The end of a year, and subsequently the beginning of a new one, can feel a lot like a cumulative test of your emotions.
All the experiences and information that you absorbed over the past twelve months has a way of rushing back to your memory. Often, this collective rush can cause anxiety.
While some may have no problem bringing in the new year with exuberant celebration, it may be more difficult for you to close the yearly chapter.
It’s not that you don’t want to welcome the new year with all its new hopes, dreams, and opportunities. More than anything, it’s that you may find it challenging to release the emotions attached to the old year.
Take heart. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can help you review and release those emotions, as well as reset you for an emotionally engaged and productive new year.
EMDR Separates Emotion from Difficult Memories
Much like a special year-in-review magazine, your brain holds onto the emotions and attaches them to certain events in your life.
Unlike the magazine, however, these memories aren’t always ones you’d wish to feature on your own front cover. In fact, some may be downright painful.
For example, changing careers may have served as a huge pressure point for you this past year. Or, ending a toxic relationship could have been incredibly taxing on your emotional energy.
No matter your situation, EMDR can help to detach painful emotions from your memories. As a result, you don’t hurt nearly as much or feel as anxious when you review events from this past year.
Furthermore, EMDR helps you to accept the reality of the year, encouraging you to move forward in your life.
EMDR Encourages a System Detox
Your body and mind have a way of storing your experiences. Even when you’re not thinking of the past, the memory is hidden away in your system.
Due to this memory build-up, unchallenged stress and anxiety problems can last for a very long time. And, it can be difficult to recognize them because of how stealthily they impact you.
Imagine freshly cut logs floating on a river high in the mountains. If the logs get jammed, the river is impacted for miles and miles both up and downstream.
These “log jams” can also happen in your emotions, affecting your entire being. EMDR can help to release these blockages, granting you more emotional freedom.
As the year comes to an end, releasing all the negative emotions is vital for creating a space for new and meaningful memories.
EMDR Offers You a Fresh Life Canvas
Some may think of the beginning of a new year as a sort of blank slate. But January 1st doesn’t exactly function like a large eraser.
As the year begins, you aren’t automatically freed from all the experiences of the former year. These experiences stick with you no matter the calendar date. They’re a part of you now.
Nevertheless, EMDR works to offer you a fresh mental canvas. Instead of erasing your painful memories, it assigns new emotions to them so that they aren’t hogging center stage.
You can reset your emotions for the new year through EMDR, opening your life to new experiences.
Take the first step…
If you’re ready to consider EMDR therapy to help you emotionally reset for the new year, I would like to help. I have been a Certified EMDR Therapist since 2004, and I have helped hundreds of clients benefit from this incredibly useful methodology.
Please get in touch with me via voicemail or email so we can discuss how we might work together to change your life for the better as quickly and effectively as possible.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Linda K. Laffey, MFT
