Right on Time pt. 2

The surprising thing to me about EMDR so far is that you don’t really talk about it. Anything specific, that is. You’re not in there going after this traumatic memory or that one — you just let what rises simply rise.

I had my third session today, and my therapist told me that talk therapy, when applied to trauma, is like keeping it all on simmer day in and day out. If you talk about it all the time you keep it activated. I wish I’d known that before I spent five years writing a book about a whole bunch of trauma.

But I didn’t. And though I’ve had moments when I questioned the guidance of some therapists I’ve seen because not one of them before now ever told me this thing about keeping trauma activated, I have to let that go too. And be here. And accept gifts when they come. As I said last week, not in my time, but right on time.

I accept my path as my path. I was listening this podcast this morning and someone said something like “if the path you’re on is easy, then it probably isn’t your path.” I don’t know if that’s true — I don’t believe that things that are right are always hard — but I also don’t believe they’re always easy. They just are what they are.

They just are what they are.

I have set my sights on a life filled with more feeling and experiencing and less rumination and constant figuring out. And that’s a real shift. I see now that I’ve thought, since I was very small, that it was my responsibility to keep it straight. It isn’t and never has been. I don’t have to figure out why anyone does anything. Imagine me not being in my head — whatever shall I do?

I hope y’all are having a wonderful week.

Peace. Love.

Allison

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Let go or be dragged. —zen proverb