You Don’t Have to Relive Your Past to Change Your Relationship With It
One of the questions I sometimes ask someone sitting across from me sounds a little strange at first.
“When did this response make sense?”
Not:
What’s wrong with you?
Why aren’t you over this?
Why are you still letting this bother you?
Why can’t you just move on?
When did this response make sense?
Because sometimes the thing causing problems in your life today started as a perfectly understandable response to something that happened yesterday.
Maybe yesterday was last year.
Maybe it was twenty years ago.
Maybe it was when you were eight.
The calendar moved on.
You built a life.
Went to work.
Raised children.
Paid bills.
Had relationships.
Maybe you rarely even think about what happened anymore.
But occasionally something happens in the present…
and suddenly your response seems much bigger than the moment in front of you.
That’s where things get interesting.
And that’s part of what we mean when we talk about trauma reprocessing.
First, Let’s Clear Up the Word “Trauma”
The word gets used a lot these days.
Sometimes too loosely.
Not every unpleasant experience is necessarily trauma.
Having a bad day isn’t automatically trauma.
Someone disagreeing with you isn’t necessarily trauma.
Being uncomfortable isn’t the same thing as being traumatized.
But difficult, frightening, overwhelming, threatening, abusive, or deeply distressing experiences can leave lasting effects on the way a person thinks, feels, responds, relates to others, or interprets situations later.
Sometimes those effects are obvious.
Other times they’re surprisingly subtle.
Someone may not spend their days consciously thinking about an old experience at all.
Instead, it may show up as:
Don’t trust anyone.
Keep your head down.
Don’t draw attention to yourself.
I have to keep everybody happy.
Conflict isn’t safe.
If someone is upset, I need to fix it.
I’m not enough.
People always leave.
I need to stay in control.
Those aren’t necessarily conscious decisions.
Sometimes they’re conclusions.
Lessons.
Patterns.
Ways of navigating the world that made sense when they developed.
The problem comes when yesterday’s lesson keeps making today’s decisions.
Trauma Reprocessing Is Not Erasing a Memory
I want to make this very clear.
If someone tells you they can simply erase a traumatic memory from your mind, I’d be cautious.
That’s not what I’m trying to do.
Your history is your history.
If something happened, it happened.
I can’t change that.
Neither can hypnosis.
Neither can an eye-movement technique.
Neither can positive thinking.
And I don’t want to manufacture some fictional version of your past where everything was wonderful.
The goal isn’t changing history.
The goal is helping the past have less unwanted control over the present.
That’s different.
You may still remember exactly what happened.
But remembering something and reliving the emotional response to it aren’t necessarily the same thing.
That’s an important distinction.
Reprocessing Doesn’t Mean Pretending It Was Okay
This matters too.
Sometimes people resist letting go of anger, fear, hurt, or another emotional response because it feels as though doing so would excuse what happened.
It doesn’t.
Healing doesn’t require declaring:
“It wasn’t that bad.”
It may have been that bad.
It may have been worse.
You can acknowledge that someone harmed you without spending the rest of your life allowing that person’s actions to determine how you feel about yourself.
You can stop being afraid without deciding there was never anything to fear.
You can release anger without deciding what happened was acceptable.
You can move forward without rewriting the verdict on what happened.
Peace isn’t the same thing as approval.
You Don’t Necessarily Have to Tell Me Every Detail
This surprises some people.
They assume trauma work means sitting in an office and recounting every painful detail of what happened.
Sometimes talking about an experience is useful.
Sometimes context matters.
But I don’t believe you should have to prove how much you’ve suffered by giving me every detail.
And depending on the work we’re doing, I may not need every detail.
There are approaches to trauma-focused work that don’t require prolonged, detailed retelling of the traumatic event. Even EMDR, for example, does not require extended exposure or detailed descriptions of the trauma in the same way some other approaches do.
That’s important to me.
Because the purpose of the work isn’t:
“Let’s see how upset we can make you while talking about your past.”
It’s:
“Can we help this experience stop creating the same unwanted response in the present?”
Sometimes the Body Seems to React Before You Have Time to Think
You’ve probably experienced this in some form.
Someone uses a particular tone.
Your stomach tightens.
A door slams.
Your entire body jumps.
Someone doesn’t answer your message.
Anxiety rises.
You smell something.
Hear a song.
Drive down a particular road.
Walk into a hospital.
Someone criticizes you.
A disagreement starts.
Before you’ve consciously worked through what any of it means, you’re already reacting.
Then your thinking mind arrives and asks:
Why did I react like that?
Sometimes there’s an obvious connection.
Sometimes there isn’t.
But our responses are influenced by learned associations, expectations, memories, attention, emotion, and context.
This is why simply telling yourself:
“That was twenty years ago.”
may not completely change the response.
Consciously, you know what year it is.
But something about the present moment activated an old pattern.
That’s Where Reprocessing Becomes Interesting
When I use the word reprocessing, I’m talking about helping someone change their relationship with an experience and the responses associated with it.
Not deleting the event.
Not pretending it didn’t matter.
Not installing fake memories.
And not convincing someone that everything is wonderful.
Instead, we may be working toward something more like:
That happened then.
This is happening now.
And my response today doesn’t have to be determined entirely by what happened then.
Sometimes that involves beliefs.
Sometimes imagery.
Sometimes emotional processing.
Sometimes hypnosis.
Sometimes attention.
Sometimes breathing or grounding.
And one of the tools I’ve increasingly used for this work is something called Multichannel Eye Movement Integration, or MEMI.
What Is MEMI?
MEMI stands for Multichannel Eye Movement Integration.
It is a relatively new eye-movement approach developed by Dr. Mike Deninger and influenced by earlier Eye Movement Integration approaches, NLP, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, and trauma-focused work. MEMI uses guided eye movements across multiple directions in the visual field while working with aspects of a distressing memory or experience.
If you’ve heard of EMDR—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing—you may recognize some similarities.
But MEMI and EMDR are not the same thing.
EMDR is a well-established, structured psychotherapy with an eight-phase protocol and a substantial research base, particularly for PTSD.
MEMI is newer.
Its protocol and eye-movement patterns differ, and it was designed in part to provide a more streamlined approach that doesn’t require extensive verbal processing or cognitive restructuring.
I use MEMI in my work.
I don’t use EMDR.
And there’s a reason I’ve continued using MEMI.
What I’ve Seen in My Own Practice
I want to distinguish between research evidence and clinical experience here.
Those aren’t the same thing.
MEMI doesn’t currently have the decades of published research behind it that EMDR does. Its developers are working toward a larger research base, and even MEMI’s own materials acknowledge that formal efficacy studies are ongoing.
So I’m not going to tell you that science has established MEMI as superior to EMDR.
It hasn’t.
What I can tell you is what I’ve observed in my own practice.
I’ve been impressed with it.
I’ve found that people can sometimes experience meaningful changes surprisingly quickly.
I’ve also seen those changes hold up when I’ve talked with people weeks and months later.
And I’ve found the process can sometimes allow us to work with an experience without spending session after session repeatedly telling the entire story.
That’s why MEMI has become one of the tools in my toolbox.
Not because I think I’ve discovered magic.
And not because every person needs it.
Because I’ve seen it be useful.
Other MEMI practitioners have reported similar clinical observations, including clinicians previously trained in EMDR, but those reports should be understood as practitioner experience and testimonials rather than the same level of evidence as controlled comparative research.
That distinction matters.
But MEMI Isn’t the Point
This may sound strange after I just spent several paragraphs explaining it.
But I don’t want you getting hung up on MEMI either.
The same way I don’t want you getting hung up on hypnosis.
People sometimes contact me having already decided which tool they need.
“I need hypnosis.”
Maybe.
“I need trauma reprocessing.”
Maybe.
“I need MEMI.”
Maybe.
Let’s meet the person before prescribing the technique.
There are times when I may think MEMI is appropriate.
There are times when hypnosis may be more useful.
Sometimes we need to work with a belief.
Sometimes we need to build emotional regulation skills first.
Sometimes the issue is outside my scope altogether and the person needs a licensed trauma therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, physician, or another specialist.
People aren’t protocols.
My loyalty isn’t to a technique.
It’s to helping the person in front of me determine an appropriate next step.
What Reprocessing Can Look Like
Imagine someone had an experience years ago that left them with a strong emotional response.
When they think about it today, they rate the intensity at an eight out of ten.
Their chest tightens.
They feel anger.
Or fear.
Or shame.
Maybe an image immediately appears in their mind.
Maybe there’s a sentence attached to it:
“I wasn’t safe.”
“It was my fault.”
“I’m powerless.”
“I should have done something.”
We do some work.
Later, they think about the same event.
The facts haven’t changed.
They still know what happened.
But something is different.
The emotional intensity may be lower.
The image may feel less immediate.
Their body may respond differently.
The old conclusion may no longer feel as convincing.
Instead of:
“I’m still there.”
the experience begins feeling more like:
“That happened to me.”
Those are very different relationships with a memory.
And that’s closer to what I’m interested in when I talk about reprocessing.
“But What If I Don’t Want to Remember It?”
That’s understandable.
You may not need to go digging around trying to uncover painful memories.
I don’t believe everyone needs to excavate their childhood looking for trauma.
Sometimes people become so determined to find the hidden event explaining everything that they begin interpreting every uncomfortable memory as evidence.
I’m cautious about that.
Memory isn’t a perfect video recording of the past, and suggestive approaches can create problems.
So I’m not interested in forcing memories.
I’m interested in what’s affecting your life now.
What happens?
When does it happen?
What do you experience?
What seems connected?
What would you like to be different?
If an old experience is clearly relevant, we can work with that carefully.
If it isn’t, we don’t need to manufacture one.
You Don’t Get Bonus Points for Suffering
There’s an idea that deep problems must require painful solutions.
If you’ve carried something for thirty years, surely it should take another ten years to change it.
Not necessarily.
Sometimes change happens slowly.
Sometimes surprisingly quickly.
The length of time you’ve had a response doesn’t automatically tell us how long changing it will take.
But the opposite is equally important:
I won’t promise that something you’ve carried for decades will disappear in one session.
Human beings don’t come with guarantees.
My experience with MEMI has made me optimistic about how efficiently some distressing experiences can sometimes be addressed.
But optimism isn’t a promise.
We do the work in front of us and evaluate what actually changes.
The Question I Keep Coming Back To
Maybe you’ve spent years asking:
Why am I still like this?
Try another question.
When did this response make sense?
When did keeping quiet make sense?
When did being constantly alert make sense?
When did avoiding conflict make sense?
When did expecting rejection make sense?
When did staying emotionally distant make sense?
When did trying to control everything make sense?
You may discover that the person you’ve been criticizing wasn’t weak at all.
They adapted.
They learned.
They survived.
They figured out how to navigate the world they were living in.
Now you’re living in a different world.
And perhaps the old strategy isn’t necessary anymore.
We don’t have to hate the old response.
We can understand it.
And then we can begin teaching something different.
The Goal Isn’t to Change What Happened
I can’t give you a different childhood.
I can’t make someone unhurt you.
I can’t make a loss disappear.
I can’t change what someone said.
I can’t change what someone did.
I can’t change history.
What we can sometimes change is how much authority that history continues to have over today.
The memory can remain a memory.
The past can remain the past.
And you can become increasingly capable of responding to the life you’re actually living now rather than constantly reacting to the one you survived then.
That’s trauma reprocessing as I understand and practice it.
Not erasing.
Not forgetting.
Not pretending.
Integrating.
And moving forward.
If Something From the Past Is Still Affecting Today
You don’t have to decide whether you need MEMI.
You don’t have to know whether hypnosis is appropriate.
And you certainly don’t need to diagnose yourself before reaching out.
We start with a conversation.
We’ll talk about what’s happening, what you’ve already tried, what you’d like to be different, and whether the kind of work I do is appropriate.
If I believe I can help, I’ll tell you what I recommend.
If I think someone else is better equipped to help with what you’re experiencing, I’ll tell you that too.
Initial Consultation: $50
Your consultation fee is credited toward your $175 Initial Session if we decide to continue.
Sessions after that are $95 each.
No packages.
No contracts.
No predetermined number of sessions.
Because the goal isn’t keeping you in my office.
The goal is helping you live your life outside of it.
Your past is part of your story.
It doesn’t necessarily have to keep writing every chapter.
Understanding changes everything.
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