seen (because I saw what that 5-9 year old would have done). I felt alive.
It reminded me of one of my favourite poems, The Road Not Taken.
What If Healing Means Choosing a Different Path?
Sometimes we aren’t aware of the things we do to numb ourselves. Or how we sabotage our own lives.
Sometimes there is something inside us that has become stuck.
And sometimes it takes looking at that 5–9 year old in us, sitting with the emotions, allowing ourselves to see them and feel them, and then deciding to walk an entirely new path.
You may discover a treasure beyond words.
I still have more EMDR sessions to go, working with different memories, and I’m fascinated to see what else unfolds.
That first release showed me how much I had been craving certain things to numb or fill me up. How there were needs that weren’t being met, and how I was seeking some of those needs in other people and in things outside of myself (which would ultimately never fulfil me or that need).
And now I’m learning what it feels like to be comfortable in the emptiness.
It hasn’t all been cured or gone forever. Because that path (that habit) is well worn, just like the path I was walking on in the forest (the grooves in the mind, which shape our personalities, which we call samksaras in yoga).
But one small change can change the potential of everything.
One moment of noticing .. stopping .. turning inward.
One moment of seeing that younger part of ourselves and asking, What do you actually need?
Maybe sometimes, instead of trying to make the old path work, we just need to look with fresh eyes (releasing the conditioning of the mind).
