EMDR Spiral Technique For Trauma

This meditation introduces a spiral technique taken from EMDR, designed to reduce distress around current situations or past memories.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Dr.

Natalie Feinblatt.

I'm a licensed psychologist in Los Angeles and I provide spiritually informed care for addiction and trauma,

Among other things.

So this is kind of the second meditation in my EMDR series,

If you want to call it that.

EMDR is a specific trauma treatment technique that is pretty different from standard talk therapy.

It's something that I am trained in and use with some of my clients who have a trauma history.

And I've already done one trauma,

It's like a mini guided meditation that's related to EMDR,

Comes from EMDR called the Lightstream Technique.

And this is the second one and this one is called the Spiral Technique.

And much like the Lightstream Technique,

I did not come up with this,

I did not write this.

It's a part of my EMDR training and it's something I use with my EMDR clients.

But I figure it's actually just a helpful technique probably for most people who are feeling agitated or upset about something.

So I figured it would be useful to do as a mini guided meditation.

You don't have to have a trauma history to benefit from the Spiral Technique.

Just give it a listen and see if it's something that you find helpful.

So let's go ahead and get started.

I usually suggest that people put on some quiet instrumental music in the background for my meditations.

You can do that,

You don't have to do it.

But if you want to,

You can.

And just focus on getting comfy.

Comfy is different for every body.

I just want you to find a position that feels good for your specific body and where you won't have to move around or fidget too much for the next 10 minutes or so.

And when you feel ready,

You can close your eyes.

Most people find it helpful to close their eyes during meditations because it helps them focus.

However,

Sometimes people with trauma histories or severe anxiety actually find it counterproductive to close their eyes during meditation because it actually makes them more anxious instead of less.

So if that's the case for you,

You can absolutely leave your eyes open and just kind of have a soft unfocused gaze in front of you.

And now we're just going to draw our attention to our breath.

And at first we're just going to notice it.

I'm not going to do anything to it.

Just noticing if it's fast or slow,

Deep or shallow.

And after a few breaths,

We're going to use a little bit more intention.

You can take a nice slow breath in through your nose and let it out through your mouth,

Seeing if one intentional breath can help you get settled or grounded a little bit more.

Again,

Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Dropping down within yourself.

Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

What you're going to start by doing is identifying in your mind something that is either upsetting or disturbing you right now,

A current life situation,

Or identify something that is a memory that is disturbing or upsetting to you.

Now if this is the first time you're doing this meditation,

I would suggest that you don't pick something that is disturbing to the point of emotional dysregulation.

If we were going to rate it on a SUD scale,

The SUD scale is the subjective units of discomfort.

It goes from 0 to 10.

0 being totally comfortable,

10 being a lot of psychological pain.

If this is your first time doing this exercise,

I would suggest you pick something that's maybe a 6 or lower.

So whether it's something present or past.

And once you've identified this thing,

I want you to concentrate on any body sensations that accompany the disturbance.

Anything goes.

Anywhere in your body.

Any sort of sensation.

Tight,

Loose,

Hot,

Cold.

Anything at all.

This is an imaginal exercise so there's no right or wrong here.

So I want you to concentrate on that feeling in your body.

Wherever it is and whatever it's like.

We're going to pretend that feelings are energy.

And if this physical sensation in your body that's accompanying this upsetting event or memory,

If this sensation was going in a spiral,

If the energy was moving in a spiral,

What direction would it be moving in?

Would it be clockwise or would it be counterclockwise?

Just take the answer that comes to you,

Whatever feels right.

Again there is no right or wrong.

And now with your mind,

Let's change the direction and move the spiral in the opposite direction of how it was originally moving.

So if it felt like the spiral was going clockwise,

Use your mind to start moving it counterclockwise.

And if it was originally moving counterclockwise,

Use the power of your mind to start getting it to go in the opposite direction,

Going clockwise.

Take however much time you need.

You might be able to get it to switch quickly.

It might be more of a struggle that takes a few moments.

And just notice what happens in your body and in your mind as this energy moves in the opposite direction of how it was originally going.

So for many people,

When they do this,

Moving the energy in the opposite direction will greatly decrease or completely get rid of the upset or disturbance in the body and mind around this event or memory.

It's okay if it doesn't take it from like a 6 to a 0.

Maybe it takes it from like a 6 to a 3.

That's still a 50% improvement.

A little less if you count the 0.

The idea is that this visualization process can definitely help decrease your distress around certain events or memories.

And obviously now that you know this technique,

It's pretty simple.

You don't need me to do it with you every time.

This is something you can keep in your toolbox and you can use it whenever it feels appropriate.

So once you're feeling better and the upset and disturbance has reduced or dissipated,

You can go ahead and come back into the present.

Open your eyes and feel your body and mind return to the here and now.

So you can go about your day in a state of restful alertness,

Hopefully feeling a bit better than when you started the exercise.

Reviews

This was very helpful. Will be using this meditation again!

My first time trying an emdr exercise like this, I was surprised how quickly it worked to reduce the intensity of the emotions I was feeling around a particular argument. the ten minutes really went by in a moment. Such a simple technique, I’ll try doing it regularly for a while and am curious to see the effects. Thank you!

It helped me. It seemed to take away some of the distress I was feeling. I rated it as a 8 at first, and then it was probably a six or five when I was finished. Thank you very much. I’m going to check into some of your other exercises.

This is an elegantly simple yet powerful technique from a voice that's caring and soothing.

Totally worked took my anxiety from like a 7 to a 3. And so simple. Thanks

This worked for me the first time. It is now in my tool box and I hope to use it regularly. Thank you!

Loved this, the spiral 🌀change of direction felt like everything was in slow motion! Thanks 🙏

Interesting…I did a search for emdr after hearing about it on a zoom. Thank you for enlightening me!

I really was having a hard time going back to sleep due to my trauma and I saw this meditation and was like let's try this and afterwards it just became an slightly uncomfortable event then painful event so I just wanted to say thank you for your meditation and please make more♡

Excellent resource. Her voice nicely guides you during a difficult emotion.

Thank you!

Was so helpful, great technique. Please consider dropping more meditations. Thanks again 🌺

thank you so much!!! this was immensely useful, i have such a difficult time with the mind-body connection, and i was easily able to practice this. thank you <3

I do feel some relief. I have been in EMDR Therapy over 2 years but this was unfortunately not showed to me. Grateful 🙏🏽

Thank you so much for sharing this technique. This was very helpful.

Effective and learned about a promising technique in just 10 minutes…

A worthwhile introduction to a great tool for mitigation of trauma response. Thank you 🙏

10 minutes flew by quickly! Great for when you need a break and boost of energy.

I work as a EMDR Therapist & want to thank you for introducing this technique. There will be times I will utilize. Your facilitation just helped me. Thank you.

Thank you, I suffer from CPTSD many very traumatic events over span of 40+ years. Struggling now because facing the trauma head on instead of repressing it as I did for so long - additionally I’m ASD. My point in mentioning all this is to say I found this very helpful. Even though after 40 years of stuff I don’t even know where to begin. But this is a great coping mechanism to employ! Namaste

i went from a 6 to a 1. which is amazing- thank you 🙏🕯️🤍🙏🕯️🤍🙏🕯️🤍🙏🕯️🤍