HM297 Neutralize Feelings about your Ex with EMDR

Can unresolved emotional triggers from past relationships still affect your present? Absolutely!

Despite a decade-long divorce and his temporary recovery from throat cancer bringing brief peace, old patterns recently emerged, rekindling anger and emotional turmoil with Dr. Liz's ex-husband. Dr. Liz shares her personal story navigating the complexities of managing reactivity towards her ex-husband and being frustrated with feeling like she's in the same place. 

Hear how Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy became a crucial tool in addressing these deep-seated emotions, especially during this significant life transition as her youngest daughter heads off to college.

 

About Dr. Liz

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Winner of numerous awards including Top 100 Moms in Business, Dr. Liz provides psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and hypnosis to people wanting a fast, easy way to transform all around the world. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and has special certification in Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Specialty areas include Anxiety, Insomnia, and Deeper Emotional Healing.

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Listened to in over 140 countries, Hypnotize Me is the podcast about hypnosis, transformation, and healing. Certified hypnotherapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Dr. Liz Bonet, discusses hypnosis and interviews professionals doing transformational work

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Episode Transcript

Dr. Liz (00:00):
Hey everyone.
Dr Liz here, I hope you're doing well today.
It is a pretty regular day here in Dr Liz
Land.
Today I thought I would talk about my own
personal experience with EMDR.
I've run three episodes before this
exploring EMDR versus hypnosis.

(00:21):
So if you haven't heard those and you're
interested, you can go back and listen to
them.
They would be HM 294, 295, and 296.
So this is HM 297.
Hypnotize Me 297.
Coming up on 300 episodes here, that's a
lot.

(00:42):
So while I was doing these interviews about
EMDR and hypnosis, I was seeing a therapist.
I am seeing a therapist right now.
I just recently did the interviews and I
didn't realize that she did EMDR.
Seen her for a couple of months actually,

(01:03):
because I'm going through some big
transitions.
My youngest daughter graduated high school.
She's headed off to college.
In the fall I found myself really triggered
and angry at my ex-husband.
He would send me these nasty emails and

(01:24):
they would just really upset me honestly.
So we've been divorced since 2009,.
Well, over 10 years.
Some years have been better that we've
gotten along and I actually thought we were
getting along pretty well, but I realized
that I think some of that was because he
had cancer.
So he had throat cancer and he was pretty

(01:47):
debilitated for almost a year and he didn't
really have the energy to attack me.
Now my daughter was already living with me
full-time during that year but I would take
her over to see him.
She often did not want to go, but I was
like you know, let's just pick up some
books of yours and say hi to your dad and,

(02:11):
you know, ask if you want some soup or
whatever that was.
He never wanted my soup people, but
regardless I was like no, we gotta go visit
your dad because he didn't have the energy
to come visit her or pick her up for dinner
or anything like that.
So I am telling right now a good mom story.
I felt like this was a good mom thing to do

(02:34):
to keep the relationship with her father,
even though this is not someone I
particularly like.
Her dad Well, during that time he became
very grateful for me, expressing what a
wonderful mother I had been all these years,
things he had not really said before.
He was seeing the contrast because he had a

(02:55):
child with another woman.
So he has my two girls, which are 18 and 22.
And he has a younger son who's like three
now, but at the time this is a couple years
ago.
At the time, his son was a baby and he saw
all kinds of differences in mothering

(03:16):
between the new mom and me, the old mom, so
he became very grateful for me.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
So I thought, great, there's so many years
that my prayer was like higher power,
either take him or take these feelings away.
Okay, like that was my prayer, I'm going to

(03:38):
be very honest.
He was so awful to me in all kinds of ways
Awful like texts that he would send me
emails that he would send me.
He would try to gaslight me around things
that I knew were not true, very just like
classic narcissistic things that he would

(03:59):
do.
He's a narcissist.
So this was like a period of peace and when
he got sick, I was like, oh, actually these,
these feelings, have been taken away.
I don't want this man to die.
Like he needs to stick around, to be a dad
to his girls, like they need him.
So it felt like a miracle in my mind.
Eventually he is better and he goes back to

(04:21):
his old tactics and starts attacking me
again.
Often it's around financial stuff, taxes
and who's going to claim who and who's
paying for what, and stuff like that, but
you know he'll throw some like character
assassinations in there as well.
Now it took me a long time to learn how not
to respond to him, how not to text back,
how to pause, how to ignore all kinds of

(04:43):
strategies that I would use to not inflame
the situation and to help myself calm down.
I had to learn how to pause.
I had to learn how to just get the
information that I needed and not respond
to anything else.

(05:04):
So that was my strategy for years and years
and years like we're talking over five
years and I think being in recovery really,
really helped with that, because recovery
can help you learn emotional regulation
skills and that's what those are.
I teach emotional regulation all the time
in my practice through the DBT manual.
But a great free way to learn emotional

(05:24):
regulation all the time in my practice
through the DBT manual, but a great free
way to learn emotional regulation is
actually through any 12-step program, and
there's lots of them Under-Earners
Anonymous I've done that one.
Overeaters Anonymous I've done that one.
There's Al-Anon I've done that one.
Various 12-step programs.
So this is a process that happened over

(05:45):
years, but I found myself earlier this year
just refusing to do that anymore, just very
angry.
I have a hard time accessing it even right
now because I did do EMDR on it.
Okay, this is what we're getting to people.

(06:07):
Okay, this is what we're getting to people.
I found myself really reactive to him like
I refuse.
I refused to let him gaslight me and
continue to ignore that and instead begin
shooting emails back like these are the
facts and don't think that if you tell a
lie long enough, that it's going to become
the truth.
So it really upset, which is another reason
I started therapy again.
So I did some work in therapy around my

(06:30):
daughter leaving and graduating, some of
the fears I have for her for college, some
things around my current marriage, and we
also got to my ex-husband.
Now we had talked about him before in
session.
It's pretty impossible not to, because he
does all kinds of bullshit.

(06:52):
But again I found myself really, really
angry one day and so my therapist said I
think we need to do EMDR around this and I
was like what you do EMDR?
She's like, yeah, I do.
I was like fantastic, great, great, like
everything is aligning here.
Okay, I just done these interviews about
EMDR and I thought, yeah, let's give it a

(07:14):
try.
Now in the interviews I say, I had EMDR
around, an incident with an ex-boyfriend
like many, many years ago I will say like
2014, so like 10 years ago actually and
found it very, very helpful.
And my biggest concern back then was if we
do this, can I still tell this story?
In a very funny way, and the therapist

(07:37):
response was like, yes, I think you'll be
able to.
I said, okay, great, let's do it.
And it was very helpful.
But again it's been about 10 years.
So I said, okay, great, let's do it.
And it was very helpful, but again it's
been about 10 years.
So I said let's do it.
I found the prep session pretty emotional,
so that was a change.
I really felt like I could get to the
sadness and frustration around what was

(07:58):
going on.
And then the EMDR session.
I found extremely helpful.
Now my therapist used little buzzers in
your hands so you don't have to like stare
at someone's fingers or a light bar going
back and forth.
I didn't know this.
She used these buzzers that would go left

(08:21):
and right.
They buzz in my left and right hands, you
know, going back and forth.
That's a bilateral stimulation of EMDR that
happens.
I liked that process better than using my
eyes to go back and forth.
We started with a memory and then she would
run the buzzers and then I would talk about

(08:44):
what came up, and so it was like these
series of memories that came up that felt
like stream of consciousness to me.
So some of the memories were going back to
the beginning of our relationship when I
met him, when I was 25, and some of the
things happening around then.
I was in grad school and lots of changes
were happening.

(09:05):
I had such high hopes for being a mother At
that point I had actually decided that if I
didn't get married or find someone that
wanted to be a father with me, that I would
have children on my own, because I was
working with severely abused children and I

(09:26):
was like I can be a better mother by myself
than most people are with two parents.
So that was important to me to eventually
be a mother.
But he wanted children and I thought he'd
make a great dad, and you know all the
dreams you have when you first meet someone
when you're young.
So a lot of these memories came up and they
would sometimes bounce around from the past

(09:46):
to the present, but they seemed to be all
related to what was going on and then we
would check in with the intensity of the
original thought or belief that I started
with.
And where was it Now?
I didn't change the belief.
I don't mean to hold out on you guys, but

(10:08):
there are some things that are more private,
so I'm not going to tell you what the
original belief was that we're working with.
So that didn't change, but the intensity
around it changed.
So I can say it today, just sort of like
it's a fact, instead of having sadness,
frustration, just sort of like it's a fact,

(10:29):
instead of having sadness, frustration, a
whole body wash come up when I say it.
So it's sort of like saying, yeah, it's
going to rain today, south Florida.
It feels like that, like there's nothing
around it to me.
So that is a huge change.
And when I think about him in the past week
this was just a week ago or so about
there's nothing there, there's no like

(10:50):
anger, frustration, there's not even like
negative thoughts, really sort of like he's
a non-entity.
He is someone I still have to deal with.
I have to manage some financial things with
him around our daughters, and that's about
it.
Other than that, I can avoid him, that's it.

(11:13):
So that feels very, very different.
That is the direct result of EMDR and I
really wish I had done it years ago
actually.
Well, years ago he was being nice to me, so
that doesn't make any sense.
Right, you do it when you need to do it.
You find the therapist that you need at the
time and the technique.
I've always believed that when you need

(11:36):
hypnosis, you'll find it.
When you need EMDR, you'll find it.
When you need EMDR, you'll find it.
You need CBT cognitive behavioral therapy,
or DBT or internal family system whatever
it is that you need Maybe plant medicine, a
shaman, who knows you will find it when you
need it.

(11:56):
That feels much better than saying, oh, I
should have done this years ago, need it.
So that feels much better, yeah, than
saying, oh, I should have done this years
ago.
I think the feeling behind that is
remembering how awful it's felt with him
and wanting that to go away, wanting that
to not be the case, wanting to feel like I
feel now, like neutral, that's it.
Neutral, I'm going to finish up this

(12:17):
podcast, go about my day, that's it.
I don't have to be filled with feelings of
hatred or anger or shame or anything like
that when I think about him.
So that's my experience with EMDR.
I am not trained in EMDR right now.
Who knows if in the future I will be.
I would give it about a year from this

(12:38):
podcast to check in to see if I'm trained
in it, because chances are I may be next
year.
Sometimes I'll do a technique myself and
then want to get trained in it.
So check on me in about a year if you want
EMDR.
Otherwise, if you'd like to do the
technique yourself to process trauma, then

(13:01):
definitely seek someone out that does it.
There's Jacqueline Haley, who I just
interviewed.
There's Jamie Weatherholt, who I just
interviewed and, believe me, there's all
kinds of EMDR practitioners around who are
excellent.
So look on the EMDR website or Google it up
in your area or ask in a group or a friend.

(13:23):
Whatever you need to do, or if you feel led
more towards hypnosis, then of course I'm
your person.
You can always reach out to me and we'll
talk about what your goals are.
What do you want to accomplish with it?
What do you want to heal?
What do you want to feel better about?
So you can always reach out to me, drliz at
drlizhypnosiscom.

(13:45):
D-r-l-i-z at D-R-L-I-Z-hypnosiscom.
All right, everyone, I hope you're healthy
and safe Peace.