December 16, 2025 • 53 mins
In the world of mental health, innovative therapies are continually emerging, offering new hope to those struggling with trauma and anxiety. One such therapy is EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which has garnered attention for its effectiveness in treating PTSD and traumatic memories. In this episode, we delve into the insights shared by professional counselor Melissa Mark, exploring the mechanics of EMDR and its transformative potential. Then we experience EFT Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) in real-time.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
Alright, hello Health Heads, welcome and thank you for checking in to this dose of thehealthcare uprising.
I'm your producer in the back, Jeremy Carr, here with your host in the front row, HeatherPierce.
So, who we talking to today, Heather?
We have Melissa Mark, who is actually a friend of mine here in Flagstaff.
She is a licensed therapist.
(00:36):
She is a, I would say a practitioner in EMDR, not in EFT tapping, but we are going tocover that as well.
Um, so she's going to dig into all things around EMDRA.
I'm not even going to try to spell that out outside of the acronym.
She does it in the show, but it's another, um, way of providing some, mental healthsupport and therapy in a different way.
(01:01):
And if you're a regular listener, you'll know we've mentioned this EMDR in a couple ofrecent episodes.
I'm looking forward to figuring out what it's really all about finally, because I stilldon't really get it.
without further ado, let's jump on in here to our conversation with Melissa Mark.
(01:23):
Hi, and welcome to the Healthcare Uprising podcast.
Today we have Melissa Mark, a fellow flag staffer.
We'll fight about that later.
I guess one already I got you to say it though.
She's a licensed professional counselor or LPC and here to talk about EMDR and EFT tappingtoday.
Welcome to the show, Melissa.
Thank you.
(01:43):
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, and Melissa and I have been friends through the Flagstaff community and the momsgroups for a while.
All of our kids went to D.
Miguel, I believe, in school, yeah.
Yeah, see, we bring on our friends on this show because I know a lot of really cool peoplethat are doing really cool things.
(02:04):
So Melissa, you're one of them.
So super happy to have you on.
um
And I'm excited to hear about this because this EMDR stuff has come up in a couple recentepisodes and I still don't really know what it's all about.
So I'm excited to see this.
Yeah.
So before we get into kind of like your background too deeply, but I do want to talk aboutthat right off the bat.
(02:25):
Can you just share with us what EMDR is?
And then I know we're going to talk a little bit about EFT tapping.
think we're going to focus mostly on EMDR, but we'll cover both.
So let's just kind of set it up, tell people what it is and get them excited.
Sure.
Yeah, the simplest way to explain EMDR because it is kind of a weird concept unless you gothrough it yourself.
(02:46):
It's a little bit hard to wrap your mind around.
So EMDR actually stands for eye movement desensitization reprocessing.
So basically the con, well, I'll start with who founded it.
So it was founded by a psychologist named Dr.
Francine Shapiro, who was specializing in trauma.
And for one,
(03:06):
day she was walking in the forest, I remember her saying, and then she was thinking aboutkind of a distressing memory that came up for her.
And as she was walking and thinking about it, she noticed that her eyes were moving backand forth just in a natural process as she was thinking about it.
And then as she came out of her walk and out of the forest, she thought, huh, that doesn'tseem as distressing right now to me.
(03:27):
Something about the eye movement and the way she was thinking about the distressing event,it led the level of distress to go down in her body.
And so basically she founded EMDR, which is led by a therapist.
And you can use your two fingers to have your eyes trace, you know, the therapist'sfingers as you talk about some event in your past that was distressful, okay, caused you,
(03:51):
could be a severe event.
could be something like you were embarrassed in a situation, just something that you stillcontinually think about that causes you some sort of distress in your life.
And the more you do that and you,
uh you know, the therapists have a technique like there's different, you have to reallyhave a therapist that's certified in this because they have to assess for first like
emotional safety, physical safety, because if you do go through this process, you can kindof uh become retraumatized if you're not in a safe situation, if that makes sense.
(04:22):
So basically you're using bilateral stimulation to reprocess events in your brain thathave been stuck and you can't get past and this helps them to release
and the body to reprocess them so that they're more tolerable for the person.
If that makes sense.
I know it's a hard thing to describe without getting too complicated.
Yeah.
(04:43):
It's a physical action causing a mental reaction.
Physical action causing a mental reaction.
There you go.
Took me a second to get that out of
Well, and trauma in itself, you know, the more research that comes out about trauma, itreally is something that can stick in your body.
You know, even though logically anybody with anxiety can attest to this, the mostfrustrating part is that you can logically tell yourself, I am safe right now.
(05:10):
This is fine.
You know, everything's okay.
But your body doesn't know that because your body remembers the trauma and holds onto itbecause you were stuck in a place where you couldn't really find safety or couldn't escape
it.
or you have these negative self beliefs that hold onto it.
Like I'm not worthy.
I'm not good enough.
I'm this, I'm that.
And it's really hard to get past that until you allow your brain to reprocess it in adifferent way, if that makes sense.
(05:37):
That does make sense.
And it's funny you're saying that trauma getting stuck.
just did an interview or we had a discussion with Jessica Tracy.
um She's a Jungian coach, so Carl Jung, um also what is it?
Jungian integrative psychedelic integration.
(05:59):
And she was talking about that.
Like you can physically move trauma in your body.
through different modalities, I guess, of like maybe EMDR, but she was talking more inlike the psychedelic, um you know, plant-based medicine, that sort of thing.
But yeah, this keeps coming up.
um So, you have to be licensed, right, to administer EMDR, facilitate, what's the word?
(06:28):
Well, yeah, I think it is administer.
can pretty much use whatever word you want to describe it because it is imperative thatyou assess the client for emotional and physical safety and stability.
This is a practice to where you, it's kind of cool because you don't have to go into like,if you have a lot of deep trauma, you don't have to go into the full story and keep
(06:50):
telling it and keep telling it because EMDR is focused around a specific memory.
So you can work at one specific memory at a time that is usually associated with anegative core belief.
And so, you know, I'll use a personal example because that's how I make sense of mostthings when people personalize them.
uh I had a severe eating disorder growing up.
um You know, I grew up in a dysfunctional family household to where, my earliest memory iseight years old, you know, engaging in these eating disorder behaviors.
(07:18):
My brain didn't even know what was going on.
I couldn't logically make sense of what I was doing because I was a kid.
So I can logically as an adult say, wow, I was, you know, that was, know, cause thenegative core belief that, you know, I kind of had at eight years old was that I'm not
good enough.
I'm disgusting, you know, just really terrible things that you tell yourself at that age.
(07:41):
And I can't, couldn't move out of my brain as an adult because my parents were telling methat I was telling myself that, and that really was who I thought I was at the time.
So logically as an adult, I can say, you know, I can move past that, that's fine, but it'sstill stuck there.
If that makes sense.
So EMDR really helped me reprocess that and move it through in a way that my logical adultself can be like, you know what, you are okay.
(08:05):
You can heal from that and move forward.
That wasn't the truth.
Wow.
EMDR is really, would you say it's really specifically for trauma or anxiety or things?
Does it like serve like certain types of conditions?
Yeah, most of the time people do think of it as a trauma modality.
(08:29):
I think of it in that way too.
I'm not too sure if anybody uses it for anything else because usually it is associatedwith such a distressing event or a distressing memory.
um And we have all levels of trauma.
Even someone being humiliated in a public situation can be seen as a traumatic event ifthat person can't move past it.
yes, and I do think it's, traditional talk therapy has its place.
(08:54):
but it can only get you so far.
And I can attest to that because, you I hate to say this as a therapist, but if you'rejust talking about something in your present that, you know, you have like a fight with a
coworker or, you know, you're fighting with your spouse, well, talking it out with atherapist can only get you so far.
You could do the same thing with a friend or a trusted family member and not have to paythat person, you know.
(09:18):
But these modalities, these trauma modalities such as EMDR get to the deeper parts of usthat we're holding onto.
And you need a qualified clinician to help you move through that and make sure that you'resafe and processing it in a way.
And what I didn't mention, you usually replace that negative belief with a positiveself-statement that it's true in the present.
(09:38):
So if my statement is, I'm not good enough, I'm flawed.
I am disgusting, whatever the statement may be, you replace it with, know, I am goodenough.
I am, you know, a beautiful person.
Just anything that you want to work toward with, and you talk about it with yourtherapist.
Like, this is what I want to believe.
This is what I believe right now associated with this memory, but this is what I want tobelieve.
(10:02):
And it's just an amazing process because still in my logical brain, I can't understand howit works, but I can attest to that.
Yeah, it's pretty wild.
reminds me of our ketamine episodes with the kind of rewiring the brain.
But you're just doing it with, I mean, eye movement essentially.
(10:24):
I'm curious, how did she go from experiencing that personal moment in the forest toturning this into an actual, like, applicable mode of therapy?
Do you know the history of it?
Like how she processed was like what?
process that went through and I guess more to the point now, this might be more in yourwheelhouse, how effective is it really?
(10:49):
Does this work on everybody?
Are there real stats on this?
it being done enough that there's real science to it and that, know, percentages ofsuccess and things like that?
I don't know all of the exact details about how it moved from her having this experienceto uh applying it to clients and making it a healing uh modality of treatment.
(11:11):
I do know she's probably more scientific minded than I am and she probably hasn't had aprocess for it.
Because it was established, I believe in the 1980s, it's still relatively new, right?
But it is considered to be an evidence-based therapy.
So there is a lot of research.
that says that it is effective, especially when it comes to PTSD, like when you have anevent trauma like war, sexual assault, just something that's like an event that happens,
(11:39):
which is just PTSD in general, as opposed to complex PTSD, which is still not in the DSMfor some reason.
I think it will be in the next year or two.
And complex PTSD is more of a series of events, like when you think of like childhoodtrauma.
a series of events that led to the PTSD that you're experiencing as an adult right now.
(12:01):
And so, you know, the research on that, you like I said, a lot of positive, you know, uheffectiveness in terms of PTSD, a lot of people have said that they can be re-traumatized
and it made them feel worse.
And I think that has to do with not working with a qualified clinician that needs toassess for that safety right away and make sure that you're
(12:23):
a person that really would benefit from this therapy.
So it really brings that stuff up to the front then.
it can be re-traumatizing just as much as you.
Wow.
Okay.
So yeah, you really got to know what you're doing there.
You really do.
when I was practicing uh when I was younger, because I was licensed and I was certified inEMDR, um I was very selective on which clients I would introduce.
(12:49):
And you have to obviously get their permission and work together if they're open to it atfirst.
And I would say usually you generally see about 20 clients a week.
I would only use it on about four to five because it is such a personal.
decision and everybody's in different levels of their healing and their recovery processand things like that.
(13:11):
For my personal, um when I did EMDR with a clinician, I experienced immediate relief andit blew my mind.
Not to be there, but I don't get upset when I think about the memory.
wow.
Yeah.
So this is really a great site.
Thank you for setting up like what EMDR is.
(13:32):
We'll get into the tapping stuff later.
But so you are a licensed professional counselor who is licensed to provide EMDR.
What kind of what drove you into this?
Now, you mentioned already you've had some of your own um situations growing up.
Was that kind of the catalyst for you to go down this path and then and then do EMDRyourself?
(13:57):
Absolutely.
And I think it's why, you know, at this stage, I'm so interested and fascinated by traumabecause growing up, I didn't have a safe outlet.
um You know, and a lot of us, I'm sure, you know, had parents that didn't like to talkabout feelings and, you know, you weren't, you know, I look at it like, you know, my job
as a parent is to provide my child.
(14:19):
with a safe environment to be themselves.
I'm just a guide.
I'm watching their little personalities develop and grow up.
And I love being a parent for that reason because it's so cool.
And uh I didn't have that.
And a lot of people didn't have that.
I don't think, and I'll get into this later when I talk about what I'm gonna be working onnow.
um For some reason in our society, it's controversial to say that like our parents shouldnever have had children and mine shouldn't have.
(14:44):
I'll just go ahead and say it.
They shouldn't have.
We were looked at as like burdens instead of, know, like, wow, these little people that,you know, I'm so lucky to be able to, you parent and be in their lives and stuff like
that.
So I felt very alone.
um I, like I said, I developed an eating disorder at a young age.
And when I would try to go for help or come to my parents with like a valid feeling orconcern, I was either met with contempt, I was shamed, I was punished, I was told I was
(15:13):
too much or this or that.
So I learned that I was the bad person.
I was the one that needed to be fixed.
I was not safe anywhere.
And so I really started to research psychology as a teenager.
There wasn't much available back then, but I'd go to the library and look up.
And then I wanted to major in psychology and fix myself for that reason, because Ihonestly didn't know why I was doing these things.
(15:36):
I was binge eating.
I was bulimic.
And then for a while, I was anorexic.
over the scope of eating disorders while still thinking like, you I am just this awfulperson that does disgusting things.
And it wasn't until I got into college and, you know, took some really good classes andthen went on with my training that I found, okay, well, this is why I did that.
(15:59):
This is my, I'm not disgusting, I'm trying to cope.
with these feelings that I have because my parents hate each other.
They have a terrible relationship.
Everything is surrounded by resentment and shame and just like an icky environment athome.
And then I went.
do not feel bad, right?
Like, I don't think anyone can get out alive in that right?
(16:22):
on the struggle bus in
like trying not to get wet when you live in a swamp, you know what
Exactly.
But you have so much shame because, you know, as little people, we just absorb what ourparents are doing and tell us.
And so my core beliefs were honestly my parents telling me all this stuff and, you know,the stuff that I had in my body.
So it took me a long time to get to that point.
(16:42):
And it wasn't just like, oh, I, you know, majored in psychology and decided to be atherapist.
So my eating disorder went away.
That wasn't it.
And so
You know, it took a lot of therapy and training and self work and things like that.
And I just really wanted to be a therapist because I never, I felt so alone.
I didn't have anyone to help me and I really wanted to help other people in a way.
(17:03):
It was kind of like healing for me to help other people as well, if that makes sense.
Really a common story, lot of psychotherapists and psychiatrists and whatnot, they startout in it because they want to figure out their own problems.
And then once they learn enough that they can actually figure out problems, they're like,hey, let me help other people too.
(17:24):
Even like the most famous ones, Freud and Jung and all the guys who created the processesthat you use now.
they got into it because they had issues that they wanted to figure out about themselves.
Like that's where it all comes from.
I find it very interesting about the field, honestly.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
(17:44):
It is interesting and it's kind of a slippery slope.
have to be careful not to have your own stuff get in the way of.
That was a big thing with Young.
Young's whole thing is to not filter it through your own filters.
Like the therapist can't be biased in their approach to the patient.
That's like a huge thing.
uh
So you got into, oh, sorry.
(18:07):
no, it's okay.
Yeah, go ahead.
It's like any other field, like, you know, there's good mechanics, there's bad mechanics,there's good therapists, there's bad therapists.
So you just have to be careful and just really assess, you know, as a client, if you wantto work on your stuff, you're trusting somebody with the most vulnerable parts of you.
So you need to make sure that that person is safe and competent and, know, that you feelgood about it.
(18:29):
Yeah, I wanted to ask you.
So obviously you became, you you got into providing therapy, whether EMDR was part of thatin the beginning or not, it became part of what you were licensed in and being able to
provide that to your patients.
How though now not every therapist is licensed into EMDR or wants to be, but if, how doknow if you need that?
(18:49):
Right?
Like as a patient, like, and, and where to go, where to start, how to find a you, youknow,
I think, again, using my personal stuff as an example, for me, lot of the eating disordertherapy was very behavioral focused when I was first in my recovery and getting my
training.
So it was kind of like, okay, well, and a lot of it was helpful, don't get me wrong, butit was very like, okay, well, change this thought to this thought logically in your head.
(19:17):
So if I think that I am fat, I'm not gonna eat, you have to replace that with, I need foodto nurture my body.
or they would have you do a lot of positive affirmations and you would do healthy movementand a lot of things that, talk therapy, fine.
It only got me so far.
And I still knew that there was parts of me that it wasn't, the therapy wasn't touching.
(19:42):
And I think a lot of people can connect with that.
It's like, kind of like the example I was using before, like talk therapy can only get youso far.
If you can have the same conversation with a trusted friend or a trusted family member andget the same results, what is the point of therapy, right?
So if you know that you have deeper stuff that you, let's say, you know, you are like somad at your spouse for something like it just bothers you, but you don't know why.
(20:06):
Like, you know, he like this shouldn't bother me logically, but there's something thatit's triggering in me and I can't figure it out.
Because he's a loud chewer.
That's not me.
I mean, that could be a segue to the trauma, sure.
There might be some drama there, I don't know.
Right.
But or like, you there's just something that you can't get past, you know, there's likesomething that keeps coming up.
(20:29):
oh You know, for me, I kept having panic attacks.
And I didn't understand, you know, like, I'm like, logically, I'm safe.
I'm fine.
Like, why does this stuff keep coming up?
And I knew there was something in me that I had to like get reprocessed and be released.
And that's what led me on the path.
And I think a lot of people that just feel that something is missing.
ah And a lot of people do know what that is.
(20:50):
And a lot of people don't want to go there.
Obviously, if you have severe childhood trauma or things in your past that are verytraumatic, it's a very difficult thing to do.
And a lot of people don't want to do it for years and years, if ever.
And I hope that answers your question.
can go on.
Yeah, no, it does.
And because I think, you know, a lot of times we have been very much diving into likealternative health, which is kind of what, you know, and mental health is a huge part of
(21:16):
that.
Huge.
um And there's physical health stuff, too.
But because we're covering this more and more and we we're doing it, you know, we want toeducate people.
Right.
And I think a lot of people will hear EMDR or even ketamine therapy that we've covered oreven
uh like intuitive therapy, like all these things, even the liquid breath work classes thatwe've covered on the show, uh acupuncture.
(21:42):
And sometimes this stuff feels like, oh, what is that?
Like that's not like traditional mainstream stuff, right?
Like it's, don't know what that is.
Like, so that's uncomfortable to me.
And so we're definitely trying to talk about it in a way that like, okay, now I get it,right?
Like someone listened to show right now.
it's going to it's going to click and be like, OK, wait a minute.
(22:03):
Maybe that is for me.
I shouldn't be scared of it.
um mean, uncovering your own trauma is a whole nother thing.
Being open to doing something different is, you know what I mean?
Like just having another tool in the in the toolbox outside of like talk therapy.
So, yeah, so I think that's you know, that's really important.
So, yeah.
(22:25):
And like you said, a lot of the things that are coming out now in the field of trauma,like the use of psychedelics and things like that, people don't understand.
it's our immediate as humans reaction to be like, oh, no, not going to do that, or that'swrong, or that's too much, or whatever it is, when it could be something that's very
beneficial.
Yeah, yeah, just like the stigma.
feel like one of our first shows that we did now almost a year ago was on ketamine therapyin these ketamine clinics.
(22:51):
We have one here in town revitalized.
Actually, Dr.
Casey came on um and we've interviewed some people about that.
And I can tell you just in the last year when I first found out about it, I can tell youthat I know more and more people that are starting to do it and they're becoming more open
about doing it.
So that I feel like that's that stigma is starting to be
(23:12):
erased or minimized.
um But then there's all this other cool shit out there like this that I'm like, Hey, maybemaybe EMDR can solve your problems.
That actually leads me to a question.
What is the actual process?
Like, is it rounds of treatments to get to like, for that one memory or is it just oneintense thing?
(23:38):
Cause like with the ketamine, the doctor basically suggests it's usually like half a dozenor so drug treatments followed by, you know, rounds of psychotherapy with the doctor to
process what happened in those half dozen drug treatments.
So with this, is this like you pick one memory and you do one session or it's like youhave to keep going back to that memory to really get erase it and replace it kind of.
(24:04):
It depends on the level of trauma and everybody is different.
There are eight phases of the actual EMDR therapy.
And so it involves history taking and explaining the process, assessing for, like I said,if they're emotionally and physically stable, uh identifying a target, identifying that
(24:25):
and identifying the positive self-belief that you wanna replace with that.
And then you go through the whole process that can take one therapy session
and then you end, have to end it in a safe way.
So there's a way for a therapist to close the session, make sure that the client isemotionally stable and ready to go home.
And a lot of times I found when I was doing this with clients, it could take up to threeto six sessions on one specific memory, on the quality of that.
(24:53):
Sometimes.
There's a lot of variables, I imagine, just based on whatever that situation was for them.
uh
sounds so intense and it's just eye movement like it really does it's hard to wrap thebrain around I said that at the beginning it really kind of is like it makes me want to
(25:13):
experience it directly just so I understand it
Yeah, that was the way for me to really understand because once you get certified, excuseme, and you go through the certification process, you're in a room in-person training with
clinicians and you do practice on each other.
So that was kind of cool for me.
And also when I did this with a therapist and outpatient, we used sensors on my hand.
(25:36):
So it was stimulating ah my, instead of the therapist, uh me following his buzzer.
like a buzzer.
Yeah, so like I would hold the sensors and then one would buzz on one side then one wouldbuzz on the other side.
So it was just stimulating two sides of my body.
I've heard of some people doing butterfly going like this to stimulate both sides.
(25:59):
m
their shoulder.
in your hands and tap in your shoulder.
So it's just getting, it's interesting.
And even, you know, when I, if I have something come up to this day, I will listen, youcan listen to it's called EMDR bilateral stimulation beats or music.
can look it up on YouTube.
You can look it up on, you know, Apple or whatever.
And I have my headphones on.
(26:19):
I call it like my anger walks.
If I need to like process something out, I put my headphones on, I put on the EMDRbilateral beats and I walk and it helps so much to like.
That's like the binaural stimulation where you get the different sounds in the opposingears.
eh That's another episode I'd like to...
eh
yeah, right.
(26:40):
I sound therapy kind of works that way.
I've done that a number of times.
we do it at the end of the liquid breath work sessions that I've been doing, but I've alsodone just like standalone sound therapy.
need to get somebody on to talk about center sound therapy.
Yeah.
So if anyone's hearing this, please, um, going to hunt you down.
I found that similar, like what you're describing, um, where it can be really, it alsodepends on the acoustics of the room that you're in.
(27:05):
Unfortunately that has some, that doesn't affect it, but
where it's like, will be really loud on one side and almost, truthfully, like felt likewhere it's gotten so intense on one side that I've almost had to shake myself out of like
the, like this meditational state that it puts you in.
And then it will go to the other side based on how they're doing the bowls.
(27:27):
And it's weirdest thing ever.
And I love it.
Yeah, I love all that stuff too.
just, really open to anything that gets us to feel and process things differently.
I think it's cool.
Yeah, and the way we can rewire our brains with things like that, with just visual orauditory stimulation even, just that can rewire your brain.
(27:50):
Yeah.
What, so what, what's actually happening in the, speaking of the rewiring when somebody isgoing through EMDR, whether it's one session or six sessions or however many, what's
actually happening inside?
Like, do we know or.
Basically, you know, and again, I don't really know how to explain it well without like,I'm not even good at, I just know that there is a way of just like retraining your brain
(28:15):
to process things differently.
So it's hitting different spots than it normally like it's stuck in a certain spot.
And I know that sounds like really simplistic, but it's stuck because we were a child atthat point.
And that you know what I mean?
And like, so we're having our childhood associations with that memory.
You're literally stuck in a rut.
(28:35):
You're stuck in a rut.
Yes, and this is allowing more.
gets you up out of the rut.
Okay, so like the movie okay interesting
the same as what-
Like have you heard about like massages making people cry?
Yes, even yoga.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like the body is fascinating.
is really cool.
about that a lot in yin with the long hold poses.
(28:58):
They tell you upfront, like some stuff might come up if you start.
My reaction, I will just start laughing like a lunatic sometimes in the middle of doinglike the Joker from Batman laughing and I can't control it.
I'll just start cackling like a madman.
It's weird.
Some people cry, you know, there's, yeah, it's like, there's those things that you talkabout that are built up.
(29:23):
like physically built up in places in your body.
When you, when you open up that area, that stuff comes out, you know, I carry up my onlyrepent repented, uh, emotion apparently is crazy because I laugh like a crazy man.
That's the only thing that comes out.
I repressed my crazy enough to function in society that outside of that, I'm fine.
(29:46):
You're gonna be there next time you start laughing.
It only happens once in a while and thankfully it's only happened at the sessions I'vedone at home.
I do most of my yoga at home by myself.
But yeah, the first time I went to do yin in public, I'm like, my God, I hope I don'tstart laughing.
I'm going to freak these people out.
I'm sure they've heard it all though, because it like, emulates some sort of emotionalrelease, however that comes out, you know?
(30:13):
Yeah.
So I want to make sure we talk about EFT tapping too.
We've spent a lot of time kind of understanding what EMDR is.
so anyone who's been listening to this point, you know, I feel like I just want to say ifthis sounds like something you need, right?
Like find somebody who, can administer it.
Find, find yourself a Melissa Mark in your town or, or
(30:37):
And the cool thing is it sounds very much like the psychedelic therapies we've beentalking about, but you don't have to do the drugs.
So if you're someone who wants to go down that road and one needs that kind of therapy,but you really don't want to do the drugs, here you go.
Try this.
Ryan and Shelby, run the liquid, I'm sorry, I keep talking about it.
We have them on the show.
(30:57):
I go to their class.
Jeremy started going.
They even say that in the beginning of the club when they're especially for new peoplethat are joining.
They're like, if psychedelics isn't, you know, plant based medicine isn't something thatyou're interested in doing, um this can provide some of the same type of relief.
EMDR seems like it's kind of in that same space.
(31:17):
um So anyway, we have another option.
Yeah, don't be don't be afraid of it.
But um so I want to talk about EFT tapping, though.
And I don't know if you know how EFT and EMDR even have any kind of crossover there atall.
I hear a lot about people being able to do kind of tapping on their own.
Like I actually saw a movie not that long ago and it was Mark Wahlberg.
(31:41):
And I can't remember the name of it.
He has this rubber band.
And it's like super high anxiety guy and he's snapping it and snapping it.
And it's become it was such a part of his character.
And I'm like, is that some
Storm of, form of tapping.
Anyway.
similarities.
Sounds more like self-harm to me.
Right?
Yeah, it was it was interesting and I
(32:01):
educated approach to what we're talking about today.
Like, did people do that?
But um tell us a little bit about tapping.
Let's shift a little bit there.
I know you're going to walk us through an EFT tapping exercise as well.
So yes, well, and like you said, you know, EFT All-Star, it's called the emotional freedomtechnique.
And so basically, this is something that you can do on your own.
(32:22):
And this is something that there are therapists that do specialize in this.
And I would suggest if anybody has, you know, a lot of trauma or there is like a seriousissue that they want to work on, then I would, you know, go to a practitioner that
specializes in this just to make sure you're safe and all that kind of stuff.
In my case, actually, was never certified in EFT, but I left the field when my kids wereborn for a while just to stay home with them.
(32:50):
And I was having all this anxiety and panic come up and I went on YouTube and I discoveredthe EFT tapping and I would do it on myself to kind of bring my anxiety down.
And I found so much relief.
And basically,
It's based on kind of like, know how acupuncture you stimulate different meridian pointsin your body.
(33:12):
That's basically what the tapping does.
So we have different uh points on our body that stimulate the amygdala and it is verysimilar to EMDR, which you think of, know, kind of a negative uh thing that you want to
process, right?
Like if I'm having all this anxiety.
So.
You you think of like, I'm having all this anxiety right now.
(33:33):
My heart's beating, like I'm panicking.
I'm afraid of this.
You know, I'm stressed out because of this, all these negative things.
And then you think of something that you want to replace it with, you know.
The most basic one, do you want me just to go ahead and show you?
Okay.
Yeah, go for it.
uh If you can explain as you go for our audio people and if you want to see it, we're onYouTube.
(33:56):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yes.
I'll try to explain it.
It is easier to see it.
Okay.
So basically the points are right above the eyebrow on the side of the eye below the eyeon the bone below the nose below the lips and then below the collarbone under the arm
(34:18):
right where your bra is for women and then on the top of the head.
And what you're going to do is you're going to
You start with, uh it's called the karate chop point of the outside of your hand.
And so for example, I would start to talk about my anxiety.
And so would just say, as I'm tapping, would just say, I have all this anxiety.
(34:39):
I have all this anxiety in my body, making my heart race, making me feel stressed out.
And even though I have all this anxiety, I still love and accept myself.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know I can calm myself down.
(35:02):
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know that I am safe.
And then once you're solidified in that, then you start with the eyebrow.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I still love and completely accept myself.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know that I am safe and I can calm myself down.
(35:28):
Even though I have all this anxiety.
can't fit under my glasses.
Right here.
huh.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know that I am safe and I am calm.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I love and completely accept myself.
(35:53):
Even though I have all this anxiety, I am bringing my heart rate down and I'm capable ofcalming myself.
I have all this anxiety and I can let it go and be safe and calm.
And then you take a deep breath and usually you can do that about three times through,okay?
(36:20):
And then you take a deep breath and you release it.
And then you see if you feel, you you can rate yourself on a scale from one to 10 beforeyou begin just to see how high your anxiety is or your self-defeating statement.
And then you can reassess and you can just continue to do that as much as you need to do.
You can also do that.
(36:40):
a little later.
Yeah, I like it's very calming.
Yeah, and I imagine too, 100 % I am a child of the 80s, Gen X all the way.
I was entirely thinking about Jack Handy and positive affirmations from the SNL.
Gosh darn it, people like me.
(37:00):
So it's very, yes, I can It is like positive, uh it's kind of like positive affirmations.
We'll throw back there for people of a certain age.
So I imagine that statement will change depending on whatever it is that you're trying to.
Absolutely.
The example I was using, because sometimes it's necessary to involve a self statement.
(37:23):
Like I do love and completely accept myself.
In some cases, it might be more appropriate to say, I am able to call myself.
I am safe.
So it just depends on what I was trying to use both examples to do a run through.
But yeah, I can see where the similarity comes in.
Because we were taught that that was like the cheesy Stuart Smalley with the mirror andeverything like that.
(37:45):
Did I say Jack Handy?
my gosh.
I think it would.
the deep thoughts with.
Deep thoughts with Jack Candy.
He was more.
Yeah, so and it is it's just it's just kind of, you know, and I'll touch on the innerchild in a little bit, but it's kind of, you know, and I know the inner child concept is a
(38:07):
wild one also like it's.
We've been covering that too.
had an episode on that.
Bring it on.
Bring it on.
That's again, and I think all of these kind of stem from these, you know, childhoodbeliefs that, you know, like, because anxiety is scary as a child and you feel like you
can't talk yourself out of it and you can't work yourself out of it.
So by, you know, letting your brain reprocess it on these, you know, meridian points andthen replacing it with a safe adult statement, it really does, you know, allow the healing
(38:36):
to happen or at least decreasing.
anxiety and a lot of studies have shown that it decreases cortisol, know, it helps yousleep better.
It really does work in a lot of situations.
Yeah, that's cool.
pretty amazing stuff, you know.
And it's great because you can do it by yourself.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
And when I had put that Facebook post out, which ended up bringing you to me for thisparticular topic, a couple of other people had commented saying how they've used tapping
(39:04):
both at themselves, their kids for like different, you know, and I don't know what theirspecific situations were.
But it seemed like there was more, I guess, maybe more common use of it than I even I wasaware of.
Yeah.
But, you know.
A lot of people still don't know.
I didn't really know what it is, so now I do.
It almost felt like a focusing exercise as well.
(39:28):
Are there applications for this for things like ADD and things like that?
Because that honestly made me feel like I could very much just focus you in a way.
Yes, I think it depends on the individual.
And again, I'm not certified in this as a practitioner.
And so I suggest if you do have anything specifically that you want to work on that youdon't get relief from doing it on your own or watching a YouTube video, then contact a
(39:55):
practitioner.
And this is a great thing.
You can even do it on Zoom with someone that's out of state if you can't find someonelocally.
It's super easy ah to do that.
And again, it depends on the severity of what you want to work on.
But I find it very helpful.
Yeah.
Okay.
So let's talk about inner child.
What do you got on that?
We really like this topic.
Yeah, we did a whole thing.
(40:17):
I'm trying to remember the name of Cursicano's.
It's some sort of intuitive psychotherapy.
But a big thing for her is doing inner child work.
And basically it creates a proper emotional response to things instead of reacting withthat inner child and like overreacting emotionally to little things.
(40:40):
It, you know, gives you a better baseline.
for your emotional control, guess, is really what it is.
What are your thoughts on that?
have you done with it in terms of the patient?
Like I said, it took me a long time to even get in touch with that I had an inner childbecause from such a young age, I was treated like an adult.
(41:01):
In my family, I wasn't allowed to be a child.
I wasn't allowed to make mistakes.
I wasn't allowed to mess up.
You should have known better.
Why did you do that?
That type of thing.
And so I think I suppressed my natural childhood curiosity, responses, everything likethat.
And anytime I did mess up, it was like, you should have known better.
(41:21):
well, how would I have known better as a child and nobody taught me things like that?
So I really shut off from that inner child and I became a very parentified kid from a veryyoung age.
And so as a practitioner, when I was getting trained in the inner child, ah traumatraining and things like that, it's important for any trauma work to really understand
(41:44):
what happened, what the story is, and...
who you were as a child, right?
Because any deep trauma comes from childhood.
And your inner child is basically, know, all children come into this world innocent.
All you want is to be loved, safe, cared for, and, you know, really appreciated, right?
(42:04):
Basic needs.
And if you don't get that, then your inner child, you know, they didn't get what theyneeded.
And so as an adult, you can find yourself, you know, I call it like operating from my, youknow,
lower ego state where I'm just, you know, I get triggered by like any little thing thathappens.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well.
It's kind of like there's
(42:26):
tracking.
Okay, there's just there's like, it's hard to explain, I think, like, getting into gettingin touch with that vulnerable part of you, right?
The part of you that that didn't have to overcompensate for things or like pretend thateverything was okay, like it's a very vulnerable part of you.
(42:49):
And so for a long time, when I was doing therapy with clients, I could see it in them, Icould see their rooted inner child, I could see
you know, that child come out and it was so hard for me to connect to mine.
I, uh for some reason I had a block and then little by little I started to kind of say,okay.
So when, you know, I'm kind of like, you know, crying, you know, because, you know, Ididn't get, you know, what I wanted in this area or like what if I didn't do a good job um
(43:15):
on this client and then I go into my office and cry, that's not an adult reaction to that.
That's a very like wounded inner child.
Like I'm not good enough reaction.
if that makes sense.
And so the purpose of inner child work is to have your adult self, reparent that part ofyou that didn't get what they needed in childhood.
(43:36):
um Because the theory of trauma is that we're all operating from that inner child place,right?
Does that make any sense?
Sorry.
It does.
And it is interesting the way that you just said that to, um, reparent yourself.
Like I hadn't really considered that, um, being a part of it, but that makes sense.
(43:58):
And it is because, if we didn't have attuned caregivers that, you know, gave us thatsafety, gave us that self love, gave us that everything, you know, because as kids, you do
absorb what your parents, know, Your caregivers, whatever.
If you're like, for instance, my reality was completely denied.
uh You know, it took me a long time to even trust myself.
I had no self trust because every time I said, well, you know, what about this, this andthis and brought it up?
(44:23):
No, that didn't happen.
never happened, you know, and as like, that's crazy making as a kid, because then you'relike, well, but it did, but maybe I'm crazy.
So the reparenting process for me was a lot of learning to trust myself again, and, youknow, going slow and listening to my inner voice.
And if I had a gut feeling about somebody or something, really going with that andtrusting it instead of suppressing it, because that's how I adapted, right?
(44:50):
And that's how I survived for so long is just repressing everything.
that made me me.
Yeah, I feel like there's a whole lot of like Gen Xers out there that probably need EMDR,um probably tapping, probably ketamine therapy might.
It's like that or, you know, drinking too much, which is I feel like it's like the lastgeneration of relying on like substance abuse, particularly alcohol for just kind of
(45:21):
covering up these things.
So like.
We all need to just get out there and get help and just like, accept this that there's abetter way.
There is.
And you can look around our world right now.
Look at our country.
Look at our society.
can see a bunch of wounded in fighting and bullying.
(45:42):
you know, just it's almost like, you know, we can be re-traumatized even just in thesociety we're in.
It's like our whole society is living on its inner child right now in this country.
Every reaction to everything is a childish overreaction from every angle right now.
(46:04):
It really is.
bunch of traumatized children that haven't done any work, right?
And it's very difficult to reason, right?
We see firsthand, can't reasonably, like, you can't use logic, you can't use truth, youcan't use, it's very frustrating.
And so that it's very important for those of us who can, you know, you know, use insightand want to work on ourselves to really try to reparent that part of us that is kind of
(46:30):
like a wild, like wounded child that
you know, either causes us some distress, like you said, with like the drinking, like justtrying to like, okay, calm down, calm down, calm down.
Let's not work on that.
Let's not talk about that.
Need to do that, right?
I mean, that's, that's just what we were taught to.
I can say as a taxi driver in a college town, the next generation is not drinking.
(46:55):
They are horrified of, of making a fool out of himself in public and having it show up onsocial media.
That's literally what it is.
Social media has stopped the next generation from getting wildly drunk in public.
made my job a lot easier.
I don't have to worry about college kids puking in my car because they don't ever getthat.
(47:16):
They don't ever get that drunk.
interested.
I think legalized marijuana helped too, but the biggest thing is social media scared themout of drinking.
Yeah.
It's a wild phenomenon in my mind.
Like it's, it's a crazy cause what do you do in college?
know, every generation before him had a very similar college experience.
(47:37):
They are rewriting the book on that.
It's not college is not what it was when we went anymore.
Yeah.
And that's a key phrase you just used is that we were all doing it.
was like a rite of passage, right?
You know, and I'm so grateful social media wasn't around back then.
my god, all the things I wouldn't have been able to get away with.
It's all just made in here.
It kind of killed funny.
It really kind of killed fun in a way.
(47:57):
Yeah.
But I've had a couple of college kids complain that now it's our turn and there's nothingleft to do.
But I also think, I know parents these days get a lot of criticism for, being helicopterparents and things like that.
And I won't even, you know, go into that, you know, there's always a balance with things.
You don't want to be two one way or two the other.
But I do think, you know, in general, like you kind of said, Heather, with Gen X, like wehad very hands off parents, a lot of, you know, I know not everybody, but most of us did.
(48:26):
And parents are not like that anymore.
You know, parents are interested in what their kids are doing.
And
I think they talk to them a little bit more on, and I'm using blanket statements, thisdoesn't go for everybody, but I think that makes a big difference too.
You're just not left to go wander and figure things out and experiment and.
Right, exactly.
(48:47):
Yeah, nobody was at my house.
I could do whatever I wanted.
So that could be a perspective on it too, but I'm just grateful that.
And again, I love wine.
I have nothing against drinking or anything like that, as long as you don't do itexcessively.
Yeah, to cover things up and things like that.
I look at myself in the throes of my eating disorder.
(49:10):
I used alcohol, smoking cigarettes, diet pills to not eat.
So that's a problem.
That's not great.
But there's a balance to everything.
And I think that if our kids can figure out how to relax and how to have a good timewithout drinking to excess and without making fools of them.
and hurting their bodies and hurting other people.
(49:30):
That's amazing.
I like the old adage of drink to remember, not to forget.
eh When you really look into that statement, it tells you everything you need to knowabout alcohol.
That's so true.
Oh, well, we have covered a lot of things today.
And I think, by the way, I think we might be able to pull a 15 minute fix out of this onein the front on EMDR.
(49:55):
So we yeah, one of our little short kind of short episodes that we like to do when we can.
So so this has been a really great conversation.
I just see us coming up on time here and as usually went longer than I planned.
But this was a great conversation, Melissa.
I'm so glad that you came on and educated us in just normalizing these things.
(50:18):
Good to know what this stuff actually is now, because I've heard it a few times and now Iactually know what it is.
Yeah.
I appreciate it.
Yes.
And I did just want to add one thing, just because I recently reinstated my license.
So I am um going to go again and get recertified in EMDR just for ethical purposes, justbecause it was so long ago that I was certified.
(50:38):
I can't, uh I'm not going to administer EMDR until I'm fully certified again.
just to let everybody know.
But she'll be back in business here soon.
So we'll make sure.
Yeah.
So once you've got your practice back up and going, let us know and we'll make sure to addit to the, to the show.
Yeah.
Like you have a website or how to get in touch with you for our, for our Flagstaffcommunity, who might be interested in, in this kind of, in this kind of therapy.
(51:07):
And in the meantime, and if you're not in Flagstaff, now you know what this stuff's aboutand, you know, find a local practitioner if it sounds like the right stuff for you, you
know.
Yeah, exactly.
Open your mind to the possibilities, folks.
uh
I think that's important.
Yeah.
It's cool that we're finding things that are so similar to psychedelic therapy, with youdon't need to actually do the psychedelics.
(51:28):
It's a whole nother path that people can follow that I was unaware of.
that's really cool.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for joining us on the Healthcare Uprising.
Make sure to hit those like and subscribe buttons before you go and take a moment to thinkof a friend and hit that share button.
(51:52):
You can find us on all the major audio platforms and we've got video on YouTube andPatreon, patreon.com slash healthcare uprising.
If you want to watch us in action.
You can also find us on social media on LinkedIn, Blue Sky, Instagram, and Facebook.
Just search healthcare uprising to find us.
And if you're a new company or creator with a cool new product for the healthcare space,or if you're someone with a personal healthcare journey and you'd like to share it with us
(52:17):
here at the uprising, please email us at healthcareuprisingatgmail.com and we'll get backto you about coming on the show.
That's all for this dose of healthcare uprising.
Till the next time, keep looking for the good in the world.
because sometimes it's where you least expect it.
(53:13):
This has been a Shut Up
Alright, hello Health Heads, welcome and thank you for checking in to this dose of thehealthcare uprising.
I'm your producer in the back, Jeremy Carr, here with your host in the front row, HeatherPierce.
So, who we talking to today, Heather?
We have Melissa Mark, who is actually a friend of mine here in Flagstaff.
She is a licensed therapist.
(00:36):
She is a, I would say a practitioner in EMDR, not in EFT tapping, but we are going tocover that as well.
Um, so she's going to dig into all things around EMDRA.
I'm not even going to try to spell that out outside of the acronym.
She does it in the show, but it's another, um, way of providing some, mental healthsupport and therapy in a different way.
(01:01):
And if you're a regular listener, you'll know we've mentioned this EMDR in a couple ofrecent episodes.
I'm looking forward to figuring out what it's really all about finally, because I stilldon't really get it.
without further ado, let's jump on in here to our conversation with Melissa Mark.
(01:23):
Hi, and welcome to the Healthcare Uprising podcast.
Today we have Melissa Mark, a fellow flag staffer.
We'll fight about that later.
I guess one already I got you to say it though.
She's a licensed professional counselor or LPC and here to talk about EMDR and EFT tappingtoday.
Welcome to the show, Melissa.
Thank you.
(01:43):
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, and Melissa and I have been friends through the Flagstaff community and the momsgroups for a while.
All of our kids went to D.
Miguel, I believe, in school, yeah.
Yeah, see, we bring on our friends on this show because I know a lot of really cool peoplethat are doing really cool things.
(02:04):
So Melissa, you're one of them.
So super happy to have you on.
um
And I'm excited to hear about this because this EMDR stuff has come up in a couple recentepisodes and I still don't really know what it's all about.
So I'm excited to see this.
Yeah.
So before we get into kind of like your background too deeply, but I do want to talk aboutthat right off the bat.
(02:25):
Can you just share with us what EMDR is?
And then I know we're going to talk a little bit about EFT tapping.
think we're going to focus mostly on EMDR, but we'll cover both.
So let's just kind of set it up, tell people what it is and get them excited.
Sure.
Yeah, the simplest way to explain EMDR because it is kind of a weird concept unless you gothrough it yourself.
(02:46):
It's a little bit hard to wrap your mind around.
So EMDR actually stands for eye movement desensitization reprocessing.
So basically the con, well, I'll start with who founded it.
So it was founded by a psychologist named Dr.
Francine Shapiro, who was specializing in trauma.
And for one,
(03:06):
day she was walking in the forest, I remember her saying, and then she was thinking aboutkind of a distressing memory that came up for her.
And as she was walking and thinking about it, she noticed that her eyes were moving backand forth just in a natural process as she was thinking about it.
And then as she came out of her walk and out of the forest, she thought, huh, that doesn'tseem as distressing right now to me.
(03:27):
Something about the eye movement and the way she was thinking about the distressing event,it led the level of distress to go down in her body.
And so basically she founded EMDR, which is led by a therapist.
And you can use your two fingers to have your eyes trace, you know, the therapist'sfingers as you talk about some event in your past that was distressful, okay, caused you,
(03:51):
could be a severe event.
could be something like you were embarrassed in a situation, just something that you stillcontinually think about that causes you some sort of distress in your life.
And the more you do that and you,
uh you know, the therapists have a technique like there's different, you have to reallyhave a therapist that's certified in this because they have to assess for first like
emotional safety, physical safety, because if you do go through this process, you can kindof uh become retraumatized if you're not in a safe situation, if that makes sense.
(04:22):
So basically you're using bilateral stimulation to reprocess events in your brain thathave been stuck and you can't get past and this helps them to release
and the body to reprocess them so that they're more tolerable for the person.
If that makes sense.
I know it's a hard thing to describe without getting too complicated.
Yeah.
(04:43):
It's a physical action causing a mental reaction.
Physical action causing a mental reaction.
There you go.
Took me a second to get that out of
Well, and trauma in itself, you know, the more research that comes out about trauma, itreally is something that can stick in your body.
You know, even though logically anybody with anxiety can attest to this, the mostfrustrating part is that you can logically tell yourself, I am safe right now.
(05:10):
This is fine.
You know, everything's okay.
But your body doesn't know that because your body remembers the trauma and holds onto itbecause you were stuck in a place where you couldn't really find safety or couldn't escape
it.
or you have these negative self beliefs that hold onto it.
Like I'm not worthy.
I'm not good enough.
I'm this, I'm that.
And it's really hard to get past that until you allow your brain to reprocess it in adifferent way, if that makes sense.
(05:37):
That does make sense.
And it's funny you're saying that trauma getting stuck.
just did an interview or we had a discussion with Jessica Tracy.
um She's a Jungian coach, so Carl Jung, um also what is it?
Jungian integrative psychedelic integration.
(05:59):
And she was talking about that.
Like you can physically move trauma in your body.
through different modalities, I guess, of like maybe EMDR, but she was talking more inlike the psychedelic, um you know, plant-based medicine, that sort of thing.
But yeah, this keeps coming up.
um So, you have to be licensed, right, to administer EMDR, facilitate, what's the word?
(06:28):
Well, yeah, I think it is administer.
can pretty much use whatever word you want to describe it because it is imperative thatyou assess the client for emotional and physical safety and stability.
This is a practice to where you, it's kind of cool because you don't have to go into like,if you have a lot of deep trauma, you don't have to go into the full story and keep
(06:50):
telling it and keep telling it because EMDR is focused around a specific memory.
So you can work at one specific memory at a time that is usually associated with anegative core belief.
And so, you know, I'll use a personal example because that's how I make sense of mostthings when people personalize them.
uh I had a severe eating disorder growing up.
um You know, I grew up in a dysfunctional family household to where, my earliest memory iseight years old, you know, engaging in these eating disorder behaviors.
(07:18):
My brain didn't even know what was going on.
I couldn't logically make sense of what I was doing because I was a kid.
So I can logically as an adult say, wow, I was, you know, that was, know, cause thenegative core belief that, you know, I kind of had at eight years old was that I'm not
good enough.
I'm disgusting, you know, just really terrible things that you tell yourself at that age.
(07:41):
And I can't, couldn't move out of my brain as an adult because my parents were telling methat I was telling myself that, and that really was who I thought I was at the time.
So logically as an adult, I can say, you know, I can move past that, that's fine, but it'sstill stuck there.
If that makes sense.
So EMDR really helped me reprocess that and move it through in a way that my logical adultself can be like, you know what, you are okay.
(08:05):
You can heal from that and move forward.
That wasn't the truth.
Wow.
EMDR is really, would you say it's really specifically for trauma or anxiety or things?
Does it like serve like certain types of conditions?
Yeah, most of the time people do think of it as a trauma modality.
(08:29):
I think of it in that way too.
I'm not too sure if anybody uses it for anything else because usually it is associatedwith such a distressing event or a distressing memory.
um And we have all levels of trauma.
Even someone being humiliated in a public situation can be seen as a traumatic event ifthat person can't move past it.
yes, and I do think it's, traditional talk therapy has its place.
(08:54):
but it can only get you so far.
And I can attest to that because, you I hate to say this as a therapist, but if you'rejust talking about something in your present that, you know, you have like a fight with a
coworker or, you know, you're fighting with your spouse, well, talking it out with atherapist can only get you so far.
You could do the same thing with a friend or a trusted family member and not have to paythat person, you know.
(09:18):
But these modalities, these trauma modalities such as EMDR get to the deeper parts of usthat we're holding onto.
And you need a qualified clinician to help you move through that and make sure that you'resafe and processing it in a way.
And what I didn't mention, you usually replace that negative belief with a positiveself-statement that it's true in the present.
(09:38):
So if my statement is, I'm not good enough, I'm flawed.
I am disgusting, whatever the statement may be, you replace it with, know, I am goodenough.
I am, you know, a beautiful person.
Just anything that you want to work toward with, and you talk about it with yourtherapist.
Like, this is what I want to believe.
This is what I believe right now associated with this memory, but this is what I want tobelieve.
(10:02):
And it's just an amazing process because still in my logical brain, I can't understand howit works, but I can attest to that.
Yeah, it's pretty wild.
reminds me of our ketamine episodes with the kind of rewiring the brain.
But you're just doing it with, I mean, eye movement essentially.
(10:24):
I'm curious, how did she go from experiencing that personal moment in the forest toturning this into an actual, like, applicable mode of therapy?
Do you know the history of it?
Like how she processed was like what?
process that went through and I guess more to the point now, this might be more in yourwheelhouse, how effective is it really?
(10:49):
Does this work on everybody?
Are there real stats on this?
it being done enough that there's real science to it and that, know, percentages ofsuccess and things like that?
I don't know all of the exact details about how it moved from her having this experienceto uh applying it to clients and making it a healing uh modality of treatment.
(11:11):
I do know she's probably more scientific minded than I am and she probably hasn't had aprocess for it.
Because it was established, I believe in the 1980s, it's still relatively new, right?
But it is considered to be an evidence-based therapy.
So there is a lot of research.
that says that it is effective, especially when it comes to PTSD, like when you have anevent trauma like war, sexual assault, just something that's like an event that happens,
(11:39):
which is just PTSD in general, as opposed to complex PTSD, which is still not in the DSMfor some reason.
I think it will be in the next year or two.
And complex PTSD is more of a series of events, like when you think of like childhoodtrauma.
a series of events that led to the PTSD that you're experiencing as an adult right now.
(12:01):
And so, you know, the research on that, you like I said, a lot of positive, you know, uheffectiveness in terms of PTSD, a lot of people have said that they can be re-traumatized
and it made them feel worse.
And I think that has to do with not working with a qualified clinician that needs toassess for that safety right away and make sure that you're
(12:23):
a person that really would benefit from this therapy.
So it really brings that stuff up to the front then.
it can be re-traumatizing just as much as you.
Wow.
Okay.
So yeah, you really got to know what you're doing there.
You really do.
when I was practicing uh when I was younger, because I was licensed and I was certified inEMDR, um I was very selective on which clients I would introduce.
(12:49):
And you have to obviously get their permission and work together if they're open to it atfirst.
And I would say usually you generally see about 20 clients a week.
I would only use it on about four to five because it is such a personal.
decision and everybody's in different levels of their healing and their recovery processand things like that.
(13:11):
For my personal, um when I did EMDR with a clinician, I experienced immediate relief andit blew my mind.
Not to be there, but I don't get upset when I think about the memory.
wow.
Yeah.
So this is really a great site.
Thank you for setting up like what EMDR is.
(13:32):
We'll get into the tapping stuff later.
But so you are a licensed professional counselor who is licensed to provide EMDR.
What kind of what drove you into this?
Now, you mentioned already you've had some of your own um situations growing up.
Was that kind of the catalyst for you to go down this path and then and then do EMDRyourself?
(13:57):
Absolutely.
And I think it's why, you know, at this stage, I'm so interested and fascinated by traumabecause growing up, I didn't have a safe outlet.
um You know, and a lot of us, I'm sure, you know, had parents that didn't like to talkabout feelings and, you know, you weren't, you know, I look at it like, you know, my job
as a parent is to provide my child.
(14:19):
with a safe environment to be themselves.
I'm just a guide.
I'm watching their little personalities develop and grow up.
And I love being a parent for that reason because it's so cool.
And uh I didn't have that.
And a lot of people didn't have that.
I don't think, and I'll get into this later when I talk about what I'm gonna be working onnow.
um For some reason in our society, it's controversial to say that like our parents shouldnever have had children and mine shouldn't have.
(14:44):
I'll just go ahead and say it.
They shouldn't have.
We were looked at as like burdens instead of, know, like, wow, these little people that,you know, I'm so lucky to be able to, you parent and be in their lives and stuff like
that.
So I felt very alone.
um I, like I said, I developed an eating disorder at a young age.
And when I would try to go for help or come to my parents with like a valid feeling orconcern, I was either met with contempt, I was shamed, I was punished, I was told I was
(15:13):
too much or this or that.
So I learned that I was the bad person.
I was the one that needed to be fixed.
I was not safe anywhere.
And so I really started to research psychology as a teenager.
There wasn't much available back then, but I'd go to the library and look up.
And then I wanted to major in psychology and fix myself for that reason, because Ihonestly didn't know why I was doing these things.
(15:36):
I was binge eating.
I was bulimic.
And then for a while, I was anorexic.
over the scope of eating disorders while still thinking like, you I am just this awfulperson that does disgusting things.
And it wasn't until I got into college and, you know, took some really good classes andthen went on with my training that I found, okay, well, this is why I did that.
(15:59):
This is my, I'm not disgusting, I'm trying to cope.
with these feelings that I have because my parents hate each other.
They have a terrible relationship.
Everything is surrounded by resentment and shame and just like an icky environment athome.
And then I went.
do not feel bad, right?
Like, I don't think anyone can get out alive in that right?
(16:22):
on the struggle bus in
like trying not to get wet when you live in a swamp, you know what
Exactly.
But you have so much shame because, you know, as little people, we just absorb what ourparents are doing and tell us.
And so my core beliefs were honestly my parents telling me all this stuff and, you know,the stuff that I had in my body.
So it took me a long time to get to that point.
(16:42):
And it wasn't just like, oh, I, you know, majored in psychology and decided to be atherapist.
So my eating disorder went away.
That wasn't it.
And so
You know, it took a lot of therapy and training and self work and things like that.
And I just really wanted to be a therapist because I never, I felt so alone.
I didn't have anyone to help me and I really wanted to help other people in a way.
(17:03):
It was kind of like healing for me to help other people as well, if that makes sense.
Really a common story, lot of psychotherapists and psychiatrists and whatnot, they startout in it because they want to figure out their own problems.
And then once they learn enough that they can actually figure out problems, they're like,hey, let me help other people too.
(17:24):
Even like the most famous ones, Freud and Jung and all the guys who created the processesthat you use now.
they got into it because they had issues that they wanted to figure out about themselves.
Like that's where it all comes from.
I find it very interesting about the field, honestly.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
(17:44):
It is interesting and it's kind of a slippery slope.
have to be careful not to have your own stuff get in the way of.
That was a big thing with Young.
Young's whole thing is to not filter it through your own filters.
Like the therapist can't be biased in their approach to the patient.
That's like a huge thing.
uh
So you got into, oh, sorry.
(18:07):
no, it's okay.
Yeah, go ahead.
It's like any other field, like, you know, there's good mechanics, there's bad mechanics,there's good therapists, there's bad therapists.
So you just have to be careful and just really assess, you know, as a client, if you wantto work on your stuff, you're trusting somebody with the most vulnerable parts of you.
So you need to make sure that that person is safe and competent and, know, that you feelgood about it.
(18:29):
Yeah, I wanted to ask you.
So obviously you became, you you got into providing therapy, whether EMDR was part of thatin the beginning or not, it became part of what you were licensed in and being able to
provide that to your patients.
How though now not every therapist is licensed into EMDR or wants to be, but if, how doknow if you need that?
(18:49):
Right?
Like as a patient, like, and, and where to go, where to start, how to find a you, youknow,
I think, again, using my personal stuff as an example, for me, lot of the eating disordertherapy was very behavioral focused when I was first in my recovery and getting my
training.
So it was kind of like, okay, well, and a lot of it was helpful, don't get me wrong, butit was very like, okay, well, change this thought to this thought logically in your head.
(19:17):
So if I think that I am fat, I'm not gonna eat, you have to replace that with, I need foodto nurture my body.
or they would have you do a lot of positive affirmations and you would do healthy movementand a lot of things that, talk therapy, fine.
It only got me so far.
And I still knew that there was parts of me that it wasn't, the therapy wasn't touching.
(19:42):
And I think a lot of people can connect with that.
It's like, kind of like the example I was using before, like talk therapy can only get youso far.
If you can have the same conversation with a trusted friend or a trusted family member andget the same results, what is the point of therapy, right?
So if you know that you have deeper stuff that you, let's say, you know, you are like somad at your spouse for something like it just bothers you, but you don't know why.
(20:06):
Like, you know, he like this shouldn't bother me logically, but there's something thatit's triggering in me and I can't figure it out.
Because he's a loud chewer.
That's not me.
I mean, that could be a segue to the trauma, sure.
There might be some drama there, I don't know.
Right.
But or like, you there's just something that you can't get past, you know, there's likesomething that keeps coming up.
(20:29):
oh You know, for me, I kept having panic attacks.
And I didn't understand, you know, like, I'm like, logically, I'm safe.
I'm fine.
Like, why does this stuff keep coming up?
And I knew there was something in me that I had to like get reprocessed and be released.
And that's what led me on the path.
And I think a lot of people that just feel that something is missing.
ah And a lot of people do know what that is.
(20:50):
And a lot of people don't want to go there.
Obviously, if you have severe childhood trauma or things in your past that are verytraumatic, it's a very difficult thing to do.
And a lot of people don't want to do it for years and years, if ever.
And I hope that answers your question.
can go on.
Yeah, no, it does.
And because I think, you know, a lot of times we have been very much diving into likealternative health, which is kind of what, you know, and mental health is a huge part of
(21:16):
that.
Huge.
um And there's physical health stuff, too.
But because we're covering this more and more and we we're doing it, you know, we want toeducate people.
Right.
And I think a lot of people will hear EMDR or even ketamine therapy that we've covered oreven
uh like intuitive therapy, like all these things, even the liquid breath work classes thatwe've covered on the show, uh acupuncture.
(21:42):
And sometimes this stuff feels like, oh, what is that?
Like that's not like traditional mainstream stuff, right?
Like it's, don't know what that is.
Like, so that's uncomfortable to me.
And so we're definitely trying to talk about it in a way that like, okay, now I get it,right?
Like someone listened to show right now.
it's going to it's going to click and be like, OK, wait a minute.
(22:03):
Maybe that is for me.
I shouldn't be scared of it.
um mean, uncovering your own trauma is a whole nother thing.
Being open to doing something different is, you know what I mean?
Like just having another tool in the in the toolbox outside of like talk therapy.
So, yeah, so I think that's you know, that's really important.
So, yeah.
(22:25):
And like you said, a lot of the things that are coming out now in the field of trauma,like the use of psychedelics and things like that, people don't understand.
it's our immediate as humans reaction to be like, oh, no, not going to do that, or that'swrong, or that's too much, or whatever it is, when it could be something that's very
beneficial.
Yeah, yeah, just like the stigma.
feel like one of our first shows that we did now almost a year ago was on ketamine therapyin these ketamine clinics.
(22:51):
We have one here in town revitalized.
Actually, Dr.
Casey came on um and we've interviewed some people about that.
And I can tell you just in the last year when I first found out about it, I can tell youthat I know more and more people that are starting to do it and they're becoming more open
about doing it.
So that I feel like that's that stigma is starting to be
(23:12):
erased or minimized.
um But then there's all this other cool shit out there like this that I'm like, Hey, maybemaybe EMDR can solve your problems.
That actually leads me to a question.
What is the actual process?
Like, is it rounds of treatments to get to like, for that one memory or is it just oneintense thing?
(23:38):
Cause like with the ketamine, the doctor basically suggests it's usually like half a dozenor so drug treatments followed by, you know, rounds of psychotherapy with the doctor to
process what happened in those half dozen drug treatments.
So with this, is this like you pick one memory and you do one session or it's like youhave to keep going back to that memory to really get erase it and replace it kind of.
(24:04):
It depends on the level of trauma and everybody is different.
There are eight phases of the actual EMDR therapy.
And so it involves history taking and explaining the process, assessing for, like I said,if they're emotionally and physically stable, uh identifying a target, identifying that
(24:25):
and identifying the positive self-belief that you wanna replace with that.
And then you go through the whole process that can take one therapy session
and then you end, have to end it in a safe way.
So there's a way for a therapist to close the session, make sure that the client isemotionally stable and ready to go home.
And a lot of times I found when I was doing this with clients, it could take up to threeto six sessions on one specific memory, on the quality of that.
(24:53):
Sometimes.
There's a lot of variables, I imagine, just based on whatever that situation was for them.
uh
sounds so intense and it's just eye movement like it really does it's hard to wrap thebrain around I said that at the beginning it really kind of is like it makes me want to
(25:13):
experience it directly just so I understand it
Yeah, that was the way for me to really understand because once you get certified, excuseme, and you go through the certification process, you're in a room in-person training with
clinicians and you do practice on each other.
So that was kind of cool for me.
And also when I did this with a therapist and outpatient, we used sensors on my hand.
(25:36):
So it was stimulating ah my, instead of the therapist, uh me following his buzzer.
like a buzzer.
Yeah, so like I would hold the sensors and then one would buzz on one side then one wouldbuzz on the other side.
So it was just stimulating two sides of my body.
I've heard of some people doing butterfly going like this to stimulate both sides.
(25:59):
m
their shoulder.
in your hands and tap in your shoulder.
So it's just getting, it's interesting.
And even, you know, when I, if I have something come up to this day, I will listen, youcan listen to it's called EMDR bilateral stimulation beats or music.
can look it up on YouTube.
You can look it up on, you know, Apple or whatever.
And I have my headphones on.
(26:19):
I call it like my anger walks.
If I need to like process something out, I put my headphones on, I put on the EMDRbilateral beats and I walk and it helps so much to like.
That's like the binaural stimulation where you get the different sounds in the opposingears.
eh That's another episode I'd like to...
eh
yeah, right.
(26:40):
I sound therapy kind of works that way.
I've done that a number of times.
we do it at the end of the liquid breath work sessions that I've been doing, but I've alsodone just like standalone sound therapy.
need to get somebody on to talk about center sound therapy.
Yeah.
So if anyone's hearing this, please, um, going to hunt you down.
I found that similar, like what you're describing, um, where it can be really, it alsodepends on the acoustics of the room that you're in.
(27:05):
Unfortunately that has some, that doesn't affect it, but
where it's like, will be really loud on one side and almost, truthfully, like felt likewhere it's gotten so intense on one side that I've almost had to shake myself out of like
the, like this meditational state that it puts you in.
And then it will go to the other side based on how they're doing the bowls.
(27:27):
And it's weirdest thing ever.
And I love it.
Yeah, I love all that stuff too.
just, really open to anything that gets us to feel and process things differently.
I think it's cool.
Yeah, and the way we can rewire our brains with things like that, with just visual orauditory stimulation even, just that can rewire your brain.
(27:50):
Yeah.
What, so what, what's actually happening in the, speaking of the rewiring when somebody isgoing through EMDR, whether it's one session or six sessions or however many, what's
actually happening inside?
Like, do we know or.
Basically, you know, and again, I don't really know how to explain it well without like,I'm not even good at, I just know that there is a way of just like retraining your brain
(28:15):
to process things differently.
So it's hitting different spots than it normally like it's stuck in a certain spot.
And I know that sounds like really simplistic, but it's stuck because we were a child atthat point.
And that you know what I mean?
And like, so we're having our childhood associations with that memory.
You're literally stuck in a rut.
(28:35):
You're stuck in a rut.
Yes, and this is allowing more.
gets you up out of the rut.
Okay, so like the movie okay interesting
the same as what-
Like have you heard about like massages making people cry?
Yes, even yoga.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like the body is fascinating.
is really cool.
about that a lot in yin with the long hold poses.
(28:58):
They tell you upfront, like some stuff might come up if you start.
My reaction, I will just start laughing like a lunatic sometimes in the middle of doinglike the Joker from Batman laughing and I can't control it.
I'll just start cackling like a madman.
It's weird.
Some people cry, you know, there's, yeah, it's like, there's those things that you talkabout that are built up.
(29:23):
like physically built up in places in your body.
When you, when you open up that area, that stuff comes out, you know, I carry up my onlyrepent repented, uh, emotion apparently is crazy because I laugh like a crazy man.
That's the only thing that comes out.
I repressed my crazy enough to function in society that outside of that, I'm fine.
(29:46):
You're gonna be there next time you start laughing.
It only happens once in a while and thankfully it's only happened at the sessions I'vedone at home.
I do most of my yoga at home by myself.
But yeah, the first time I went to do yin in public, I'm like, my God, I hope I don'tstart laughing.
I'm going to freak these people out.
I'm sure they've heard it all though, because it like, emulates some sort of emotionalrelease, however that comes out, you know?
(30:13):
Yeah.
So I want to make sure we talk about EFT tapping too.
We've spent a lot of time kind of understanding what EMDR is.
so anyone who's been listening to this point, you know, I feel like I just want to say ifthis sounds like something you need, right?
Like find somebody who, can administer it.
Find, find yourself a Melissa Mark in your town or, or
(30:37):
And the cool thing is it sounds very much like the psychedelic therapies we've beentalking about, but you don't have to do the drugs.
So if you're someone who wants to go down that road and one needs that kind of therapy,but you really don't want to do the drugs, here you go.
Try this.
Ryan and Shelby, run the liquid, I'm sorry, I keep talking about it.
We have them on the show.
(30:57):
I go to their class.
Jeremy started going.
They even say that in the beginning of the club when they're especially for new peoplethat are joining.
They're like, if psychedelics isn't, you know, plant based medicine isn't something thatyou're interested in doing, um this can provide some of the same type of relief.
EMDR seems like it's kind of in that same space.
(31:17):
um So anyway, we have another option.
Yeah, don't be don't be afraid of it.
But um so I want to talk about EFT tapping, though.
And I don't know if you know how EFT and EMDR even have any kind of crossover there atall.
I hear a lot about people being able to do kind of tapping on their own.
Like I actually saw a movie not that long ago and it was Mark Wahlberg.
(31:41):
And I can't remember the name of it.
He has this rubber band.
And it's like super high anxiety guy and he's snapping it and snapping it.
And it's become it was such a part of his character.
And I'm like, is that some
Storm of, form of tapping.
Anyway.
similarities.
Sounds more like self-harm to me.
Right?
Yeah, it was it was interesting and I
(32:01):
educated approach to what we're talking about today.
Like, did people do that?
But um tell us a little bit about tapping.
Let's shift a little bit there.
I know you're going to walk us through an EFT tapping exercise as well.
So yes, well, and like you said, you know, EFT All-Star, it's called the emotional freedomtechnique.
And so basically, this is something that you can do on your own.
(32:22):
And this is something that there are therapists that do specialize in this.
And I would suggest if anybody has, you know, a lot of trauma or there is like a seriousissue that they want to work on, then I would, you know, go to a practitioner that
specializes in this just to make sure you're safe and all that kind of stuff.
In my case, actually, was never certified in EFT, but I left the field when my kids wereborn for a while just to stay home with them.
(32:50):
And I was having all this anxiety and panic come up and I went on YouTube and I discoveredthe EFT tapping and I would do it on myself to kind of bring my anxiety down.
And I found so much relief.
And basically,
It's based on kind of like, know how acupuncture you stimulate different meridian pointsin your body.
(33:12):
That's basically what the tapping does.
So we have different uh points on our body that stimulate the amygdala and it is verysimilar to EMDR, which you think of, know, kind of a negative uh thing that you want to
process, right?
Like if I'm having all this anxiety.
So.
You you think of like, I'm having all this anxiety right now.
(33:33):
My heart's beating, like I'm panicking.
I'm afraid of this.
You know, I'm stressed out because of this, all these negative things.
And then you think of something that you want to replace it with, you know.
The most basic one, do you want me just to go ahead and show you?
Okay.
Yeah, go for it.
uh If you can explain as you go for our audio people and if you want to see it, we're onYouTube.
(33:56):
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yes.
I'll try to explain it.
It is easier to see it.
Okay.
So basically the points are right above the eyebrow on the side of the eye below the eyeon the bone below the nose below the lips and then below the collarbone under the arm
(34:18):
right where your bra is for women and then on the top of the head.
And what you're going to do is you're going to
You start with, uh it's called the karate chop point of the outside of your hand.
And so for example, I would start to talk about my anxiety.
And so would just say, as I'm tapping, would just say, I have all this anxiety.
(34:39):
I have all this anxiety in my body, making my heart race, making me feel stressed out.
And even though I have all this anxiety, I still love and accept myself.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know I can calm myself down.
(35:02):
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know that I am safe.
And then once you're solidified in that, then you start with the eyebrow.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I still love and completely accept myself.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know that I am safe and I can calm myself down.
(35:28):
Even though I have all this anxiety.
can't fit under my glasses.
Right here.
huh.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I know that I am safe and I am calm.
Even though I have all this anxiety, I love and completely accept myself.
(35:53):
Even though I have all this anxiety, I am bringing my heart rate down and I'm capable ofcalming myself.
I have all this anxiety and I can let it go and be safe and calm.
And then you take a deep breath and usually you can do that about three times through,okay?
(36:20):
And then you take a deep breath and you release it.
And then you see if you feel, you you can rate yourself on a scale from one to 10 beforeyou begin just to see how high your anxiety is or your self-defeating statement.
And then you can reassess and you can just continue to do that as much as you need to do.
You can also do that.
(36:40):
a little later.
Yeah, I like it's very calming.
Yeah, and I imagine too, 100 % I am a child of the 80s, Gen X all the way.
I was entirely thinking about Jack Handy and positive affirmations from the SNL.
Gosh darn it, people like me.
(37:00):
So it's very, yes, I can It is like positive, uh it's kind of like positive affirmations.
We'll throw back there for people of a certain age.
So I imagine that statement will change depending on whatever it is that you're trying to.
Absolutely.
The example I was using, because sometimes it's necessary to involve a self statement.
(37:23):
Like I do love and completely accept myself.
In some cases, it might be more appropriate to say, I am able to call myself.
I am safe.
So it just depends on what I was trying to use both examples to do a run through.
But yeah, I can see where the similarity comes in.
Because we were taught that that was like the cheesy Stuart Smalley with the mirror andeverything like that.
(37:45):
Did I say Jack Handy?
my gosh.
I think it would.
the deep thoughts with.
Deep thoughts with Jack Candy.
He was more.
Yeah, so and it is it's just it's just kind of, you know, and I'll touch on the innerchild in a little bit, but it's kind of, you know, and I know the inner child concept is a
(38:07):
wild one also like it's.
We've been covering that too.
had an episode on that.
Bring it on.
Bring it on.
That's again, and I think all of these kind of stem from these, you know, childhoodbeliefs that, you know, like, because anxiety is scary as a child and you feel like you
can't talk yourself out of it and you can't work yourself out of it.
So by, you know, letting your brain reprocess it on these, you know, meridian points andthen replacing it with a safe adult statement, it really does, you know, allow the healing
(38:36):
to happen or at least decreasing.
anxiety and a lot of studies have shown that it decreases cortisol, know, it helps yousleep better.
It really does work in a lot of situations.
Yeah, that's cool.
pretty amazing stuff, you know.
And it's great because you can do it by yourself.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
And when I had put that Facebook post out, which ended up bringing you to me for thisparticular topic, a couple of other people had commented saying how they've used tapping
(39:04):
both at themselves, their kids for like different, you know, and I don't know what theirspecific situations were.
But it seemed like there was more, I guess, maybe more common use of it than I even I wasaware of.
Yeah.
But, you know.
A lot of people still don't know.
I didn't really know what it is, so now I do.
It almost felt like a focusing exercise as well.
(39:28):
Are there applications for this for things like ADD and things like that?
Because that honestly made me feel like I could very much just focus you in a way.
Yes, I think it depends on the individual.
And again, I'm not certified in this as a practitioner.
And so I suggest if you do have anything specifically that you want to work on that youdon't get relief from doing it on your own or watching a YouTube video, then contact a
(39:55):
practitioner.
And this is a great thing.
You can even do it on Zoom with someone that's out of state if you can't find someonelocally.
It's super easy ah to do that.
And again, it depends on the severity of what you want to work on.
But I find it very helpful.
Yeah.
Okay.
So let's talk about inner child.
What do you got on that?
We really like this topic.
Yeah, we did a whole thing.
(40:17):
I'm trying to remember the name of Cursicano's.
It's some sort of intuitive psychotherapy.
But a big thing for her is doing inner child work.
And basically it creates a proper emotional response to things instead of reacting withthat inner child and like overreacting emotionally to little things.
(40:40):
It, you know, gives you a better baseline.
for your emotional control, guess, is really what it is.
What are your thoughts on that?
have you done with it in terms of the patient?
Like I said, it took me a long time to even get in touch with that I had an inner childbecause from such a young age, I was treated like an adult.
(41:01):
In my family, I wasn't allowed to be a child.
I wasn't allowed to make mistakes.
I wasn't allowed to mess up.
You should have known better.
Why did you do that?
That type of thing.
And so I think I suppressed my natural childhood curiosity, responses, everything likethat.
And anytime I did mess up, it was like, you should have known better.
(41:21):
well, how would I have known better as a child and nobody taught me things like that?
So I really shut off from that inner child and I became a very parentified kid from a veryyoung age.
And so as a practitioner, when I was getting trained in the inner child, ah traumatraining and things like that, it's important for any trauma work to really understand
(41:44):
what happened, what the story is, and...
who you were as a child, right?
Because any deep trauma comes from childhood.
And your inner child is basically, know, all children come into this world innocent.
All you want is to be loved, safe, cared for, and, you know, really appreciated, right?
(42:04):
Basic needs.
And if you don't get that, then your inner child, you know, they didn't get what theyneeded.
And so as an adult, you can find yourself, you know, I call it like operating from my, youknow,
lower ego state where I'm just, you know, I get triggered by like any little thing thathappens.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well.
It's kind of like there's
(42:26):
tracking.
Okay, there's just there's like, it's hard to explain, I think, like, getting into gettingin touch with that vulnerable part of you, right?
The part of you that that didn't have to overcompensate for things or like pretend thateverything was okay, like it's a very vulnerable part of you.
(42:49):
And so for a long time, when I was doing therapy with clients, I could see it in them, Icould see their rooted inner child, I could see
you know, that child come out and it was so hard for me to connect to mine.
I, uh for some reason I had a block and then little by little I started to kind of say,okay.
So when, you know, I'm kind of like, you know, crying, you know, because, you know, Ididn't get, you know, what I wanted in this area or like what if I didn't do a good job um
(43:15):
on this client and then I go into my office and cry, that's not an adult reaction to that.
That's a very like wounded inner child.
Like I'm not good enough reaction.
if that makes sense.
And so the purpose of inner child work is to have your adult self, reparent that part ofyou that didn't get what they needed in childhood.
(43:36):
um Because the theory of trauma is that we're all operating from that inner child place,right?
Does that make any sense?
Sorry.
It does.
And it is interesting the way that you just said that to, um, reparent yourself.
Like I hadn't really considered that, um, being a part of it, but that makes sense.
(43:58):
And it is because, if we didn't have attuned caregivers that, you know, gave us thatsafety, gave us that self love, gave us that everything, you know, because as kids, you do
absorb what your parents, know, Your caregivers, whatever.
If you're like, for instance, my reality was completely denied.
uh You know, it took me a long time to even trust myself.
I had no self trust because every time I said, well, you know, what about this, this andthis and brought it up?
(44:23):
No, that didn't happen.
never happened, you know, and as like, that's crazy making as a kid, because then you'relike, well, but it did, but maybe I'm crazy.
So the reparenting process for me was a lot of learning to trust myself again, and, youknow, going slow and listening to my inner voice.
And if I had a gut feeling about somebody or something, really going with that andtrusting it instead of suppressing it, because that's how I adapted, right?
(44:50):
And that's how I survived for so long is just repressing everything.
that made me me.
Yeah, I feel like there's a whole lot of like Gen Xers out there that probably need EMDR,um probably tapping, probably ketamine therapy might.
It's like that or, you know, drinking too much, which is I feel like it's like the lastgeneration of relying on like substance abuse, particularly alcohol for just kind of
(45:21):
covering up these things.
So like.
We all need to just get out there and get help and just like, accept this that there's abetter way.
There is.
And you can look around our world right now.
Look at our country.
Look at our society.
can see a bunch of wounded in fighting and bullying.
(45:42):
you know, just it's almost like, you know, we can be re-traumatized even just in thesociety we're in.
It's like our whole society is living on its inner child right now in this country.
Every reaction to everything is a childish overreaction from every angle right now.
(46:04):
It really is.
bunch of traumatized children that haven't done any work, right?
And it's very difficult to reason, right?
We see firsthand, can't reasonably, like, you can't use logic, you can't use truth, youcan't use, it's very frustrating.
And so that it's very important for those of us who can, you know, you know, use insightand want to work on ourselves to really try to reparent that part of us that is kind of
(46:30):
like a wild, like wounded child that
you know, either causes us some distress, like you said, with like the drinking, like justtrying to like, okay, calm down, calm down, calm down.
Let's not work on that.
Let's not talk about that.
Need to do that, right?
I mean, that's, that's just what we were taught to.
I can say as a taxi driver in a college town, the next generation is not drinking.
(46:55):
They are horrified of, of making a fool out of himself in public and having it show up onsocial media.
That's literally what it is.
Social media has stopped the next generation from getting wildly drunk in public.
made my job a lot easier.
I don't have to worry about college kids puking in my car because they don't ever getthat.
(47:16):
They don't ever get that drunk.
interested.
I think legalized marijuana helped too, but the biggest thing is social media scared themout of drinking.
Yeah.
It's a wild phenomenon in my mind.
Like it's, it's a crazy cause what do you do in college?
know, every generation before him had a very similar college experience.
(47:37):
They are rewriting the book on that.
It's not college is not what it was when we went anymore.
Yeah.
And that's a key phrase you just used is that we were all doing it.
was like a rite of passage, right?
You know, and I'm so grateful social media wasn't around back then.
my god, all the things I wouldn't have been able to get away with.
It's all just made in here.
It kind of killed funny.
It really kind of killed fun in a way.
(47:57):
Yeah.
But I've had a couple of college kids complain that now it's our turn and there's nothingleft to do.
But I also think, I know parents these days get a lot of criticism for, being helicopterparents and things like that.
And I won't even, you know, go into that, you know, there's always a balance with things.
You don't want to be two one way or two the other.
But I do think, you know, in general, like you kind of said, Heather, with Gen X, like wehad very hands off parents, a lot of, you know, I know not everybody, but most of us did.
(48:26):
And parents are not like that anymore.
You know, parents are interested in what their kids are doing.
And
I think they talk to them a little bit more on, and I'm using blanket statements, thisdoesn't go for everybody, but I think that makes a big difference too.
You're just not left to go wander and figure things out and experiment and.
Right, exactly.
(48:47):
Yeah, nobody was at my house.
I could do whatever I wanted.
So that could be a perspective on it too, but I'm just grateful that.
And again, I love wine.
I have nothing against drinking or anything like that, as long as you don't do itexcessively.
Yeah, to cover things up and things like that.
I look at myself in the throes of my eating disorder.
(49:10):
I used alcohol, smoking cigarettes, diet pills to not eat.
So that's a problem.
That's not great.
But there's a balance to everything.
And I think that if our kids can figure out how to relax and how to have a good timewithout drinking to excess and without making fools of them.
and hurting their bodies and hurting other people.
(49:30):
That's amazing.
I like the old adage of drink to remember, not to forget.
eh When you really look into that statement, it tells you everything you need to knowabout alcohol.
That's so true.
Oh, well, we have covered a lot of things today.
And I think, by the way, I think we might be able to pull a 15 minute fix out of this onein the front on EMDR.
(49:55):
So we yeah, one of our little short kind of short episodes that we like to do when we can.
So so this has been a really great conversation.
I just see us coming up on time here and as usually went longer than I planned.
But this was a great conversation, Melissa.
I'm so glad that you came on and educated us in just normalizing these things.
(50:18):
Good to know what this stuff actually is now, because I've heard it a few times and now Iactually know what it is.
Yeah.
I appreciate it.
Yes.
And I did just want to add one thing, just because I recently reinstated my license.
So I am um going to go again and get recertified in EMDR just for ethical purposes, justbecause it was so long ago that I was certified.
(50:38):
I can't, uh I'm not going to administer EMDR until I'm fully certified again.
just to let everybody know.
But she'll be back in business here soon.
So we'll make sure.
Yeah.
So once you've got your practice back up and going, let us know and we'll make sure to addit to the, to the show.
Yeah.
Like you have a website or how to get in touch with you for our, for our Flagstaffcommunity, who might be interested in, in this kind of, in this kind of therapy.
(51:07):
And in the meantime, and if you're not in Flagstaff, now you know what this stuff's aboutand, you know, find a local practitioner if it sounds like the right stuff for you, you
know.
Yeah, exactly.
Open your mind to the possibilities, folks.
uh
I think that's important.
Yeah.
It's cool that we're finding things that are so similar to psychedelic therapy, with youdon't need to actually do the psychedelics.
(51:28):
It's a whole nother path that people can follow that I was unaware of.
that's really cool.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for joining us on the Healthcare Uprising.
Make sure to hit those like and subscribe buttons before you go and take a moment to thinkof a friend and hit that share button.
(51:52):
You can find us on all the major audio platforms and we've got video on YouTube andPatreon, patreon.com slash healthcare uprising.
If you want to watch us in action.
You can also find us on social media on LinkedIn, Blue Sky, Instagram, and Facebook.
Just search healthcare uprising to find us.
And if you're a new company or creator with a cool new product for the healthcare space,or if you're someone with a personal healthcare journey and you'd like to share it with us
(52:17):
here at the uprising, please email us at healthcareuprisingatgmail.com and we'll get backto you about coming on the show.
That's all for this dose of healthcare uprising.
Till the next time, keep looking for the good in the world.
because sometimes it's where you least expect it.
(53:13):
This has been a Shut Up
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