PeacefulPlace

Welcome to the Peaceful Place EMDR resource. Find a comfortable position and imagine your own peaceful place. It can be real or imaginary. Notice the details of your place like colors, sounds, smells, and touches. Tap your shoulders to strengthen positive feelings. Use a Q word to bring up your peaceful place and notice any positive shifts. Bring up mildly irritating issues and see if your peaceful place helps. Protect your peaceful place with guardians or a circle of support. Send and receive positive energy. You can also create a physical reminder of your peaceful place. Welcome, welcome to the Peaceful Place EMDR resource. I'm happy you're interested in this resource and I hope it's helpful to you. Now, the first thing I'd like to invite you to do is to get comfortable in whatever way feels best to you. Now, I'd like you to bring up a peaceful place. I'll share some of mine with you while you identify yours. My favorite is a day when I was in my backyard. Let me paint a picture for you. It was a sunny day, high 60s to 70s, with a lovely little breeze wind kind of going on. I'm lying on my back, on my back porch. And on one side of me is a blackberry bush with some purple flowers and beside a winding stone path. And on my other side is a giant bush with beautiful fuchsias, pink and purple. And behind me is this giant tree with these big pink flowers. And as I lay there, I just remember feeling weightless with a sense that all is right in my world. There are no worries, nothing I need to think about or solve. And I can hear the birds singing and my cat is curled up on my belly and we're just kind of dozing in the sun. Notice the detail of what I just described to you and try to do the same as I guide you in finding your peaceful place. Now as you identify your peaceful place, remember it can be a real memory like mine was, or it can be a made up place or a place you wish existed. It can be anything or anywhere that helps you feel safe, peaceful or at ease in some way. I have heard options such as an open field where you can see everything that approaches you before it gets there. Or a video game with images of being on like a pirate ship with a crew that you trust to protect you. Whatever comes to mind will work great. Now I'd like to invite you to be as creative as possible with this process, be playful, inventive. As you bring up the image of your peaceful place, let's first notice all the colors. If it were a beach for instance, how would you describe the ocean? A deep ocean blue or a green color? Is it clear or is the water a little bit clouded? What color is the sand? Is it a light brown, sandy color? Is it darker? What about the sky or the color of the sun? Now let's notice the sounds. Perhaps the wind in the trees or the sound of a conversation or the purring of a pet. You can also notice any smells like those of flowers, perfume or food maybe. Perhaps being aware of touches that felt good like petting a cat or dog or a blanket or pillow that felt really snuggly to you. Or maybe a hug or other type of touch that you really enjoyed. If this moment involved food or drink, the flavors you enjoyed or found soothing. Now let's just take a moment to really sense into all the things that made this moment so special. Stay with the images and your senses and that feeling of calm and peacefulness. And then I'd like you to begin tapping on your shoulders with your hands. Left, right, left, right. And do that about eight to ten times. And see what you're noticing now. If it's getting more positive, continue with another short set of taps on your shoulders. Again, only eight to ten times. If it goes negative, you'll need to pick a new peaceful place or use a different resource. This is totally normal and it happens sometimes. When you bring up this place, what word or phrase goes best with it? Notice those words and your peaceful place and do another short set of tapping left, right for about eight to ten taps. It's important you don't do more than eight to ten taps because more taps pulls you into reprocessing memories. And this is just a resource. Now, bring up on your own the Q word and notice the shift. You can do some short tapping, again, the eight to ten taps, if you want to strengthen the positive feeling. Now, I'd like you to bring up a mildly irritating issue that happened recently. Maybe a boss yelling at you or with a friend or partner. Notice how you feel in your body as you bring up this irritating event. Is this where you feel it? Is it in your chest? Is it a feeling in your belly or your back? Like, where is the tension showing up? Now, bring your peaceful place and the Q word or phrase up again and see if you can feel a positive shift. Really kind of sense into your positive, peaceful place again, noticing all of the things that made that moment really special for you. The colors, the sounds, touches, smells. The things that meant so much to you. And you can really get a sense of your peaceful place again. Sense if there's a shift from that mildly irritating event. I'd like you to do it again. Think of another mildly upsetting issue and bring up your peaceful place and the word on your own. If you enjoy your peaceful place, it's important that we think about how to protect your special place so that no negativity can come here. Some people like to have protectors or guardians like a pack of wolves or like maybe a guardian angel or perhaps a magical spell. Or maybe even like a Teflon or nonstick barrier that things bounce off of. Whatever works best for you. Another option, if it feels right, is to bring in your circle of support. People that are real or imaginary, that are protective of you, that nurture and love you, or that give you really great advice. Make sure those you choose are entirely positive for you. If you've identified the people you want to have as your circle of support, you can gather them around you in your peaceful place. Imagine they are sending love, positive energy, peace or whatever emotion you want to receive from them. Give this emotion or energy a healing color that they can send to you. Then imagine this positive emotion and energy as it comes to you and fills you. If you would like, you can send the positive energy and emotion back to them, creating this beautiful cycle of love and positive energy and peace being shared between you. Peaceful Place works great on its own and with this addition. For bonus points, if you'd like to go a little above and beyond the usual strategy, you can find a way to represent this peaceful place that could be a helpful reminder to you, like a photo. You could paint or draw a picture of it, maybe write a description of it. Or my personal favorite is to paint with glow-in-the-dark paints on a pillowcase. This is great for those that have nightmares or experience a lot of fear or stress and worry at nighttime. Well, thanks for being with me for this resource, and I hope it helps.