EMDR and Brainspotting:
A Better Way to Heal from Pain

How It All Began

Some time ago, this terrible thing happened to you that was so painful and violent it left you broken and frozen.

But life went on. Although you keep trying to run away from the pain, it keeps catching up with you – it never left. The ways you tried to suppress the pain and ignore it are still the same things you are doing now. You follow the same patterns and therefore experience the same painful emotions.

It is exhausting not to control all these painful emotions, the fear always showing up, the anxiety creeping up every time you experience something similar, the anger and shame. Your ability to cope and live is disruptive.

Your sleep is far from restful, and you always carry this sense of low self-worth. Your relationships have suffered, and you have lost the ability to trust and connect.

I can stop doing what is hurting me.

Some time ago, you learned your best way to cope with heartaches, feeling overwhelmed, and agony.

You learned to stay in your head, be rational about it, and exercise like crazy or overspend. You learned to overeat and gained tons of weight that you regretted afterward. Or you just drank more and got lost in the alcohol, sex, and other addictive behaviors.

You did these behaviors to avoid the pain and numb yourself.

But you also started to avoid those situations that would bring the fear and pain back – the fear of being rejected, failure, or something terrible about to happen. And as you struggle on your own to avoid that suffering again, that pain keeps showing up in dreams, flashbacks, and images in your head.

The avoidance can only work for such a small amount of time. Inevitably, the exhaustion, depression, shame, irritability, and inability to be really at ease in the world follows.

Your “Beautiful” Brain!

It is your beautiful brain that is in charge of processing everything that occurs in your life. Your brain keeps continually changing and can heal itself.

When a disturbing experience happens, your brain can become overwhelmed and block your natural ability to cope, leading to emotional distress.

Your brain changes with trauma, resulting in the way you see yourself, your life, and your relationships. People will hurt you; you are in danger. Your body stays on constant alert and continues to react as if it is still in danger, compromising your health.

Stress responses are part of our natural fight, flight, or freeze instincts. When distress from a very unpleasant event remains, disturbing images, thoughts, and emotions can create feelings of overwhelm, being back in that moment, or being “frozen in time.”

For actual change to occur, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present. Brain-based somatic therapies help you accomplish this.

Two Methods Work in Synchrony with Your Brain

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to activate the brain’s healing powers so that we can resolve disturbing experiences. EMDR therapy helps the brain process your painful memories. It allows normal healing to resume. You may remember the painful experience, but the fight, flight, or freeze response from the actual event no longer occurs.

Brainspotting (BSP) locates points in the client’s visual field to access unprocessed disturbing memories in the brain. There is a direct correlation between eye placement and the neural networks in our brain. We can gently access these brain pathways using Brainspotting to heal and release old or toxic patterning and memories.

Both EMDR and BSP integrate the body-mind connection. In our sessions, we will enhance the beautiful benefits of EMDR and BSP by introducing mindfulness and self-compassion practices.

Transform pain and hopelessness to peace, joy, and happiness.

It will be my privilege to help by providing a safe place where you can heal with compassion for all distressful thoughts, feelings, and memories.

I have been where you are, and I have helped many men and women find peace, joy, and happiness at last.

Give me a call; I am here to help. (651) 815-2124