You found us. I'm glad you did, but I'm so sorry you had to. The good news is we got you. So come sit in our widow circle where trauma meets humor and we remind you that you can not only survive, but thrive. This is every widow thing. Hi, welcome back. I'm Laci with every widow thing. And I'm here today with Whitney and Kira. And we have a special guest, Katie Cummings with us today. Welcome, Katie. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
We are thrilled to have you. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Katie. She is a renowned trauma therapist with advanced training and eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, a powerful approach to healing trauma. Integrating EMDR with internal family systems, somatic experiencing, and neuroscience, Katie guides individuals and couples through profound transformations. With her compassionate approach and deep understanding of the brain's response to trauma.
She shares insights on resilience, healing, and fostering deep connections to self and others. So we hope you're going to join us today and explore her unique therapeutic approach and the incredible impact of EMDR on emotional recovery and relational growth. I'm so excited to talk about this subject. We've been talking about it on the show for quite some time. We have even put it on our IG but I have done it I think.
I've never done it. I didn't even know anything about it until I started hooking up with you guys. OK. All right. I did something similar was recommended to me called ETT with Doctor Vasquez here in Austin and that was super helpful with the traumatic experience that I went through. So yeah. Yeah. Well, what we could do is maybe First off tell everybody because we've had a lot of questions and we can't respond because we don't even. Really understand.
It I've done it and it worked for me, but I don't know what it is. It works, but we don't know why exactly, right? So tell us what it is, how it works, and then we'll go from there. It's so it can appear so mysterious, so and and it's it is a complicated process. It's an 8 phase protocol and so a lot of people think that EMDR is happening only when eye movements happen or only during the desensitization process. But really even the first meeting is EMDR.
It's history taking. It's getting to know the person to feel if it's a good fit and, and asking questions and assessing if someone is a good fit for EMDR. So it EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and it was invented by Francine Shapiro. And the way that I was taught that she learned it, There are a couple different versions out there. And is that she experienced something really activating in
her life. She had a loss in her life and she went for a walk and she sat up down on a bench and she watched people playing tennis. And as she was feeling the loss and all the feelings that came up with it, she would watch the ball go back and forth and she noticed that there was a decrease in her activation. And what does that mean? Deactivation as in a. Trigger yeah, perfect. And that's a great other word for it.
So you know, like when you feel it in your body, like something is surging up and it and it could be through any of the senses, it could be through smell, it could be through a memory that pops up. It could be from a flashback. And. And so, so she's, she sits there, she's watching the ball go back and forth and she's like, she's a clinician at the time. And she's like, I want to try this and see what, see what
happens. So she starts to do some of the eye movement with some of her clients and it starts to integrate. And so this was in the 80s. And so, so it is so she experiments. And I mean, now we're here at Emdr's level a researched, it's, it's a it's massively effective method. It's not the only method for trauma, but it is one that feels like it's the surgical version. Well, what's the science behind it? Because I understand it kind of a distraction like watching the tennis ball.
I my non science brain would be like, Oh well, you're distracting your mind from those thoughts, but there's more science. Oh yeah, behind it like neuropaths and. It is so that that aspect of why that worked was what we called dual attention. So she was able to hold that surge or that trigger or that activation while also doing what we call a bilateral stimulation, which is we move our eyes back and forth during REM sleep when
we're integrating memory. So it's like she landed on this, this mechanism that we have in our body where we are designed to heal and then paired it with what she was feeling. And so, so there's the dual attention aspect. But to bring more of the science in that dual attention in the bilateral stimulation is only about 10% on why EMDR is
effective. The reason why EMDR is effective and things like ETT or somatic experiencing is that it's something we call the adaptive information processing model. And please tell me if I'm getting too technical, people will start to glaze over. But this is this is specifically why it's effective is that we can isolate memory networks that are holding that charge or that trigger. The energy behind it you. Got it.
So for example, I, I was in a car accident when I was 16 and I was at a stoplight and someone hit me going 60 and I was a sitting duck. And I was, I was a new driver and, and I, I carried that charge with me for a long time until I discovered EMDR. And so I would white knuckle the steering wheel when I was driving and, and feel like someone was going to hit me at any moment. And my belief at the time was that I'm not safe and I can be
harmed at any moment. And by identifying that belief, which is what we do with EMDR, we find what someone's belief is connected to the trauma. And so that can be related to grief and loss, that can be related to any shocking event or any attachment trauma. And so we, I, once I was able to identify that and the my AMDR therapist was able to help me desensitize that event and that trigger within which we call a maladaptive memory network. And that's what holds the
trauma. And once it's cleared and healed, it then goes to adaptive information processing, meaning that it connects with all of our other knowing, which is like, the world is also a good place. People love each other. I'm safe. I'm not being harmed right now and so when that happens, we don't erase the memory, but it it shifts our beliefs about what happened.
That is incredible. It really, that's the best explanation I've ever heard about how it works is a lot of times the clinicians or the people who are the therapist don't really understand the science behind it. Sticks out in our memory because it was awful. It was. Traumatic. And so our our very intelligent system is like, pay attention to anything that feels like that. Yeah. And so the trauma trying. To protect you. Yes. And Spiderfly had that, yeah.
And that's probably Kira why you needed the ETT EE. T yeah, I ended up with someone recommended who worked with people specifically who were in car accidents like I was. And so he explained it to me. This was a few years ago, but that when I thought about the event, the car accident or talked about it with people. So one of the things when your spouse dies is everyone wants to know what happened.
And I found myself having to explain to a lot of people what had happened to us. And so every time I would explain it, I would sort of have that physical post traumatic sort of, you know, experience of like experiencing like what went on in the accident and in the car. Living it. Every time trapped in the car and, you know, my child was crying and I couldn't see my husband. And so, yeah, I was having like, that physical reaction every time.
And he explained to me that he was going to be able to separate that out somehow where I would be able to think about it and talk about it and not relive it every time. Yes, if that makes sense. Yes, that's part of that desensitization and, and there are two aspects to grief. And when I work with people who have gone through something like this where we split up the grief from the trauma.
So, and I know there's a lot of overlap, but we can work on the shock of what happened and desensitize that grief is its own unique organic process. And EMDR can't always heal that. People that love you and having presents with people that love you or whatever you need, whatever that looks like, there's no judgement. It is, it is everyone's own
process. And so splitting, splitting up what EMDR can do for grief is really important in setting up expectations about the healing that can be done. Well, that is the next question of like who is a good candidate because it sounds like you don't just do it for oh, I lost my husband. I'm going to do EMDR. It's more there was something traumatic. I mean, it's traumatic, but you know what I'm saying? There's an event or something? Well, I have a question to
piggyback on that as well. While you were talking, and I remember this, me specifically, I don't like to fly. Well, what happened to my husband had absolutely nothing to do with flying 0. Now I didn't know someone who died in a plane crash. So and I do think about her every time I fly over the pond. But that's not that's not it, though. I know it isn't because I've flown plenty of times After that. After my husband died, flying became the thing. And so I was like, what is the problem?
It's it becomes and and that's something like I'm sure with her driving, but mine had nothing to do. Hers make sense to me. Mine does not. Why did it like my son always just like what's the deal with flying? I was like, I don't know, but that's where it went. So coupled with who is a good candidate and would you turn that person away that had grief associated with that kind of trauma that had nothing to do with how they died or are they a good candidate?
I don't know. It's such a great question on who is a good candidate because I go back to that there, there are two. So I not only especially as in in EMDR, I have advanced training, training and trauma healing. So the there are two different types of trauma that we look like look at in general. And I kind of want to try and experiment with you in a little bit. If you're up for it based on your question, fix it. OK.
OK, you can always pass always but you know, we refer to it and it's a little bit outdated but I'm going to name like what I how I learned it was that there is big T trauma and little T trauma and big T trauma is the shock Shock Trauma. It's what y'all went through. I mean, it is and it and it's anything else related to that 911 like things like that where you people usually associate trauma with Shock Trauma and then there's little T trauma and little T trauma is is probably
who I work with the most. And it's little beliefs over time, specifically in childhood with your attachment figures, your parents, where it creates some of those maladaptive memory networks. And those are beliefs like I'm unworthy, I can never get it right, I'm bad, I'm ugly. And, and when those collect over time, you'll see someone who is highly anxious, who can have PTSD symptoms, who doesn't
understand their self worth. And I, I'm not as concerned with what the symptoms look like, more like what the belief is underneath it. So if you're like, how what does flying have to do with it? OK, so this is where we're trying to experiment. OK, OK, so when you think about flying, does it still, is it still around to this day? Yes. OK, I did EMDR before this happened. OK. OK. So and have you done EMDR on the the flying? No.
OK, cool. Perfect. But I want to, yeah. You're about to right now. You're here today. OK, so when you when you think about flying like let's say you needed to go on a flight today and anytime it feels like it's too much, hold up a stop sign because your nervous system is our boss, OK?
OK. And the most important aspect of trauma healing is titrating, meaning that like a pendulum, we go into it and we go out of it so that your nervous system can handle the activation or the trigger that's coming up so. I'm already nervous. Uh huh, uh huh. So hold up the stop sign Anytime. OK, so where do you feel that in your body? Right here in my chest. Yes. So if you, you can even close your eyes if you feel comfortable with that and just be with that.
And we are right here with you as you're noticing that. And which emotions do you notice right now? Boy, this is good out of control. Fear, fear. And you can even right here put both of your feet on the ground. OK, so that you just notice that we are not flying right now. We're just thinking about flying and out of control comes up. Yes, because my husband's death was something I couldn't control. You got it. Yeah, exactly. And you're beautifully intelligent.
System is going to say don't do anything that could feel out of control, right, Right. Can you see the intelligence in that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how that part really wants to watch out for you. And So what do you notice right now? Weirdly calmer, I told you. Wow, I. Think it might be your voice because I just take your voice home with me. Absolutely, any day. So I'm going to ask you one more question.
You're doing so great. OK, so let's identify your belief about yourself related to flying. Is it something like I'm not in control? I'm not safe? What? What are the words that go with it? Safe is a big thing for me. Yeah. And if you were to name the belief I am not safe, does that hit the nail on the head? Yes. OK. And when you think about I am not safe with flying, how intense is that right now on a zero to 10? Zero. It's not as bad as it was earlier.
Beautiful. Yeah. So you released some of it. Yeah. And so which number would you give it now? Probably A5. A5, yeah, OK. And A5 is you. Look more serene, yeah? OK, so take a couple of deep breaths and then if there's anything else you want to notice from here, you can. Otherwise, you can open your eyes when you're ready. Wow that's so crazy that and y'all were even. I usually don't do well if they're other people. Like, I trust them though, and I feel safe with them.
So that's part of it. But it's a scary thing to therapy of this kind for me. I don't imagine you felt this too, like when you had me go see the same doctor that time. You have to trust the person. Oh, yeah. And that was one thing I felt immediately when I talked to you on the phone that day. I thought, what am I telling this person my whole life story within, you know, a few minutes or less. But there was a safety feeling
there. And you have to feel safe with the person that you're doing this with, because you have to release it all in order for it to work. Oh, yeah. And I do, I, I've, I'm a client of EMDR. I, I started when I was 25. I absolutely do my own work so that I, I understand what it's like to be on the other side of the couch. It is not easy. I get nervous every time I have to process something because you have to be with it. And I, I've experienced my own trauma in my life.
And so it is, it feels like it doesn't ever go away. Right There is. And there's different views that we have at one of my mentors talks about how it's like, it's like artwork that we can look at it head on and and feel something about it. And then we can go to a different angle and feel something about it. So when we work on trauma, it's like we will work on the the bulk of it and then maybe someone will come in in six months and say, can I do a tune up session?
There's a little bit of something like a three that's coming up for me and we'll we'll tune that up. And then usually the processing is so easy because they've already done the heavy lifting. Well, what if it's not trauma related? What if someone has? I think all of us have either experienced anxiety but ours, you know, I had it before Oliver's death. I had some anxiety before that. Just life and then our kids have, you know, I think everybody's kids now are
suffering from anxiety. So how do how do you know if they need EMDR or they just need therapy? That's a really good. Question, great question. And I and I'll say that there are two approaches to therapy. So there's a top down approach and a bottom up. And top down is CBT, It's cognitive behavioral therapy, it's talk therapy, it's finding ways of managing your symptoms
and while receiving support. And then bottom up is more of the heavy lifting, which is how do we identify the root of what's happening so that you don't have to manually override. If we heal at the root, you do not have to manually override your symptoms. Now the push and pull with that is that not everyone is ready for heavy lifting. So sometimes if someone is is in a really unstable place, then they can't handle the deep, the deep work yet.
And so top down approach can help fortify them in some ways so that then then they're ready to do the heavy lifting. Yeah, I mean, I, I'm just trying to, of course I, I go to my own feelings and anxieties and then my children's anxieties. And I'm like, well, for me, I grew up in an alcoholic family. You know, my father was an alcoholic and then my sister followed suit. And so my whole childhood was around this, but it wasn't one traumatic event.
And I don't feel like I came out of it thinking that I'm, you know, unworthy of anything. I guess what I came out with was I need to solve every. I'm, I'm going to take on everybody's issues and solve them all. But it creates a shit ton of anxiety because I have no control when they're little. I have tons of control. Now they're off in college and I've got. Very. Little control over them and the rest of their life. Like, I'll wake up in the middle
of the night. Like, how's Hayden gonna get a job? Well, what's he gotta do in order to get a job? Well, what's Sydney gonna do? Is she ever gonna get married? What? What about happened? She has a baby. Like, what a, you know, just ridiculousness future traumatizing myself with things that haven't ever even happened. Does EMDR help that 'cause my nervous system right now, just talking about it is out of control. So like I'm still a little confused on who can benefit.
It sounded like everyone could benefit from it. It's more about the charge. I think that about the trigger. So you know, if someone comes in and they're like, I really want to try EMDR and I think it's about something related to my college experience and they're only activated about it too. It's hard to get into it enough to then clear it. It's when you're at an 8 on a zero to 10 or 0 is nothing and 10's the highest imaginable. You feel a release.
In a way you're like, wow, that was life changing for me. I feel so different. And what's beautiful is that with EMDR, it will decrease and desensitize, but then it it continues to integrate over time. It doesn't pop back up unless, like I mentioned with the artwork, there's another angle to look at. But you know, it's usually assessing if someone has enough of a charge. Usually it's that feeling of like, I know I need this, but I don't want to do it right.
Yeah, I don't want. To put the work in or feel all those feelings. No. And, and, and I, I have you heard of internal family systems work, Richard Schwartz's work? OK, so that is probably my second favorite to work with alongside EMDR other than neuroscience and even yoga and things like that. But so do you want me to go into it? OK, OK, let's do it Face light up when you. Mentioned it, so I want to know what's got you so. Well, he so the movie Inside Out is based off of Richard
Schwartz's work. OK And so for the parts they labeled them as emotions, but he looks at it a little differently. And so when when something happens. So his theory is that we all are born with self energy. And when we are in self energy, there are 8 CS and a few of them are confidence, clarity, compassion, creativity, connection. And what happens is that we experience trauma and trauma. The best definition that I have for trauma is when anything is
too much, too fast, or too soon. And I feel like our culture likes to put a lot of value judgements on who qualifies for trauma and who doesn't. And I feel like that's really unfair because it's a subjective experience. And so anything that's too much, too fast or too soon for our nervous systems will show up as a hurt part. So this is where we get into the parts. So a part will show up and let's say that part is the belief that you need. So I'm not safe.
And what will happen is that the nervousness, especially if you're a little kid, can't handle feeling that all the time. So you develop unconsciously protectors to keep you from feeling that all the time. So protectors show up in the versions of managers and firefighters and those parts will look like excessive video game playing, binge eating, a type, personalities. So many different things, ways of numbing, distracting, perfectionism. Perfect one, yes.
Opposite of people who have fear because I do it. Yes, I know that I know I'm doing it and I don't want to do it, but it's how I manage. Like when Oliver died, I obsessively would clean. I would obsessively make sure every dot was dotted and every did y'all do that? Like a way of controlling your environment because you couldn't control what happened. There's a. Did y'all feel that at? All I went straight to just
cussing. So you had a cussing protector that showed up and I. Started cussing like a. Sailor Hero. What was I don't know. I had so many things that came at me. I had so many different facets to my trauma that I don't think I went into one thing, but I definitely avoidance was big and I still avoid certain things like going through photos and
going through his things. I still, I avoid, I avoid the the pain of that kind of stuff and I was avoiding the processing of what had happened in the car accident, which is how I ended up with Doctor Vasquez, which was good. What about your escapisms? I remember you and I've talked. We both love to travel, which is ironic. I got out of town a lot. I did. I left town a lot and I fantasized a lot about leaving
this area permanently. I'm still fantasized about that actually, but I wanted to get away. I, I was told everyone made fun of me when I was in the hospital and I had was on a lot of drugs that I had told everyone that the kids and I were going to move to Hawaii. I had never even visited Hawaii. I didn't know anyone in Hawaii. But I was on a lot of Dilaudid and I think I just had this
really strong escape instinct. I just wanted to leave the place that had done this to me, where this had taken place. And all the reminders of the life that you lost. Yeah, and I've stayed. I've stayed for 10 years, but I still have that urge to kind of leave the place where it happened. I chose not to because that wasn't the best thing at the time, but for the kids or for like, you know, all of the medical things that we were going through and I was going through.
But strong escapism urges huge. Which I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Who wants to stick around? I mean, you experienced trauma as well. I mean, who wants to stick around in it? But we all know that it will find you and it can't be circumvented. So we're all big believers in doing the work because even even though we had you and I both had a strong desire to escape, we knew we had to do the work or we would never get better. It was never going to get better.
That's why I believe in EMDR. I mean, and it's weird, it didn't even take that many sessions. Well, that was going to be my next question is how long does it typically take? And I know everybody's different. I think it's, It depends on how complex it is. And so part of the protocol is assessing and treatment planning and I sit down with my clients to show them, OK, so how many we call them targets.
So what we identified with Laci that would that would be a target around flying and that's one target. And it sounds like because it's of 1A belief around safety that there could be other targets related to that. And so it I'm able to give someone an idea of how many after we assess how complex it is and which belief it is. I really mean it when I say the person's nervous system is our boss because we cannot go faster than what their nervous system
is able to handle. That will re traumatize someone it sort. Of felt like that when I was going through it, I did not enjoy it at all. It was very, very, very hard. And I would try to get up and leave and he's like, just sit down, just take a minute. Because it just wasn't fun. No. And I felt like also, I guess I have a little bit of the perfectionism. I felt like I wasn't doing it
right. I felt like like the whole time I'm in the process trying to process the trauma, I also felt like I was failing at it. And so that was a whole other like dual thing that was fighting inside me because every time I would, he had me sitting and looking at a color chart and
it was a rainbow. And it was, I don't want to get too far into it, but I would have to like, for instance, look at the green layer of the rainbow chart and talk about being trapped in the car and talk about catching on fire and talk about that moment. And he made me repeat it over and over and over and over. And the whole color chart would turn brown. So crazy. And he was like, if it turns brown, you have to stop. You have to be able to still see the color.
So we would just do it over and over. And it kept turning brown for me because when I would talk about these events, my whole vision would just kind of go black, right? Right. And it was cool in the way that it worked, but it was also not easy. And then I was mad because he'd be like, OK, let's switch to orange. And like that orange was even worse. Like I would start to tell the story and it would go brown immediately. When I looked at orange, he's
like, OK, orange isn't good. Let's go back to let's go back to green. What? Your green does is I mean. Yeah, the fact that you lose color. Everything just would go black. And you can be impatient with a lot of the process too. I mean, and DRI thought if I have to repeat this one more time, I'm just so over like talking.
That I love that you brought that up and when I think about repeating that experience, I really like to bring in Laura Parnell's work, which is attachment based EMDR which and is it OK if I name a little bit of what you said about the trauma specific? Yeah, of course. So we bring in resourcing. We, it's called installation of
resourcing into that memory. So if it feels like too much and if you're going, if you're not able to stay with the green, that tells me that you're going outside of your window of tolerance, which I can explain in a minute, which is so useful. I use it all the time, but we would install a nurturing, protective and wise figure onto the scene of that memory for. You. Oh. Cool, I just got chilled. Right.
It is so powerful. She's brilliant and and we we spend time picking who it is and who needs to be there and sometimes. It's an actual person. Oh, I mean, some people have done, Mrs. Weasley from Harry Potter. It is like the Sky's the limit. It's like a grandmother who's passed. It's like your child. It's like whoever, yes. It is not about how do we desensitize, How do we get you out of this memory? How do we make you feel better
as fast as possible? It's how do we resource and pay attention to the intelligence of your body and what it's telling you and me about what's needed because I'm not the expert in that. You are. You have all of the wisdom, everything you need within you to heal it. I'm just along for the ride. And I do just want to clarify and say that Doctor Vasquez was great and did help me a great deal. It wasn't like I was being tortured. No, he was super kind and gentle.
It just when you were talking about how hard the bottom up that kind of work is, it is no joke. It's easier to just go in the therapist's office and bitch about the election or your neighbors or it's easier to go and do that kind of therapy than what we're talking about where you're actually reliving these like really horrific moments. We're going to stop here and let everybody take a breath. This is going to be part one of our conversation with Katie.
Join us for Part 2, where she discusses some of the techniques in an EMDR session, how to choose the right therapist, and how EMDR can help people in grief. Oh, and Kyra compares it to her gynecologist. You're not going to want to miss it. Stay tuned.