EMDR + Cinco de Mayo

My girls and I recently went out for dinner on Cinco de Mayo. The weather here in Charlotte, NC is finally feeling like springtime, so it’s the perfect time to be out and about. We planned to meet for dinner at Superica Southend. Just for context, if you’re reading this and you’re not familiar with the Charlotte area, Superica is a TexMex restaurant with a few locations around the country. We typically make reservations whenever we eat out, but Superica doesn’t take reservations. 

We arrived at the restaurant and the line TO SIGN UP FOR THE WAITLIST is out the door and spilling onto the sidewalk. We’re told it’s a 3-hour wait. So…on to plan B - Superica Strawberry Hill! Don’t you just love Charlotte’s cute neighborhood names? We checked their website and were able to get on their waitlist before heading over. There was still a bit of a wait, but then we FINALLY sat down for dinner. 

So we’re eating and chatting, chatting and eating 

The guys tend to ask what we talk about because we can TALK for hours on end. We’ve been known to shut down a restaurant on more than a few occasions. Our answer is always the same - everything. We literally discuss everything - work, family, TV & movies, hair, politics, health, fashion, pop culture, food, travel, and anything else that pops into one of our heads. The topics are endless. The girls ask me how my recent professional development went. I get excited and share my EMDR therapy training experience with them. I told them I even wrote a blog about it. 

Not me doing a demonstration at dinner

I demonstrated the stabilization and affect management phase of EMDR through pendulation using 5,4,3,2,1 present orientation grounding. I know that’s a lot of words you don’t hear every day, but stay with me…I’ll explain.

Picture it. We’re in the middle of a crowded Superica, with everything that comes along with being in a crowded restaurant for dinner on Cinco de Mayo - the sound of dozens of people laughing and talking, music jamming over the speakers, the clinking of dishes, the lights, the aroma of various dishes in the air, people walking by, etc.

On to the demonstration

I say to the girls, “On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is something that isn’t distressing at all and 10 is something that is super distressing, think of an experience you’d rate 3 or below”. 

I pause and they both say they got something. One said she picked something that was a 6. And I said, “Alright let’s go with it!” I told them they didn’t have to share the event with me but typically I’d ask my clients to do so if they didn’t mind. So one shared her event and the other didn’t. One aspect of EMDR therapy that clients typically like is, unlike traditional talk therapy, they don’t have to do a lot of talking for it to be effective. So whatever works for the client, I go with that! 

I proceed by saying, “Call up the event in your mind. Place yourself back there. Remember any physical sensations, images, thoughts, and emotions that you had during that particular experience. Got it?” They both nod and say yes. 

I say, “Okay now name 5 things you see in the restaurant right now”. They each named 5 things. They both named one of the same items at the same time so of course they both laugh and yell out, “Jinx!” 

Then I ask them to go back to the memory of the event and ask them to rate it. They were both at their original rating. 

“Okay. Now name 4 things you can touch right now.” After doing so, I ask them to go back to the event and rate it again. They both said their ratings went down. The person who started at 6 actually said her rating went down to a 4. 

“Okay now name 3 things you hear”...and so on and so on. 

So we continue to pendulate (go back and forth) between the distressing event and grounding in the present. 

By the time we finished, they both said they rate their initial events a 0.

After the demonstration, I explain the neuroscience of what just happened. 

Yes, I am still a nerd even at dinner haha. I answered any questions they had. One of the things that came up was, “Jeanetta I thought you said you didn’t want to be a trauma therapist.” 

Yes, I’ve said that many many many many times. But my song has since changed. Because guess what, it’s all trauma! So I shared that through my work and even through my own personal lived experience, I have come to see on a real and very human level that we all experience trauma. 

Trauma is simply a deeply distressing experience that overwhelms a person’s capacity to cope. 

And when you think about it, we’ve all experienced this in some form in each of our lived experiences at one time or another. One of my friends told me she appreciated me breaking down the definition of trauma like that because she had previously thought of trauma in a very different way. And I believe that’s the case for the general public as well. When you hear the word trauma, most people automatically think of something like going to war or being assaulted. And yes, those are both traumatic experiences. However, the definition of trauma also encompasses so much more. 

In addition, unprocessed (unhealed) trauma can show up in so many different ways in an individual’s life. There are so many examples of how unprocessed trauma can manifest itself. Trauma can look like anxiety, depression, negative beliefs about oneself, perfectionism, difficulty letting go of control, or unhealthy relationship patterns just to name a few examples. This is because emotional learning has occurred through that traumatic experience. The brain is now trying to protect you by preventing that experience or anything it deems similar to that experience from occurring again. The outward behaviors or internal thoughts may not be rational, but at the base instinctual level, it is how the brain has made sense of something that overwhelmed its capacity to process. To the brain, the past is in the present. Again, trauma is a deeply distressing experience that overwhelms a person’s capacity to cope.

I will certainly revisit this topic on a deeper level in future blogs. But in this one, I wanted to share how grateful I am to have friends who support me and my career. And indulge me when I nerd out on neuroscience haha. 

If you are interested in learning more about how EMDR therapy can help you, visit my website to learn how to work with me.

Pic of me after hearing there was a 3 hour wait. Yikes!