This is the second in a series of my experience with healing through EMDR & Hypnotherapy. If you’d like to read the first post you can find it right here:
EMDR Therapy: What is it & What to Expect
I’ve recently made the decision to try EMDR Therapy. It took me a while to get to this decision after it being suggested to me on a number of occasions. So to help others who may be feeling unsure, sceptical or scared (like I was), I’ve decided to share my experience with EMDR Therapy journey week by week. I’ll be nothing but honest about my experience.
The inbetween of week 1 and week 2
The week following the discovery Q&A and light relaxation hypnotherapy left me with a mixture of lightness and tiredness. A lightness that comes from offloading. A tiredness that comes from experiencing a relaxed state that your body didn’t know was possible, ever, let alone at 10 O’clock on a Wednesday morning.
This tiredness stayed with me. But it wasn’t the exhausted ‘wiped out’ feeling that I’ve experienced a lot over the past two years (where your body screams ‘I can’t do this anymore’ half way through the day. Yawns come thick and fast, trying to let go, but never quite getting there). My tiredness this time felt on the ‘normal’ scale. I felt meh, bluh, a ‘can’t be bothered’ feeling. A feeling that’s quite alien to me.
My body is normally ready to box until the lights go out, and even then the gloves never get put down. But this week I was falling asleep on the sofa every night. And can I say to those that may complain that this is their norm…what a lovely feeling. My body shut down when it needed to, it felt safe to say ‘enough now’. To me that’s a feeling to be remarked upon with appreciation.
This week I also wrote a letter to someone in my life to share some honest truths. This was suggested by my therapist and I’ve done this exercise before, and I highly recommend it. In a letter you can write with brutal honesty. You can capitalise to shout. You can be more honest and angry than you’d perhaps dare to be in real life.
You can write until all the words, feelings, and emotions tumble on to the page. Writing the letter and the mixed feelings I had did sit with me in the background of my days, a sort of unsettled feeling of confusion, but I let it sit there. Big feelings had been poured out. Feelings that had been sat within me for decades. I let it bubble softly. I let the brain process without judgement.
Sitting down for week 2 – A deeper Hypnosis
This week consisted of deeper hypnotherapy. EMDR will come in my course. But not yet. This week my therapist wanted to take me to a place where I could meet ‘little me’, ask her of her needs, but she also led me to a place beyond that. An introduction to my higher self, that might have just changed my life.
Step by step into a trance
I settled in a chair with a weighted blanket. Feet firmly on the ground. Hands gently clasped. Eyes closed. As my therapist gently spoke. Coaxing my body out of its tension. I settled deeper into the chair, my awareness flickered from being in an almost dream like state, to being subtly aware of where I was. It was a dream like trance I was aiming for. Not quite asleep. But not quite awake.
My therapists voice led me to the top of a beautiful set of stairs, made up of 10 steps exactly. These 10 steps didn’t go up. They went down. Down to a space which was completely relaxing and completely safe. My therapist asked me to imagine what this space of safety and relaxation was. Without hesitation, I thought of my Dad waiting on a sofa, arms out, ready for me to nestle in. A feeling quite profound, because I lost him at the age of 3.5. My therapist led me down the steps, until I imagined being nestled into ‘my spot’.
At this point she asked me to imagine ‘little me’ standing before me. Now this isn’t new to me. I’ve done this before in reflexology of my own accord. And perhaps because of this reason, I didn’t feel quite ‘in the moment’, I couldn’t picture it like my therapist was asking me to. I didn’t feel quite in the trance. I actually felt quite irritated. Like when you have high hopes for something that doesn’t materialise. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was being asked to do. That was until my therapist asked me to turn around and meet my higher self.
Meeting my higher self – encompassing safety & confidence
Imagine meeting a wise elder, but that elder is you. Representing the person that you can be. The person that emulates a confidence in being nothing but themselves. A person that’s peaceful in safety. A confident, safe, lit up person that you can become.
That’s what this experience felt like. But I didn’t picture a person as my higher shelf.
My therapist asked me to picture my higher self as colours, in any sort of shape and in any sort of form. I imagined a lilac and gold glowing orb with a head and curved arms, no features, just this shimmering bubble. I think it was less about picturing an actual person, it was more about picturing a feeling.
A feeling of having a protected bubble form itself around me. It was during this part of the hypnotherapy, that I felt truly in it. I felt comfortable, relaxed and oh so safe. Truly in a dream like trance of loveliness. During the trance my therapist told me that I was going to keep that feeling of confidence and safety through the following days, weeks and months.
I didn’t want to be counted out of the trance, I wanted to stay right where I was. But the special thing is, I almost have. Almost.
The days following – unleashing the female boss with attitude
My body has been responding to reaching that place of confidence and safety. I can feel it. I’m slightly less aware of what my body is doing all the time. The hyper-awareness is lessening. My body feels like it’s encased in those lilac and gold arms. I got introduced to my higher self and I just have this assurance I can be her. I can feel those feelings often.
I have been feeling lit up by my business that’s being built behind the scenes. Ideas firing in. Marketing plans to make it big. A sort of female boss attitude is creeping in. A ‘fuck it, may as well try it, what have I got to lose’ attitude. I’ve danced with that attitude. I’ve shaken my booty. Floor shuffled while hanging washing or washing up. I’ve even cartwheeled with my children without pulling a muscle 🤣
My inner authentic self, my me that’s got lost in trauma and being a Mum is screaming out for attention. She is right there. Closer to the surface than ever before. She seems confident. She admits when she’s bored, even if it feel’s inappropriate. I love my children. But I fully relent I don’t always love being a Mum. It comes with a mundane kind of comfortable than I’m not wanting to be trapped in anymore. My passion is in building a business, my creativity is bursting out of the seams, that have been stitched too tight for too long. Tea parties don’t rock my world. But imagining telling my story through my business does, a hundred times over.
I went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 recently, Meryl Streep closes the film with the line ‘But don’t you just love working’ with a twinkle in her eyes. It gave me goosebumps. Because now I can well and truly say I do. After 15 years of being trapped in a job that wasn’t meant for me. I do.
This feeling of releasing me, comes with a sort of selfishness that doesn’t align with traditional motherhood. This weekend it has come with needing space. I have been writing this on a Sunday Morning where perhaps I should be maximising the time with my kids. But my attitude…why does a Dad get to sit and ‘do some work’ and not get disturbed, yet a Mum gets interrupted…constantly…guilt seeping in? This bit of writing, sharing and connecting with myself is needed, so I can be in the rest of the day with them. Really in it.
I’m not prepared to lose myself in my day’s anymore.
This week to next
This week took me down the path of deeper hypnotherapy. Next week I will be doing EMDR. I will be revisiting my assault, I will be revisiting my younger self again. I’ve been warned it will be heavy. But these couple of weeks of hypnotherapy has set me up for it. That’s the point to it. I’m ready to say ‘fuck you’, to those that stamped my worth down.
I’m ready to come home to myself.
And for you?
Release in any way you can.
Admit something to yourself or even to someone else that you think is sitting with you behind the scenes. Will it feel good to just write it down or say it out loud?
Write a letter to someone that you want to be honest with and for whatever reason doing it face to face isn’t possible or too uncomfortable.
Blast a tune and dance. Shake that booty. Own that female boss energy. X