listening & laundry

There are so few things that take a short time. In both my home and work worlds, the work is ongoing and the terrain tough a lot of the time.

At home, we've been traveling on the "potty train" for some time now. It's a bit of a rocky journey. J. is so clearly torn between being a more dependant, younger toddler (even a baby) and being a more self-sufficient little girl. She both relishes the independence she's discovering but fights it tooth and nail (at the top of her lungs, many times). She delights in the tasks she is now able to master, but also loves to hear stories of when she was a baby, especially those that involve her having mommy milk.

Mommy milk is the other journey. C. has lately begun to do as her big sister did before her--she's been requesting a snuggly snack pretty much every two hours (at best) all night long. I'm sleep deprived and often cranky. But, I'm stubborn about wanting C. to have breastmilk rather than formula and really attached to the idea of providing nourishment and comfort when my baby communicates that she wants and needs it. But, these nights are long ones! I know that this, too, will pass, as it did with J., and that I will remember the closeness with my girl long after the memories of this sleep deprivation have faded. I know that C., too, is working on the tension between closeness and discovery; I'm pretty sure that the seemingly constant desire to snuggle with Mommy will decrease in intensity when she's feeling a bit more secure in this moving around on her own in the world thing (her rolling is now a well-practiced art and I think crawling is right around the corner!).

So, too, are the tasks at work a part of a longer journey. The hurt that many of my clients have experienced was perpetrated over years; of course, healing and growth will take time. The week to week work in therapy can feel endless and without gains, at times. Like the challenges at home, the work in therapy does not always go smoothly and can be exhausting. The end result (or something like that) is worth it, so worth it, but the road is tough.

This is why I consider EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitation and Reprocessing) to be such a gift lately. I was trained in the treatment method several years ago, now, and have used it here and there in since then. But lately, I've been working it into my practice much more frequently--taking cases that it fits for as a primary treatment approach and working to move other clients into phases of work that fit the method.

I have always enjoyed EMDR for its simplicity and its bottom-line belief in the client as the expert in his/her own healing. But, these aspects are even more important to me now. I don't have to be "on" as much as I do in talk therapy. I can be a much more quiet witness. I'm active and thinking, but my recent low energy level is not a problem.

Even more important, especially in these days of fatigue on the long journeys of parenthood, is the miraculous nature of EMDR's successes. This stuff works. Recently, I had the honor of witnessing several clients find, after only a few sessions of processing, that they were able to visit memories without distress and pain. After only a few sessions! It is just amazing to have a tool that makes people feel better in a relatively short period of time. If only it worked for teething.