Before we can understand how EMDR works, we must learn about our nervous system.
This is the Vagus Nerve, it runs from the base of your spine all the way to your brain, and branches off into important areas like your eyes, ears, heart, stomach, and all your major organs. It is the main source of your autonomic nervous system – the system that controls your heart rate, breathing, body temperature, muscle tension, etc.
This system evolved in humans to give us stress responses that help us survive.
On the upper end, it connects to your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and heart. So, it is what helps you observe, interpret, communicate, and feel out your surroundings.
On the lower end of the nerve, it touches all your major organs. Your stomach, bladder, gastro-intestinal system, etc. This is why certain thoughts can make your heart race or your stomach churn. We are learning more and more about the connection between gut health and mental health, and it all seems to be related to the nervous system.
The Vagus Nerve is constantly sending information to the brain and body on whether you are safe, and helping you express yourself accordingly. Always scanning for ques of danger, and making decisions before you have a second to think twice about it.
Now let’s make one thing clear; this is not just physical danger, this includes emotional danger. Any kind of threat to your physical or emotional well-being is what your nervous system is on the lookout for. You can see how this nerve holds a lot of power, because it is the system that helps you relate to the world.
In the work of Stephen Porges and Polyvagal Theory (named around the Vagus Nerve and a tenant of EMDR), this is called nueroception.
As humans evolve, our nervous system evolves.
We are more attuned to emotions and the intentions of other people because we are no longer living in huts and fighting off beasts. Our brains have chosen something else to play survival with. Modern day beasts are criticism, assault, varying types of abuse, differing beliefs, going to work, interacting with family…you get the gist.
This is why many snapshots of traumatic memories are a face someone made at you, or that thing they said to you, or why you can be triggered by the smell or height of someone. This is why you get self-conscious when someone shifts their facial expression while talking to you. This is why your stomach turns when you feel shame, or why your heart starts to race when you feel anxiety. These are all experiences of your nervous system assessing a threat and trying to keep you safe.
All your social and emotional reactions live in your nervous system. The pattern of the way you interpret the world, the pattern of your protective beliefs, the pattern of what your brain thinks it needs to do to keep you safe.
A staple in the clinical world is the book Your Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk, because it brings language and research to the concept that we store trauma in our bodies through our nervous system.
So, it makes sense we would tap into this system if we want to heal traumatic memories. Your body stores negative experiences where your nervous system didn’t get to move through its whole process. When you didn’t get to respond to a threat the way you wanted to, and your body didn’t get a chance to move through the parasympathetic “calm down” phase before meaning was attached to the experience.
Stress Responses
This is when the concept of fear and stress responses comes into play. We commonly refer to these as fight, flight, and freeze. Running away from a threat, standing your ground to fight (mobilization responses), or becoming paralyzed (de-mobilization response).
Becoming paralyzed – or freezing – means your ANS has assessed the situation and sees no way out, so it freezes, and sends pain numbing endorphins through the body and blocks out memory.
Again, this can all be translated to emotional danger – let’s use the example of your boss criticizing you in a shameful way. Your choices are to stand up for yourself, walk out, or shut down entirely. This is why most people don’t have detailed memory of assualt or emotionally charged events.
Now this seems like a helpful system, right?
It must be working if it’s helped us survive this long, but where it gets tricky is when our nervous system remembers moments from the past that we were threatened, and applies that information to situations where we may not actually be in danger. Our brains have gotten so crafty that they can even create a threat.
If our bodies do not get the chance to process a painful moment effectively and soothe through it with meaning, we begin to live in a constant stress response where everything feels threatening.
You may not get a chance for your nervous system to finish the process before another trauma is making its way around the corner. So, the brain buckles down and creates a solid system to keep you safe.
Now I know what you’re going to say…
“I didn’t experience trauma growing up.”
You might be surprised at the variety of things that can cause our nervous system to feel threatened. While yes it can be accidents, physical assault, or natural disasters, it can also be the way you were spoken to or disciplined, the way you were shamed, avoided, neglected, or that you grew up surrounded by adversity.
Remember, part of your nueroception is how you interpret people’s facial expressions and tone of voice, so being shamed verbally or with a facial expression may have affected you more than you want to admit. You’re thinking of someone specific and their face right now, aren’t you? See what I mean?
Recent research has even found that trauma is passed down through our genetics, meaning that you were born with the patterns of survival from your ancestors. There are outlines your brain and nervous system are operating under that have no connection to your current life experiences.
Let’s get back to EMDR
By using EMDR, we are tapping into your Vagus Nerve and the autonomic nervous system. This holds the map to defensive patterns that have helped you get by, but may no longer serve you.
We start by conversation that helps us discern painful moments you’ve experienced, what they made you believe about yourself, and the patterns in your life that could be related to it.
Then, the left to right eye movements, the “EM” of EMDR, activates the Vagus Nerve and creates Bi-Lateral Stimulation. This means that both sides of your brain are being turned on, which unlocks the areas of your brain where memory is stored, where anger and survival emotions are stored, and gives you a chance to add more meaning to the memory before it is filed away again.
Coincidentally, this is the same movement your eyes make while you are sleeping – REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is when your brain processes the events from the day, keeps the necessary pieces and files away the rest.
So, when you make this eye movement in a safe and controlled space while re-exposing yourself to a traumatic memory, it re-creates the feelings you felt and the thoughts that went through your mind. This process allows you to recollect important details, word vomit a shameful story, work through protective and critical thoughts, and notice how the emotions manifested in your body.
This is when we get to the “DR” of EMDR – Desensitization and Re-processing. Exposing yourself to that experience again and again, in a safe space, takes the edge off and allows your brain to add new layers of meaning to the experience.
After sluffing off the surface, your body beings to process the sympathetic (defensive) response your nervous system had, which allows a para-sympathetic (calm down) response to begin taking its place.
This means that your body can stay calm when thinking about the memory, which helps your brain access more loving thoughts such as “I didn’t deserve that,” “I was just a kid, it’s okay that I didn’t understand,” and “I am worthy of so much more.” This is when positive thoughts and beliefs about yourself start to feel more natural.
As you do this continuously with various memories, the process rewires your nervous system to be inclined towards parasympathetic “calm down” responses, which means you can assess situations without the magnifying lens of fear.
While we can’t take away the possibility of stress and threats, we can become more particular about what creates the stress responses in our body. After all, we do still want to be spry for the apocalypse.
The Magic
I’ve laid out the science behind what makes EMDR work, but that’s not the magic. The magic comes from you, your willingness to trust yourself and your willingness to be vulnerable. No one’s process will be the same as another because we all have unique information stored in our nervous system and unique interpretations of the world.
Even if all the positive meaning your brain wants to give you starts with anime scenes or quotes from your favorite movie, we’ll go there. Even if we notice more protective and defensive parts of you along the way, we go with it. I can’t tell you how many times I hear people say, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but…” and that very thing is usually what helps us make meaning and process in a deeper way.
Whatever metaphors, symbols, or references help you make sense of things, are meaningful and allowed to be part of your process. Whatever quirks come up, whatever cringe moments need to see the light of day, and whatever stories you want to tell are welcomed and appreciated. So, while the science of your nervous system is very much at play, your honest presentation of yourself is truly what makes it work.
You are the magic!
