Tag: EMDR

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How to cultivate peace in uncertain times

Yellow fall leaves and blue sky
Photo by Carla Kucinski

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I made a fall-inspired soup that made the whole house smell like warm apples, butternut squash and cinnamon. I felt comforted by these scents and nurtured by my act of self-care. I noticed how it made the house feel cozier, my breath slower and my body more at ease.  

The senses are mighty. This one simmering pot of soup became a powerful gateway to feeling safe, secure and grounded; it also unlocked another pleasant memory of a time when I felt this way. 

In my mind, I floated back a few years ago to me coming home to my mom, cooking in my kitchen. It was an October afternoon. The smell of chicken soup greeted me as I saw her smiling and bouncing around the kitchen in her apron. She was completely in her element. I instantly felt comforted by it all—her presence, the scents, the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows, the sound of daytime television streaming from the living room, how the stove warmed the whole house. In that moment, what I felt most was comfort.  

At the time, I was going through several major life transitions. I was adjusting to my first semester of graduate school in counseling, while simultaneously grappling with a new medical diagnosis and treatment that was impacting my quality of life. Every day I felt like I had the flu. Then the next unexpected wave hit. I was barely halfway through my first semester when I suddenly became bedridden with unexplainable fever, fatigue and weakness for three weeks. Terrified and confused, I felt like the ground was crumbling beneath me.  

What helped alleviate the uncertainty was my mom, who flew across the country to take care of me. Having her there gave me something to hold onto, something familiar. Food in my family is love, and so her cooking also made me feel nurtured and cared for. And that’s why this memory of my mom cooking in the kitchen sticks out so much for me; it was a rare moment in a sea of uncertainty where I felt that I was going to be okay.  

Uncertainty is a difficult emotion for so many reasons. It leaves us feeling groundless and grasping for control. The loss of one’s health is also a stark reminder that we actually have less control than we think we do.  

Lately, when life feels uncertain, I find myself closing my eyes and returning to that memory of my mom in the kitchen. I try to imagine myself back there, connecting to all the pleasant senses of that memory and the emotions I felt.  

In EMDR, we call this Calm Peaceful Place. The guided visualization leads the client in recalling a calm peaceful place—real or imagined—and walks them through engaging in all the senses of that place and the emotions they feel. It’s one of several techniques used to help clients find balance and soothe themselves when a difficult emotion or memory arises or to stabilize and calm themselves after processing traumatic events in therapy.

We all have moments in our life when it feels like we are standing on shaky ground. During times of uncertainty, it’s natural to long to feel safe, secure and protected. Going to a Calm Peaceful Place in your mind can help bring you back to center by accessing imagery that helps you activate and embody pleasant emotions. 

This skill is especially important for those who have a trauma history. It’s common for survivors to struggle with feeling pleasant emotions or remembering a positive time in their life. Calm Peaceful Place is one doorway into safely beginning to feel those pleasant emotions and sensations again, and recalling those pleasant experiences. It can feel so empowering to know that when difficult emotions or disturbing memories arise, you can shift your emotional state by using the Calm Peaceful Place technique. This exercise is also ideal for those struggling with anxiety or experiencing stress.  

Calm Peaceful Place Guided Exercise

Below is a script and audio version that you can follow to create your own Calm Peaceful Place. It’s important that when you choose your Calm Peaceful Place that it is not associated with anything negative. Do not proceed with the exercise if you cannot think of a place not attached to something negative. If any difficult feelings arise at any point during the exercise, stop the exercise. You may need the help of a trusted and skilled therapist to guide you.  

Audio Version: Calm Peaceful Place Guided Exercise
  • Begin by taking a few cleansing breaths, inhaling slowly through the nose and exhaling slowly through the mouth.  
  • If it feels comfortable, close your eyes and just notice how your body is feeling. Notice the areas where you feel tension, where you feel relaxed and where you feel neutral.  
  • Feel your body’s points of contact. So that may be your feet connected to the floor, your back resting against a chair or a wall, your hands resting on your legs.  
  • Now think of a place that helps you feel calm, peaceful, and grounded. The place can be either real or imagined, somewhere you’ve been to in the past or would like to go to in the future. If you’re having trouble thinking of a place, try starting with a pleasant memory.  
  • Allow yourself to begin to picture this calm peaceful place and let the details of this setting begin to emerge.  
  • For the next few minutes, engage all of the five senses in your calm peaceful place.  
  • First, notice the colors, the landscape, your surroundings, any objects that call your attention. Notice what time of year it is, time of day… notice what you see as you explore your calm peaceful place. 
  • Notice any textures you feel, perhaps the temperature of your calm peaceful place, the clothes you’re wearing there, the ground beneath your feet, anything you might be holding in your hands… 
  • Notice any peaceful, pleasant sounds… 
  • Notice any pleasant scents, allow yourself to inhale and take in those scents and their calming effects… 
  • Notice any sense of taste… maybe you’re drinking or eating a favorite beverage or snack or simply taking in the fresh air.
  • Take a moment to notice how you feel in your calm peaceful place. What emotions do you feel? How does your body feel–maybe it feels light, open? Do a scan from head to toe and see what you notice and what pleasant sensations you are experiencing.   
  • Finally, is there anything else that your calm peaceful place needs to help you feel calm and grounded? Any objects you’d like to bring to your place to help you feel secure. Maybe you’d like to have a favorite book with you or journal. A favorite sweater or blanket. Any animals or symbols from nature that are comforting.  
  • Give your calm peaceful place a name. It can be as simple as “beach” or “mountain.” In my example above, I named my calm peaceful place “mom cooking.” Say the name of your calm peaceful place aloud or to yourself, and notice how you feel. 
  • Take a few more minutes to let yourself sink into the experience of your calm peaceful place and savor it for as long as you need.  
  • When you’re ready, slowly begin to reconnect with your breath. Take a few slow, soothing breaths. Begin to move your fingers and toes. Bring your attention back to the room you’re in and notice the sounds around you. Slowly open your eyes and orient yourself by looking at the objects around you.  
  • Take a moment to notice how you feel and just sit with that for a minute or so. Try not to rush off to the next thing.  
  • Know that you can return to this place at any point in your day and any time that you need it. You can practice this exercise throughout the day by calling up in your mind your Calm Peaceful Place for a minute or two or doing the full exercise from beginning to end. It can also be used before bedtime to help wind down from the day.  

Need more support? I offer virtual counseling appointments to residents in North Carolina. Contact me today to set up a free phone consultation.   

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How to cope with trauma anniversaries

Trauma anniversaries can be difficult to cope with. Whether it’s a particular day, holiday, season or month, knowing when that anniversary (or anniversaries) occurred can be helpful in creating a plan for how you will care for yourself. I created this infographic to help normalize what you may be experiencing and help you find new ways of coping.


One of my anniversaries occurred near 4th of July. Every year after that, when that holiday approached, I would become sad and weepy and wanting to isolate. For years I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was actually a common response to a trauma anniversary.

Over the years, the event has lost its emotional charge with the help of a great therapist, EMDR and my own personal growth and healing. For me, reclaiming that day and finding new meaning was so important to my journey. I used to feel broken and helpless this time of year. But now I feel strong and empowered. I got through it. I survived. I no longer think of it as a trauma anniversary, but a celebration anniversary of me and the day I left and took back my life.

How to Cope with Trauma Anniversaries.PDFDownload
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How EMDR Helped Me Heal

“What’s the worst part about the incident?”

I sat across from my new therapist, contemplating the answer to her question as my mind flipped through flashes of images from that day.

Wind.

Drizzling rain on the windshield.

Singing in the car to P!nk.

A thud.

Glass shattering.

Silence.

Standing on the side of the road.

Tears.

Calling my husband.

It only took a few seconds before I landed on the image that makes my chest tighten and takes away my breath.

“When I saw the tree falling onto my car,” I answered. “I thought I was going to die.”

“And when you think of that incident, on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most disturbing, how disturbing is the event when you think about it?” my therapist asked.

“10,” I said without hesitation. I took a deep breath and exhaled.

This was my first of six sessions of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR, an evidence-based form of therapy that helps individuals process and heal from traumatic or disturbing experiences. EMDR is too complex to explain all of its attributes and treatment methods fully in one post. If you’re interested in learning more, I suggest exploring the links at the end of this post and checking back on this blog for my future posts on the topic. But for the purpose of this story, I’m going to focus on the brain and how memories are stored.

How trauma gets stored in the brain

woman with tears in her eyes
Photo by Luis Galvez on Unsplash

Our brain is a powerful organ built with an information processing system for healing and survival. As explained by EMDR’s founder, Francine Shapiro, in her book “Getting Past Your Past,” this mechanism allows us to “make connections to what is useful, and let go of the rest.” This process occurs mostly during REM (rapid eye movement). Have you ever gone to bed upset about something, perhaps grappling over a decision you want to make, and then wake up the next morning with clarity about what to do or feeling less bad about it? It’s because your brain processed it during REM sleep; the brain worked out a solution or what Shapiro describes as an adaptive resolution.

But sometimes, a traumatic or disturbing event prevents that adaptive solution to form. The event can be so overwhelming (mentally, emotionally, physically) that the body cannot process the experience, and instead, the event gets filed away in the brain unprocessed. You can think of an unprocessed memory as a container holding all the emotions, body sensations, negative beliefs and thoughts about yourself that are tied to that memory.

So, let’s go back to my car accident for a moment and think about what was in my unprocessed memory container of that event?

Emotions: Fear, shock, vulnerability.

Body sensations: Freeze response, whole body tensed, chest tightened, like wind was knocked out of me.

Senses (sight, sound, smell, etc.): The pine tree snapping and falling onto my car; the “whoosh” of the tree when it was falling; glass shattering; smashed windshield; shards of glass; P!nk on the radio; the smell of pine needles; silence.

Negative beliefs and thoughts: I’m going to die.

What happened was so overwhelming to my entire system that the memory was never fully processed, and all of that stuff I just listed got filed away in an isolated part of the brain that didn’t link up to anything adaptive that would have allowed me to integrate the event into all of my other life experiences. Instead, the memory remained unprocessed, and as a result, I stayed stuck. Every time I drove or got in the car with anyone, the past felt like the present. A constant loop of “I’m going to die” played in my head. Sometimes I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. Other times I felt like at any moment my whole body would freeze up in the middle of driving. I was reliving my accident over and over again—and not just in my waking life. It also showed up in my dreams, where I frequently experienced nightmares about car accidents.

What further prevented this memory from being processed is how I responded immediately after the accident happened. Shocked and numbed, I went into autopilot and made phone calls: first to my doctor’s office that I wouldn’t make my appointment that afternoon; second to AAA to tow my car; third to 911 to let them know about the pine tree lying across I-40; fourth to my husband; fifth to my auto insurance to file my claim. And when my husband arrived on the scene, I had him drive me to my friend’s dinner party which I had committed to that evening and he highly discouraged me from going to. “I’m not going to let this ruin my whole evening,” I proclaimed. I pushed it all away.

This traumatic experience also occurred on the heals of a number of other traumatic events that proceeded it, which added to the weight of my symptoms. I would learn through EMDR—both as a clinician in my training and as a patient in therapy—that there was a thread connecting all of them together.

collection of pine tree branches
Photo by David Pisnoy on Unsplash

Turning point

My symptoms persisted for more than two years, ultimately leading to a diagnosis of PTSD. I tried everything to cope with the symptoms—meditation, mindfulness, medication, grounding exercises, counseling, yoga. It took the edge off a little, and helped me in other areas of my life, but I never felt true relief. I felt stuck and unable to believe that I would ever find safety or joy again behind the wheel. I gave up and just tried to co-exist with these symptoms. Spoiler alert: That didn’t work either.

The turning point for me finally happened in October 2019 when I was triggered by a video in my EMDR training course, which featured a woman talking to her therapist about being physically hit by a car. I was fine up until the part in her story where she talked about the smashed windshield and identified “I’m going to die” as the first thought she experienced. Watching it, I felt like someone stabbed a knife in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I left the room and walked into the hallway ith no awareness of where I was going. I could hear my friend’s voice calling my name behind me, but I felt like I was in a tunnel and she was on the far opposite end from me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was experiencing a flashback and panic attack. I was back in the driver’s seat, reliving my accident. With the help of my friend and one of the trainers from our course, I stabilized in a few minutes using some grounding techniques we learned in class. I had never experienced anything like this before and it scared me. The next day I made an appointment with an EMDR therapist.

sun shining through pine trees by a lake
Photo by Carla Kucinski.

EMDR helped me take back my life. Now, when I drive, I catch myself all the time in moments where I am relaxed behind the wheel. My PTSD symptoms are gone. I still have a little bit of hypervigilance, but as my therapist explained, that’s normal, and not something that I would want to completely go away because it keeps me safe. I no longer feel like a prisoner to these symptoms and this experience. And that negative belief of “I’m going to die” that constantly looped in my head while I drove, it’s no longer there. It’s been replaced by the more adaptive belief: I survived. When I say these words out loud or to myself, I feel a sense of peace in my body and a smile forms on my face. I never imagined this could be possible.   

Suggested Resources

If you’re interested in learning how EMDR techniques may help you in your own healing, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me through phone or email or schedule a free 10-minute phone consultation with me.

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