I had a client I worked with a few years ago come to me claiming she wanted to work on a childhood trauma. She said she knew exactly what she needed to work on and that she didn’t need me to do any digging.
She also said she didn’t need any privacy on the memory in question. So I asked a few questions to understand the structure of her problem a little more and we got to work.
After ten minutes, I noticed the emotional charge of the memory wasn’t going anywhere. It started at an 8, and only went down to a 7.5 the next time I did an “ecology check” (or a subjective units of distress—SUDS—measurement). 8 to 7.5 essentially just meant she felt slightly different thinking about the event, but not really.
While it’s not unheard of for traumatic memories to take time to go to zero, something was up.
Another twenty minutes went by in the session with similar results (I think we got it down to a 7), and I decided to hit the pause button.
“Are we working on what is the most upsetting thing to you in your life right now?”
She quickly said no.
Quick pause on this blog, too.
I’m not in control of the session. You are.
It’s 100% fine she didn’t want to go to the big stuff right away. Everyone is allowed to work on whatever they want to work on at their own pace. Not everything has to be connected to what you know your big issues are.
However, I knew she was looking for results.
Unpause.
I followed up with, “Do you believe that working on this event will help you with whatever is truly bothering you?”
“Yes. Well, I mean, I hoped it would.”
She was hoping this one memory was going to be the magic bullet. That it would collapse what was really running the show in her mind.
“We can work on whatever you want to work on, but if this event isn’t linked and you’re just hoping it is, you may not get the results you’re looking for. Can I ask why you’re going about healing this way?”
She shrugged and teared up. “I’m afraid.”
Do what you fear.
“Do what you fear” is a common inspirational quote. It’s overused, and maybe even a cliche at this point.
But it’s still true.
Do what you fear and you will grow by leaps and bounds.
“As we discussed earlier, I can work on multiple memories at the same time and make them not bother you anymore,” I said, “but the process is different. It changes how I do things. However, if this memory isn’t really on your radar–meaning you haven’t really been thinking about it– you’ll most likely have a better session if we focus on the reason you’re really here. I can work on whatever it is gently so it’s not a traumatic experience for you. Is that what you want to do, or do you want to go back to the memory we started with?”
“It won’t be traumatic for me? I can’t live through that again.”
“We’re going to go one step at a time. You’ll be in control the entire time.”
She agreed to work on the real reason she needed help, and we cleaned it up.
How It Went
Her story was, indeed, a BIG T, and I understand why she didn’t want to go there. It was a particularly long memory, too (meaning there were many small traumas linked with the one BIG T trauma), so it took us the entire session to clean it up. She came back for a follow up, and additional aspects of those events had floated to the surface, but since we had knocked out the big stuff, they were easy to knock away.
She’s now in a much better place and moving forward. Now when she goes to that place in her mind, her mind gives her the rewrite instead of the original event.
The trauma is no longer a part of her identity.
You might be a lot like her. You know where your issues started, but have been afraid to work on them.
But if you go after the event that’s really been running your life—if you go after the thing you’ve been circling for years—your mind and body can finally let it go. And you can start feeling better, faster.
You don’t have to have it all figured out before you begin. You don’t even have to share every detail out loud (shout out to anyone who’s ever done a No-Content session with me). You’ll be in control the entire time, and we’ll take it one step at a time so it’s not a traumatic experience for you.
If you’re ready to stop circling and actually clean up what’s running the show, I’d love to help.
Click here to book a session with me.
Or, if you’re not sure yet, schedule a quick and free discovery call and we’ll figure it out together.
If you’d like to keep learning first, I also send out a short weekly newsletter with tools, stories, and insights that can help you start shifting things on your own.
You don’t have to do it alone. Let’s get started.
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