Returning, Remembering & Retelling
I’m big on anniversaries and this month holds a very significant one. It marks 50 years since the auto accident that set my memoir’s storyline into action.
It seems fitting that we are also in the month of Passover, the Jewish festival that shines a light on returning, remembering and retelling the story of the Exodus from Egypt. From slavery to freedom.
If it weren’t for these, my story would have remained frozen inside of me forever.
Returning, remembering and retelling are what I needed to do to extract the trauma from my body and bring it to the page. But to do this, one needs to feel safe and supported. I was lucky to find a psychotherapist trained in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, to accompany me on this journey.
The words are a mouthful but the simplest way to explain EMDR is that by way of noninvasive visual or audio stimuli, the process alters the way an experience is stored in the brain which impacts how it feels in body and soul. I have engaged in a variety of beneficial therapeutic modalities across my lifetime, but EMDR therapy helped complete the healing.
An example may give you a feel for how:
The biggest theme we addressed was how it felt navigate a childhood trauma covered by a heavy blanket of silence and what I could do to unsilence myself (outside of writing of course!)
When we both felt I was ready, she asked me to concentrate on the sensory experience of being silenced in my body. As she moved her index and middle fingers back and forth for 60 seconds, she asked me to follow with my eyes. Some images flashed. Some thoughts swam by. Sensations came and went. I wasn’t conscious of anything in particular but when she stopped and asked what had come up, a clear scene had materialized.
I am laying on the floor and a man with hard leather dress shoes is standing on my chest making it difficult for me to breathe.
Okay, she said, now let’s return to that sensation, but this time, concentrate on how you might you get out from under that.
As she moved her fingers again I saw myself again laying on the ground, but this time I was breathing more fully. When the man tried to stand on my chest - now rounded and moving up and down with breath - there was no flat surface for him to stand on and he fell off.
This second image brought a powerful insight: When I breathe fully, I am fully present, visible and a force of energy that can’t be ignored me or stomped on.
It may sound like something conjured up in a daydream, but I have felt more grounded ever since.My therapist tells me that no one can fully explain how EMDR works. But the approach helped me return to a traumatic time in my life, remember and unpack some of the details and retell my story on the page in what I like to think is an artful and impactful way. And most importantly, it allowed me to finish my memoir. To reframe my story.
Passover has always been my favorite of all the Jewish holidays and I now see why. The trio of returning, remembering and retelling at the seder table brings our past into our present in the hope that we will integrate the experience into our modern life. There’s so much wisdom in this simple ancient practice!
I see it with new eyes with a grateful, more open and healed heart.
You can find out more about EMDR here.
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish of Passover Seder Table painting by Deborah Gross-Zuchman
Coming Up
Tonight (April 6) at the Skokie Public Library. Join me for a free workshop on making art from life at 6 pm.
“Writing Wrongs” Lighthouse Lit Fest, single session, June 14, 2:30 - 4:30 (CT.)
“Deconstructing Didion,” Story Studio Chicago, single session, June 29, 6:30-8:30 pm. (CT)