Journey

Photo Credit: Keagan Henman, Unsplash (edited) Weeks of hard work passed with me sitting in Matt's Tuesday groups wondering how I could start to heal. I asked him for help with my mind mapping - a practice he uses to process different thoughts (and the shame associated with those thoughts). My volunteerism occurred before I knew what we would be mapping on that Tuesday, so when he told me to turn to page thirty-one, I think the blood left my head. It could have been "What's On My Mind," the "Problem Map," "Situation Map," "Person Map," or "Choose Your Topic Map." Unfortunately (or fortunately), it was the Trauma Map. The problem with the Trauma Map was that I was going to have to talk about my trauma.  I thought of a traumatic event, the image associated with it, and wrote words to express that image in the middle of my page. I then scattered thoughts all around the page. My body started to feel shaky, my jaw tensed, and my sho

Photo Credit: CLAS Ropes Course and Canoe Rental, Provo, UT I’d like to think I was compared to Robbie Knievel the other day, but I guess I should admit that my therapist was actually comparing the process of EMDR to Robbie Knievel's famous  Grand Canyon jump  (start at 35:35). Her analogy: Robbie used the throttle perfectly to make his jump across the canyon successful. If he pulled back on the throttle too much, he wouldn't have made it to the other side. I have apparently, well, obviously, been throttling back in my EMDR sessions. I know holding back is going to keep me from getting across my canyon, and  I don't want to be outdone by some badass daredevil who hit 92+ mph at the top of a ramp and dropped 45 feet down while gliding 228 feet across to a rough but successful landing (he broke his leg - "a mere flesh wound"). I can be a badass like him. When I was asked in a recent processing session if I thought I could keep going with EMDR, I thoughtfully conside