How do you know you had a dream last night? Not because someone told you. Not because you think it was real. You know because you saw it on a screen in your mind and because of the felt sense—that subtle, familiar quality of oh right, that happened… but not here, not now, not anymore—it’s […]
Seeming Reality vs. What’s Real Just because it seems real doesn’t mean it’s Real. We’re wired to believe what we see. Heat waves shimmer in the desert, and our mind says: water. Even if we know it’s a mirage, the body still reacts. We feel hope. Relief. Thirst. That’s the power of seeming reality. But […]
You’ve probably heard the old phrase, “life is but a dream.” When we were kids, we used to say life is butter dream. And maybe we weren’t wrong: life is soft, slippery, rich—something you can taste but never quite hold. Something that slips through your fingers just as you try to name it. From a […]
“What we’re really doing is helping the nervous system change what it expects.” Trauma is not just what happens. It’s what the nervous system learns to expect afterward as it goes forth in life. A raised voice. A kind face. A metal pole. A church bell. The body links these cues in the neural networks, […]
“First you learn the steps. Then you start dancing with the client.” Most creative practices follow the same arc: you start with technique, then move into freedom. Music, painting, performance, therapy—it’s all the same. Mastery comes when form gives way to flow. EMDR is no different. At first, the therapist follows the manual. The standard […]
The Beauty Beyond the Protocol “We teach it by the numbers, but you learn to use it by the beauty.” EMDR is often taught as a protocol—a sequence of steps, memorized and practiced until they become second nature. This structure is vital. It creates safety, clarity, and confidence for both therapist and client. But structure […]
People come to therapy wanting to know what’s happening. But the real shift begins when they’re willing to go from answers to wondering. In both life and therapy, we often search for clarity: a diagnosis, a label, a fixed solution. But healing doesn’t unfold through certainty—it deepens through curiosity. Clients often ask: What’s happening to […]
“It’s all happening now.” That might sound like a line from a meditation retreat brochure—or something someone says right before trying breathwork for the first time. But for many of us in the therapy world, it resonates in a different way. Especially when we’ve watched clients process years of memories that seem to collapse into […]
There’s a quiet power in the moments that freeze us. A boy climbs a tree and discovers a nest with two perfect blue eggs. He feels nothing but awe—pure connection, being with the experience. But then, his father walks out the door, dressed for church, sees the eggs in the boy’s hand and snaps: “Put […]