Tag Archives: emdr

Strategy and Post Traumatic Growth

12 Thursday Jun 2025

Posted by in Life Long Learner, One Life

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Last week I experienced a very low week. It felt as though depression was flooding in, but as I did some reflection, I found not depression, but loneliness and restlessness. It did not make sense.

Why the loneliness? Why the restlessness?

Next, I am a part of a business coaching cohort, called Strategy, hosted by Leslie Burris. And this group, and the coaching by Leslie, is so very good. I’m being able to put in place many of the ideas and suggestions presented for my quilting business. But I’m also feeling like outside of the quilting business I just don’t know if I have anything to offer. Everyone in the cohort seems so very far ahead of me.

This was really troubling me and I brought it up in therapy. I am so thankful that while I have completed the EMDR treatment, I’m still meeting with the therapist a couple times a month. After I shared what I was feeling and experiencing the therapist told me that I am now experiencing Post Traumatic Growth. Goodness, there is even a “trauma” name for what comes next, insert nervous laugh.

So here I am, celebrating in a strange way that I felt another emotion, loneliness. That I was able to do self-reflection and identify the feelings and communicate about them with my therapist. As someone who didn’t really feel for a very long time, this is good progress. And it is an indicator of the opportunity to press in and grow further out of trauma. So here I go, forward.

I’m sharing my journey here, partly as a way of journaling because I tend to not journal about what I am really experiencing. And also, because, most of us are like the rest of us. And what I am experiencing after trauma, maybe someone else is too.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

25 Friday Apr 2025

Posted by in Gratitude, One Life, Truth

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There is something I’d like to share with you today.  You may know me as a quilter, or a writer, or not really know who I am anyway. But this story begins with quilting, and then continues on in hope.

Quilting is my job, my hobby and it has been the “place” I go to cope, to hide, to SURVIVE. And that is what one of my daughters said to me in this past year. The process of taking a collection of fabric and cutting it into pieces, then moving the pieces around and sewing them back together is methodical and creative. It is a process I can pour my focus into, and other things grow dim for a little while. I didn’t even realize how in this thing I love to do, I was hiding, numbing the pain.

BUT a change has been happening, healing is happening. And recently I was able to see it. A few weeks ago, as I was preparing to go on my first solo trip in over 2 years, my husband asked me a question.  It’s a question that he has asked me many times, and sometimes I’ve been a little annoyed by it. The answer has always been “no.”

Builder asked me if I was excited about my upcoming trip and I realized in that moment, that YES!  I was excited!  I was feeling an emotion that was not numb, or fear or anxiety.  I was excited. I WAS EXCITED!

For the past 18 months I’ve been in therapy.  And for about 8 months I’ve been receiving EMDR treatment for chronic PTSD.  I am beginning to understand myself so much better than ever before.  It appears that I have lived in flight/fight/freeze or survival mode for most of my life. I now recognize how much of my life has been lived in that way.  How much of my life has been lost to hiding, withdrawing, disassociating.

I’m learning though, while it is okay to allow myself to experience some grief over these things, I can now look forward.  All the thoughts that come to my mind like “it’s too late”, “you are too old”; I can tell those NATs (negative automatic thoughts) to shut up, and be thankful for right now.  All those things lie behind, and I have today to continue to learn how to heal, to walk in wholeness, and to encourage someone else to begin. I cannot really express how good it is to be in this place. I am so very thankful.

Life can be brutal.  People can be brutal.  AND healing and goodness can be experienced.  

I share this today for you. The one who may feel like it’s too late. You may feel like it doesn’t matter.

You might be dealing with shame, thinking you should be over “that” by now.

If you have breath, it’s not too late. It’s right on time.

Some things, we need help to get over. It really is acceptable to need a little help.

It’s doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to stay this way.

Life can be wonderfully different.

SO

Make an appointment.  Ask for help.

Gather all your courage and go to the appointment.

It will take time, but it will not take forever.

Healing can come, and life can be wonderfully different.

This is my hope for you, may the day be not far off, that you will experience the moment where you realize that you are living beyond the pain, and find hope, goodness and joy.