I always feel a little dramatic saying this, but EMDR truly changed (eh hem, saved) my life. Since childhood, I carried some very dark, scary thoughts and mental images—things that made being alive feel…optional. As a kid, that was terrifying. As an adult, I did what many of us do: I pushed it down, pretended it wasn’t there, and tried to outrun the distress. It “worked” until it didn’t.
I’d been in therapy for a while when my therapist gently asked if I’d ever considered EMDR. My only reference point was that one of my closest friends—an EMDR therapist—was obsessed with it. She swore it was life-changing for her clients. So when my therapist suggested we try it, I figured, “Sure. Why not? Nothing to lose.”
We started with resourcing, and to this day I can still see my container and my safe place as vividly as if I created them yesterday! When we eventually moved into processing, I had an experience I honestly struggle to put into words. But I remember walking out of her office feeling different in a way I hadn’t felt…maybe ever. Something in me felt lighter, like a pressure valve had finally released. And—this part makes me laugh—I called my EMDR-therapist friend and said, “Robyn, what was that?! And why am I so hungry right now?!” She replied with "I told you! Now go get a vegan burger then go to bed early, you'll need it."
Here’s the wild part: those scary thoughts and images I’d battled my whole life? They were just…gone. I kept waiting for them to come back the next day or the next week, and they didn’t. That was the moment I knew I needed to learn more.
A few months later, I was applying to grad school because I wanted to help other people experience that same shift—maybe not in the exact same way, but with the same sense of relief, clarity, and possibility.
So yeah. That’s why I love EMDR. It didn’t just help me heal old wounds—it helped me understand myself in a way I never had before. It gave me space to breathe, to feel grounded, and to imagine a future that felt worth stepping into. That’s why I’m here, doing this work, and why I believe in EMDR with my whole heart.
