That might sound like a line from a meditation retreat brochureโor something someone says right before trying breathwork for the first time. But for many of us in the therapy world, it resonates in a different way. Especially when weโve watched clients process years of memories that seem to collapse into a single session.
This entry in Founderโs Corner explores a deceptively simple insight: EMDR removes time from the equation.
Letโs start here: most of us donโt live our lives as a string of unrelated events. We live them in themes.
Maybe yours is โIโm not good enough.โ Or โI always get left behind.โ Or โAuthority figures are dangerous.โ These arenโt conscious mantrasโtheyโre embodied patterns. What Iโve seen in clients, and in my own work, is that these themes show up over and over again across time: in childhood, in school, in relationships, in careers.
The stories change. The cast changes. But the feeling, the dynamic, the role you play? Itโs familiar.
I once made a list of 30 memoriesโmoments Iโd normally dismiss as โnothing big,โ but that still felt uncomfortable. Cringe-worthy. Locked in time.
They weren’t massive traumas. Just small, unresolved moments that still carried emotional charge. I never got to them in regular therapy, so I hired someone and we worked through the list over two years using standard EMDR processing. Every session, another thread got pulled. Eventually, something shiftedโnot just in the memories, but in how they related to each other.
They stopped feeling like separate events. It was like pulling the right string and watching the whole knot unravel.
Hereโs what I realized: when enough memories within a theme are processedโespecially when they become linked during EMDR sessionsโsomething unusual happens.
The memories stop being sequential.
They collapse.
Instead of sitting on a timelineโโthis happened, then that happenedโโthey converge. Theyโre no longer โthis happened when I was 8, then again at 15, then again at 35.โ Instead, they become one experience, happening now.
We move from linear time to vertical time.
Thatโs when time collapses, and so does the physical sensation, emotional charge, and identity built around it.
Neuropsychologist Mark Solms notes that the brain is constantly playing catch-up. We think weโre experiencing life in real time, but neurologically, weโre always half a millisecond late.
That means actual life experiences are happening just before we know theyโre happening. Conscious awareness lags behind.
Add to that the layers of unprocessed memoryโof psychological timeโand itโs easy to see why we feel stuck in the past or anxious about the future.
But what EMDR does, at its best, is help people catch up to themselves. It lets the brain and body reprocess whatโs frozenโso we can meet life in the moment again.
In EMDR, therapists often talk about identifying the first, worst, or most recent memory related to a belief or issue. But thereโs another kind of memory Iโve come to appreciate: the loadstone, the place where the neural networks for a theme converge.ย
It might not be dramatic or obvious. It may even seem irrelevant. But itโs the one that, when processed, causes time to collapse and the rest to fall away. Like pulling the thread that undoes the whole tapestry.
Finding the loadstone can be a turning pointโnot because itโs โthe original wound,โ but because it sits at the center of how the theme is structured and links together in the nervous system.
EMDR doesnโt just help people โfeel better.โ It doesnโt just reduce symptoms. When most effective, it dismantles the illusion of psychological time altogether.
When that happens, the theme loses its power.
The identity built around it starts to loosen.
And life becomes something differentโnot perfect, not pain-free, but Present.
By JV Shafer
Amanda Martin holds a PhD in Family Therapy and is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Supervisor, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant. With over 14 years of experience, she specializes in trauma therapy for individuals and families in residential and outpatient settings. Amanda also provides supervision for EMDR certification, EMDR consultants-in-training, and LMFT-Associates. Her mission is to help people find a healthy, joyful, and fulfilling path in life. Her warm, supportive, and interactive counseling style incorporates Symbolic Experiential Therapy, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, EMDR, HeartMath, Animal-Assisted Therapy, Neurofeedback, and Collaborative Problem Solving.
Dr. Jose Carbajal, a U.S. Army veteran, earned his bachelorโs and masterโs degrees in social work and a masterโs in theological studies from Baylor University, and a Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Texas at Arlington. With over 15 years of clinical experience and extensive teaching experience, Jose specializes in trauma, sexual abuse recovery, domestic violence, and substance abuse. His research focuses on trauma interventions, neuroscience, and faith. He is EMDR Certified, an Approved Consultant, and an EMDRIA Approved Trainer, with numerous publications and professional presentations to his name.
Amber holds a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from Regent University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in both Texas and Oklahoma and holds Supervisor credential for Texas. Amber is an EMDRIA consultant and trainer. She has over a decade of experience in the trauma field in work with uniformed services, domestic violence, childhood trauma and abuse, and recent mass trauma events. Amber provides consultation for EMDRIA certification, for consultants-in-training, and supervision for LPC-Associates. Amber continues to research the benefits of EMDR therapy with a variety of populations. Her goal is to help build strong clinicians who are well versed in trauma interventions to better support their clients. Amber sees a limited number of clients with a focus on trauma work, she is also a Certified Career Counselor and Certified through EAGALA to provide equine-assisted therapy.ย
Amber holds a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from Regent University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in both Texas and Oklahoma and holds Supervisor credential for Texas. Amber is an EMDRIA consultant and trainer. She has over a decade of experience in the trauma field in work with uniformed services, domestic violence, childhood trauma and abuse, and recent mass trauma events. Amber provides consultation for EMDRIA certification, for consultants-in-training, and supervision for LPC-Associates. Amber continues to research the benefits of EMDR therapy with a variety of populations. Her goal is to help build strong clinicians who are well versed in trauma interventions to better support their clients. Amber sees a limited number of clients with a focus on trauma work, she is also a Certified Career Counselor and Certified through EAGALA to provide equine-assisted therapy.ย
Dr. Jose Carbajal, a U.S. Army veteran, earned his bachelorโs and masterโs degrees in social work and a masterโs in theological studies from Baylor University, and a Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Texas at Arlington. With over 15 years of clinical experience and extensive teaching experience, Jose specializes in trauma, sexual abuse recovery, domestic violence, and substance abuse. His research focuses on trauma interventions, neuroscience, and faith. He is EMDR Certified, an Approved Consultant, and an EMDRIA Approved Trainer, with numerous publications and professional presentations to his name.
Amanda Martin holds a PhD in Family Therapy and is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Supervisor, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant. With over 14 years of experience, she specializes in trauma therapy for individuals and families in residential and outpatient settings. Amanda also provides supervision for EMDR certification, EMDR consultants-in-training, and LMFT-Associates. Her mission is to help people find a healthy, joyful, and fulfilling path in life. Her warm, supportive, and interactive counseling style incorporates Symbolic Experiential Therapy, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, EMDR, HeartMath, Animal-Assisted Therapy, Neurofeedback, and Collaborative Problem Solving.
