What to Expect in EMDR Therapy (From a Therapist Who Gets It)

10/29/2025

You’ve probably heard of EMDR therapy, but maybe you’re not sure what it actually feels like.
If you’ve tried talk therapy and still feel stuck in old patterns, you’re not alone. EMDR isn’t about rehashing your story. It’s about helping your brain and body finally recognize that the danger has passed. (You can learn more about EMDR therapy and how it works here.)

What EMDR Actually Is

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

It’s a therapy approach that helps your brain process distressing memories in a more adaptive way so they stop feeling like they’re happening right now.

During EMDR, you’ll focus on a memory or belief while engaging in gentle bilateral stimulation such as side-to-side eye movements, taps, or sounds.

This process helps your brain integrate information that got “stuck” during trauma, reducing emotional intensity over time.

What a Typical EMDR Session Looks Like

Here’s what you can expect:

• Grounding and preparation: We start by building safety. You’ll learn regulation tools before we go anywhere near difficult memories.

• Identifying the target: Together, we choose what memory, image, or belief is linked to current distress.

• Processing: Using bilateral stimulation, your brain begins to reprocess what happened, shifting from “I’m not safe” to “It’s over, and I survived.”

• Integration and closure: Sessions always end with grounding, reflection, and ensuring you leave feeling stable. (If you’d like to see what this process can look like in my practice, visit the EMDR therapy page for more details.)

What It’s Not

EMDR isn’t hypnosis or reliving trauma in detail.
You’re fully present and in control throughout the process.
Most clients describe EMDR as intense but surprisingly freeing, like their brain is finally catching up to what they already know logically.

Why It Works

Trauma memories aren’t stored like regular memories. They’re fragmented, sensory, and emotional.
EMDR helps reconnect those fragments so your nervous system can recognize that you’re safe now.

Healing doesn’t mean forgetting what happened. It means remembering without reliving.

A Gentle Reminder

You don’t have to know everything about EMDR to take the first step. You just need a safe space to explore it at your own pace.

If you’re curious about how EMDR therapy in South Carolina could help you move from survival mode to real healing, I’d be glad to talk about what that could look like for you. You can schedule a free consult here.

Why You Can’t Just “Move On” From Trauma

09/21/2025

Most people have heard the phrase, “Just move on.” It sounds simple, but if you’ve lived through trauma, you know it isn’t.

Trauma doesn’t respond to logic. You can’t just will yourself to stop feeling the impact. Trauma lingers in the body and nervous system, long after the mind tries to leave it behind.

The Myth of “Moving On”

Culture tells us that time heals all wounds, but time alone doesn’t process trauma. You may look fine on the outside, but inside, you feel stuck. This isn’t weakness. It’s how survival mode keeps you safe when danger once felt constant.

How Trauma Stays in the Body

Even if your brain knows the danger is over, your body remembers. The nervous system holds on to the past through:

• Hypervigilance (constantly scanning for threat)

• Tension in muscles or stomach

• Sleep issues or restlessness

• Emotional flashbacks that seem to come out of nowhere

Your body isn’t trying to punish you. It’s trying to protect you, even when the threat is gone.

Why Willpower Alone Doesn’t Work

You’ve probably tried to “let it go.” Maybe you’ve pushed forward with work, relationships, or distractions. But the nervous system doesn’t heal by force. You can’t outthink survival patterns. Healing requires experiences of safety that slowly teach your body it doesn’t have to stay on guard.

Signs You’re Not “Over It” (and That’s Okay)

You might notice:

• Feeling guilty for not being able to “just get over it”

• Being triggered by reminders, even years later

• Numbing or disconnecting when life feels too much

• Struggling to trust that calm moments are real

These are not signs of failure. They are signs that your system is still protecting you.

How Therapy Creates Space to Heal

Therapy offers something that time and willpower can’t. A safe place for your nervous system to begin to stand down.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) helps reprocess old experiences so they lose their grip. Over time, your body learns that rest and safety are possible.

Healing isn’t about erasing your past. It’s about no longer being controlled by it.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t “move on,” remember this: you’re not broken. Your body adapted to survive.

You don’t have to carry the weight of the past alone. Therapy can help you process what feels stuck and finally move forward in a safe, sustainable way.

Why Survival Mode Feels Normal and How to Know When It’s Time for Support

08/27/20205

Most people in survival mode don’t realize they’re in it. You keep pushing through, doing what needs to be done, telling yourself you’ll slow down someday.

But survival mode doesn’t just disappear. Over time, it starts to show up in your body, your mind, and your relationships — often when you least expect it.

What Survival Mode Looks Like

It isn’t always panic or chaos. More often, it looks like:

• Running on empty but still showing up for everyone else

• Feeling on edge, waiting for “the next thing” to go wrong

• Struggling to rest, even when you’re exhausted

• Numbing out or disconnecting because it feels safer than being overwhelmed

• Replaying conversations or overthinking late into the night

(It’s why you can crush a deadline at work but collapse the moment you walk in the door.)

If this sounds familiar, you’re not broken. Your body and mind learned how to survive in hard circumstances, and they got very good at it.

Why It Feels So Normal

If you grew up around stress, or couldn’t fully rely on others, staying on high alert became second nature. That state of bracing turned into your “normal.”

Which is why slowing down or feeling calm can feel uncomfortable at first — your body simply isn’t used to it.

When It Might Be Time for Support

You don’t have to wait for a crisis. It may be time to reach out if:

• Rest never feels like enough

• You feel detached or numb more often than present

• You can’t turn your brain off, even when you want to

• You’re snapping at people you care about

• You’re tired of holding it all together alone

Finding a Way Out of Survival Mode

Therapy isn’t about fixing you. It’s about helping your body realize it doesn’t have to live in survival mode forever.

Approaches like EMDR therapy and trauma-focused counseling can help your nervous system reset so you can have steadier days, more energy, and a little more room to breathe.

Survival mode got you through a lot. But it doesn’t have to run the rest of your life.

If This Feels Familiar

You don’t have to figure it out on your own. Working with a trauma therapist can be the first step toward moving out of survival mode and into something steadier.

Therapy in South Carolina and Beyond

I specialize in helping adults heal from trauma, burnout, and the constant pull of survival mode. Through online EMDR therapy across South Carolina — including Greenville, Spartanburg, Columbia, and Charleston — I support clients who are ready for more than just “getting by.”

You don’t have to carry it all alone. Schedule a free consultation to talk about what healing might look like for you.

When Rest Feels Impossible: Why Healing Doesn’t Start With Being Okay

09/07/2025

The Myth of “Earning” Rest

So many people grow up learning that rest has to be earned. You finish the chores, the work, the obligations, and only then do you get to stop. If you are still standing, you must keep going. Rest becomes a prize for performance instead of a basic human need.

I remember this from my barista days. “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.” I can still hear it ringing in my ear. It didn’t matter how long we had been on the floor or how many customers we had just served. The message was clear: idleness was unacceptable. Every second had to be filled with effort.

For survivors of trauma, that message often runs even deeper. The nervous system wires itself to be on guard. Slowing down feels unsafe because you learned that letting your guard down was dangerous. Resting is not just difficult. It feels impossible.

Why Rest Feels Unsafe

Trauma changes how the body keeps score. Your brain may say you are fine, but your body remembers otherwise. Even when life looks calm, your system can stay on high alert.

That high alert is exhausting. But when you try to rest, your body resists. Thoughts race. Muscles tense. Sleep feels shallow. You might even feel guilty for wanting to pause. Rest triggers alarm instead of comfort.

This is not laziness. It is not weakness. It is survival mode still running long after the danger has passed.

Signs Rest Feels Unsafe

If rest feels impossible, it often shows up in small but familiar ways:

• Feeling guilty for napping or sleeping in

• Rest days filled with anxiety instead of relaxation

• Trouble sitting still without needing a distraction

• Always saying yes because stopping feels selfish

If these sound familiar, you are not failing. These are survival patterns.

Rest Is Not Laziness. Rest Is Repair.

The truth is simple. Rest is not a prize for performance. It is a basic human need. Rest is how the nervous system begins to repair. Muscles unclench. Breathing slows. The body shifts from protection to healing.

But if you have lived in survival mode, rest does not come naturally. That does not mean you are broken. It means your system learned to survive by staying on. Healing is the process of teaching it that off is possible too.

How Therapy Helps Relearn Safety

In trauma therapy, the first step is often not about revisiting memories. It is about creating safety right now. Sometimes that means practicing what it feels like to pause for thirty seconds without judgment. Sometimes it is noticing one calm breath. Sometimes it is simply learning that stopping is allowed.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can support this process. EMDR helps the nervous system reprocess old experiences so they lose their grip. Over time, your body learns that it can stand down. Rest stops feeling like danger and starts feeling like relief.

Healing is not about forcing yourself to be okay. It is about giving your body new experiences of safety until rest becomes possible again.

Quiet Rebellion

In a world that glorifies burnout, choosing rest is an act of rebellion. For trauma survivors, it is even more powerful. Rest says, “I deserve repair. I deserve care. I deserve to stop.”

I think back to that old barista mantra. “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.” For me, the quiet rebellion is this: if you have time to heal, you have time to rest.

Final Thoughts

If you find yourself unable to rest no matter how tired you are, you are not alone. It is not because you are weak. It is because your nervous system has been working overtime for years. Healing does not begin with being okay. It begins with noticing that even if rest feels impossible, it is still yours to claim.

Therapy is one place to start practicing that truth. You do not have to do it alone.

Ready to Begin?

If rest feels impossible, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Therapy can help your nervous system relearn safety so rest feels less like danger and more like relief. Schedule a free 15-min consultation →

Why Pretending You Feel Fine Feels So Exhausting

9/14/2025

You know that moment when someone says, “But you seem like you’re doing great!” and you smile, nod, maybe even laugh a little… while inside you’re barely holding it together?

On the outside, you look calm, capable, and collected. On the inside, you’re anxious, overwhelmed, or just plain tired. Pretending to feel fine when you’re not isn’t just emotionally draining. It’s one of the most exhausting things your nervous system can do.

The Hidden Cost of Performing

When you spend your days putting on a mask of “I’m fine,” you’re using energy on two levels:

• Managing your actual stress

• Covering it up so no one else notices

That double effort wears you down. You might even end the day more tired from the act of pretending than from the stress itself. Over time, this constant performing can leave you disconnected from yourself and unsure of what you really feel anymore.

Why the Nervous System Hates Pretending

Our bodies are wired for survival. When you’re stuck in survival mode, your nervous system works overtime to protect you. For many people, that protection looks like keeping it together on the outside: calm voice, steady face, doing the things you “should.”

But here’s the catch: your nervous system doesn’t actually calm down just because you look okay. The tension still lives underneath. Your body is holding the anxiety, sadness, or fear even while you’re smiling in the meeting or cracking a joke with friends.

It’s like running two programs at once on your computer: the one you see on the screen, and the one running silently in the background. That background program is what’s eating up all your bandwidth.

The Praise That Keeps You Stuck

To make it harder, people often praise the mask:

• “You’re so strong.”

• “You always have it all together.”

• “I wish I could handle things like you do.”

Part of you may feel proud of that. But another part knows if they really saw you, if they knew how much you’re struggling just to get through the day, they might not say those things.

That disconnect can feel isolating. Instead of feeling supported, you end up feeling more alone.

Why It Feels Never-Ending

The more you pretend, the harder it is to stop. You worry that if you let the mask slip, people will see the “real” you — the one who feels anxious, angry, sad, or exhausted — and they’ll think less of you.

But here’s the truth: pretending doesn’t actually protect you. It just keeps you trapped in a cycle where no one can show up for the real you, because no one gets to see the real you.

What You Need to Hear

If you’re exhausted from pretending, it doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’ve been carrying too much, for too long, without a safe place to set it down.

You deserve rest. You deserve spaces where you don’t have to say “I’m fine” when you’re not. You deserve to feel like yourself again — not just the version of you who’s performing strength.

A Different Way Forward

Therapy here isn’t about fixing you. It’s about helping you feel safe enough to stop performing and start being. It’s about giving your nervous system permission to breathe.

You don’t have to keep proving you’re okay. You don’t have to keep carrying it all alone.

If you’re tired of pretending you’re fine, you don’t have to keep carrying it alone. Let’s talk about what healing might look like for you. Schedule a free 15-min consultation →