EMDR Therapy: Eye Movement Densensitization and Reprocessing – What is it??
Looking for EMDR therapy in Colorado? Learn how EMDR helps heal trauma, anxiety, PTSD, attachment wounds, intrusive thoughts, nervous system, and more.
Have you ever wondered why you can’t “just get over” something that happened years ago? Maybe you know, logically, that you’re safe now, but your body still reacts as if the danger is happening today. You replay conversations, feel anxious for no obvious reason, struggle with intrusive thoughts, or notice the same relationship patterns repeating. If that sounds familiar, EMDR therapy may help.
If you’ve also decided you want to show up in a certain way, make different choices for yourself whether that’s relationships, parenting, or going to the gym, but can’t seem to put it into action, EMDR can also help. EMDR is the bridge between insight and deeper, longer lasting, embodied, bottom up change.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based psychotherapy that helps the brain process experiences that continue to feel emotionally stuck. Rather than repeatedly talking through painful memories, EMDR helps the brain naturally integrate them so they become part of your past instead of continuing to shape your present.
When your mind knows you’re safe, but your body doesn’t believe it
Have you ever caught yourself thinking:
“Why can’t I just let this go?”
“Why do I keep replaying what happened?”
“Why do I still feel anxious when I know everything is okay?”
“Why do I keep choosing the same relationships or reacting the same way?”
Maybe you’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, practiced mindfulness, journaled, exercised, and done everything you’re “supposed” to do.
And yet…
You still lie awake replaying conversations.
Your inner critic seems louder and meaner every year.
You worry people are upset with you.
Your body feels tense even when there’s no immediate danger.
You know, logically, that you’re safe—but your nervous system hasn’t gotten the message.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not failing at healing or therapy.
Often, your brain and body are still responding to experiences that haven’t been fully processed.
At Colorado Wildflower Counseling, I provide virtual EMDR therapy throughout Colorado for adults experiencing anxiety, trauma, PTSD, childhood trauma, attachment wounds, relationship concerns, perfectionism, betrayal trauma, grief, depression, intrusive thoughts, insomnia, and nervous system dysregulation.
Healing isn’t about forcing yourself to “think positive” or pretending the past never happened or talking through past events to reframe them or find the silver lining.
It’s about helping your brain, body, and nervous system recognize that what once felt overwhelming no longer has to shape how you experience your life today.
Why EMDR Therapy?
When we experience something overwhelming—whether it’s a single traumatic event, years of chronic stress, emotional neglect, bullying, betrayal, or painful relationship experiences-our brain doesn’t always get the chance to file that experience away as something that’s over (in the most simplistic of terms, it doesn’t get filed away in your hippocampus, or library of past experiences.)
Instead, those experiences can remain stored in a way that keeps them feeling emotionally and physically present, as if the danger is present now.
Rather than becoming part of your past, they continue to influence how you think, feel, react, and relate to yourself and others.
You might notice this as:
- Feeling anxious even when nothing dangerous is happening
- Replaying conversations long after they’ve ended
- Intrusive thoughts that seem impossible to shut off
- Feeling “not good enough” despite evidence to the contrary
- Difficulty trusting yourself or other people
- People-pleasing or perfectionism that feels impossible to stop
- Feeling emotionally numb or disconnected
- A nervous system that always seems to be on high alert
These reactions aren’t signs that you’re weak or “overreacting.”
Often, they’re signs that your nervous system is still trying to protect you.
EMDR helps the brain finish processing experiences that became stuck so they no longer feel like they’re happening in the present. There are some really cool research studies on fMRI’s demonstrating where memories light up the brain before EMDR (emotional and threat detection centers, for example) and after EMDR (hippocampus and decreased activity in the emotional and threat detection centers). Here is one of those studies:
Many clients describe EMDR as “magic” and “I can’t believe I feel so differently now” and being able to remember difficult experiences without feeling pulled back into them.
The memories are still there—but they lose their emotional grip.
Instead of continuing to shape your daily life, they begin to feel like something that happened, rather than something you’re still living.
This allows space for new beliefs to emerge:
“I am safe.”
“I can handle this.”
“I am enough.”
“I have choices.”
These aren’t affirmations you’re trying to force yourself to believe by repeating them and journaling about them every day.
They’re beliefs that often arise naturally as your nervous system updates and integrates what it has learned.
I help clients use EMDR for:
- trauma
- PTSD
- childhood trauma
- attachment wounds
- betrayal trauma
- anxiety
- panic attacks
- intrusive thoughts
- insomnia
- perfectionism
- grief
- relationship difficulties
- depression
- medical trauma
- moral injury
- parenting stress
- big decisions
- embarrassing moments
- panic
- nightmares
- ruminations and more
EMDR is different from many other therapies because it does not involve extensively talking about past traumas in detail.
Find some of my blogs about EMDR here:
Betrayal Trauma Therapy in Colorado – EMDR, IFS & Somatic Therapy – Colorado Wildflower Counseling
Can EMDR Work If You Don’t Remember Your Childhood Trauma? – Colorado Wildflower Counseling
rumination anxiety why can’t I let go of the past
Heal Trauma and patterns with EMDR Therapy Colorado
Check out my Instagram for more posts about EMDR: https://www.instagram.com/coloradowildflowercounseling/
Or my Tik Tok: Colorado Wildflower Counseling (@colorado.wildflow) | TikTok
