The Moment Time Was Born: How Trauma Shapes the Self

There’s a quiet power in the moments that freeze us.

A boy climbs a tree and discovers a nest with two perfect blue eggs. He feels nothing but awe—pure connection, being with the experience. But then, his father walks out the door, dressed for church, sees the eggs in the boy’s hand and snaps: “Put them back. The birds won’t come back now.” The boy obeys—but in the process, crushes the eggs. His father’s angry face imprints on him like a flashbulb. The wonder dissolves. Shame takes its place.

That’s when time begins.

Not clock time, but psychological time. Memory. Anticipation. Identity.

In that split second, a part of him freezes—emotionally, neurologically, spiritually. The experience is no longer flowing. He’s no longer with it. He’s in it. And that moment—now coded in his neural circuitry—will subtly shape the lens through which he sees the world, others, and himself.

With vs. In: The Split in Experience

We live most of our lives oscillating between two modes:

• Being with: Flow, presence, no sense of separation. This is childhood delight, running barefoot, picking strawberries, flying through life like a bird.
• Being in: The moment something interrupts the flow—fear, shame, pain—we fall into the experience. A snapshot is taken. Time begins. Identity forms.

This shift from with to in is how trauma embeds itself—not just through major events, but through everyday experiences that become “small t” traumas. The moment you hit your head on a metal post you meant to trim. The moment someone laughs at your joy. The moment something says: You’re not okay.

EMDR: A Path Back to Presence

In EMDR therapy, we look for these frozen moments—memories that become the lenses or filters through which we view our world.˛. They live not in the thinking brain (cortex), but in the limbic system, where our emotions and body responses are linked and encoded.

You can talk about a memory for years and still feel stuck. That’s because your thoughts can’t reach the lower brain. There are no pathways going “down.” But EMDR does what conversation alone can’t: it reactivates the memory, accesses the sensory and emotional imprints, and allows them to be processed and released.

We don’t just talk about the memory. We relive it safely—and transform it.

Trauma as a Creator of Time and Self

In trauma, three things freeze:

• The image (e.g., dad’s angry face)
• The emotion (e.g., shame, fear)
• The body sensation (e.g., an inward contraction, a knot in the stomach)

Together, they create a deficient sense of “self” that lives in reaction: I am bad. I am unsafe. I am not enough.

EMDR helps us return to the present. Not by erasing the past, but by unhooking our identity from it so we live in response:  I’m okay, I’m safe, free as a bird. 

Closing Thoughts

Many people seek therapy because “something’s not working.” Often, they don’t know why. They’re not aware of the deeper patterns. But the body knows. The nervous system remembers.

As therapists, our task is to listen not only to stories—but to the frozen moments. And help our clients move from being in their pain to being with their return to wholeness.

 

By JV Shafer