Let Love in Completely

Focusing on the good, on my strengths, and on the people who are ultra loving and important in my life has made a world of difference.  I just started seeing an EMDR therapist named Wendi.  She helped me first by making a list of people who are supportive of me.  I then took the step a little further and made a collage of them.  She had me hold these two vibrating eggs that vibrated back and forth and tell her every last detail about these amazing people in my life.  I did that and it felt so good.  It feels good to think of lovely things.  Philippians 4:8 says: …whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.  There is a reason that God asks us to focus on the good.  It is immensely healing and powerful.  All day after my therapy session, yes us therapists need therapy too, I felt powerful, centered, and safe.  The EMDR helped to move these memories of my loved ones over to a more permanent place, closer to where the trauma memories live in my brain.  By building on my resources first, before delving into the traumatic experiences, I will be better equipped to cope when hard feelings come up.  I have never had therapy as positive as this before.  Normally, I enter not knowing what to say to the stranger and then they ask me personal questions that feel intrusive, and they ask me more questions to really squeeze the detail out of me.  I am normally left feeling raw, with a headache, and an empty feeling.  Sure, it’s great to tell secrets and not be alone, but when I tell the secrets and I’m left with nothing to hold me after the session, when I’m at home with out the therapist- that’s when the poop hits the fan.  I can easily get flooded, or start crying in inappropriate places like at school or work.  This new way that I am learning about helps me to use the resources that I have, increase the strength that the resources have in my life and feel like I have something to hold onto when I walk out of the therapist’s office.  Rather than needing to call the people that give me strength after my therapy session to rehash how hard it was to go to therapy, I am able to call these people and thank them for who they are in my life.  I am seeing that the people in my life are here to stay and that I can let their love in 100%.  I wasn’t doing this before.  I realized when I was telling Wendi about my friends that my cells did not receive the love that these people have for me at full capacity.  I was at only 70% trusting that they would be there for me for the long haul.  I knew where this came from.  I moved from England to Scotland to another part of England to California all before the age of 6.  These moves left me believing that friends and family are temporary experiences, and when you move they will be out of reach and you’ll have to start all over again.  This belief has kept me from letting people in 100%.  When you have experienced great loss such as mine, you build walls of protection around your little heart.  In one EMDR session with Wendi I was able to let down these walls and let in the love.  I really feel different.  My brain feels different.  The belief I held has changed to: friends may move, but thanks to technology your friends will be connected to you for life.  I am choosing to not let my past dictate my present and my future.  I am choosing to be intentional and feel completely loved.