Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 43 of the EMDR Doctor podcast. I'm Dr. Caroline Lloyd, and this week I am talking about teeny tiny targets
and this was inspired by a question a friend asked me the other day, which is, what's the smallest target that you've ever worked on with EMDR? And that got me thinking because my clients usually work on fairly big targets. You know, we're usually working at the pointy end of things.
So when I started thinking about tiny targets, I thought, well, it's usually what I'm working on for myself. So the things that I tend to work on, I've worked on big things, I've worked on small things, and the other day I worked on. A fairly small thing. Now this story has a little bit of a, of a backstory to it.
So I live on a street which is quite close to a [00:01:00] school, and , this school, , I think they must start at about 10 past state because 10 past state in the morning is the worst time to try and get out of my driveway. So I just know that if I try and leave my driveway at 10 state in the morning, I. Can't even get onto the street.
There's this constant stream of traffic, you know, going left, going right, and people are usually in a little bit of a hurry. They've got their, their kids in their bags and , they're on their way to work. That was just my dog snorting in the background. If you heard a little bit of a snort there.
Apologies. Um, so. They're, they're busy, they're hurried. They might be running late. They've got things to do, kids to drop off, work to get to. Nobody is being polite. Nobody is being kind. Nobody is letting anyone into the traffic if they can at all help it. So [00:02:00] I just know just don't leave the house at 10 past state, which is fine.
Most of the time. It's absolutely fine. I just go a little bit earlier, go a little bit later, but on this one particular day recently, I forgot obviously, and tried to leave my house at 10 past state, and I got caught in the traffic and there was one lady who had parked illegally and she was stemming the flow of one whole lane of traffic.
Very irritating to everyone involved, and that kind of bothered me for, you know, half the day and then I forgot about it. But then a few days later I was walking to work this time taking the healthy option. I was walking to work and I walked past the school and I found myself getting a little bit antsy.
I was getting a little bit frustrated, a little bit annoyed, looking at the traffic thinking, they're so selfish, they don't care about anyone. I'm not [00:03:00] important. And I found myself ruminating and mulling over it, and it was kind of ruining my walk to work, which it was a beautiful day, so I really wanted to enjoy it.
So I thought, okay, what would I advise my clients to do in this situation? And. I thought I will do a little bit of walking EMDR on myself. Now, to those of you who know the history of EMDR, it actually started by a psychologist, , called Francine Shapiro, who was walking in the park and noticed that if she moved her eyes while she walked, like that, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see me.
. And the distress would lessen. So that's the kind of origin story of EMDR. So I was walking along, feeling a little bit irritated, a little bit annoyed, and I thought, right, I'll do it for myself. So I set it up in the normal way with EMDR, the picture being the woman getting out of her illegally parked [00:04:00] car, and the belief about myself, I'm not important.
It very annoying and the annoyance and the frustrations that I could feel in my hands, and as I walked, I was just aware of my hands and that belief about myself and the picture of this woman getting out of the car, and I was moving my eyes left and right as I was walking along. So I'm getting two lots of bilateral stimulation.
I'm getting the walking. Which is giving my feet the bilateral stimulation, and I'm getting the eye movements as I walk, , letting my eyes move from side to side. And thinking about this target, ruminating over it a little bit. And then I started to notice some other things. I started to notice other dogs, um, on, on the road, like on the footpath and, , the sunny day and the trees.
And then I thought, okay, bring myself back to target. What's there now? Not [00:05:00] much. So when I'm doing EMDR on myself, I am a little bit, I do take a little bit of a shortcut. I find that when I get bored with a target, if it's no longer interesting to me, it's boring and therefore, you know. It's not distressing.
So then I installed my positive cognition. What do I believe about myself? I am important. I'm also patient and grown up, and I can cope with this. So I finished doing that and really enjoyed the rest of the walk to work. So that's one of my teeny weenie targets that I have done on myself. But relatively often, I'd say probably once a week when I'm getting ready for bed, I think about my day and if there's something that's been bothering me from my day,
if, say, for example, I've been in a meeting and I haven't been particularly happy with how that meeting's gone, [00:06:00] or I've been upset by, , by one of the stories that my clients have told me, and it's just. Stuck with me just that little bit and I'm feeling a little bit disturbed by it. I'll let that be my target.
So that's a vicarious trauma target, and even though the disturbance is very minor, very minimal for me. I know that if I do EMDR, it will fade away to nothing. So I can go to bed at night and rest easy without any disturbance from my day following me. Into my bedtime routine. So that's another way that I practice EMDR for myself to enable those little things of the day to just slip and slide away so they don't have to bother me anymore.
This's part of my self-care routine, I suppose. Just making sure that those little irritations and little [00:07:00] annoyances or little upsets, don't follow me.
So. In another respect, another smallish target. Actually, it's kind of deceptive, this one. So another small target I put in inverted comm small, , that I work on with my clients is sometimes that inability to take a compliment. So I'm sure you are all aware of people who can't take a compliment and you may be one of them.
, But it's like. If somebody says to me, oh, that scarf looks really good on you, that's a great color on you. I will find myself, or have in the past found myself going internally, oh no, that feels really uncomfortable. I don't wanna take that compliment. I don't want them to say something positive about myself.
Now this is usually related to. A history growing up and [00:08:00] perhaps some not so kind parenting. , And lots of people have it and you'll notice it if you become aware, like if you say to someone, oh, you look really good in that, or, Hey, that was a great presentation you did, or, I really like your take on, you know, this problem that we are dealing with at work, whatever it may be.
And you'll see a kind of a shutdown in their face and they'll. Often deflect that compliment and say, oh, that was nothing. You know, I, I didn't think that was worth mentioning. Or they'll say, no, I'm not good at that. But it's a really important skill to be able to do, to be able to take a compliment because that's the way we replenish our self-esteem.
That's the way we help ourselves feel good and secure and loved and, uh, worthwhile. So. It is important for people to be able to take a compliment. So if you find that that is an [00:09:00] issue for you, then it's definitely worth working on. So I've started using
affect tolerance protocol and I believe that it was originally created by a man called Andrew Leeds, who is a very clever EMDR therapist. And so he's created this protocol and I've started using it and it really works a treat. So not does, not only does it help people feel good in the moment, but it actually.
Opens up that positive flow of information to people. So instead of deflecting those compliments, that positive information, we can allow it to come into ourselves and into our psyche and our, and our belief system, and we can allow ourselves. Build our positive belief system by just little tiny comments that people kind of just throw our way during the day, and it happens very often, but if you're [00:10:00] continually deflecting them, you won't beat.
Able to, you know, take them in and really embody them and really feel positive about yourself. So this is a really great protocol that even though it seems like a tiny thing to be able to take a compliment, and people might say, Caroline, that is not my biggest problem. You know, the abuse that I suffered at the hands of X, Y, Z during my childhood, that's my biggest problem.
But in fact. This is a really great way to build up our self esteem and build up our confidence to be able to take a compliment. So that's another teeny tiny target that we work on in EMDR that can really open the floodgates to a lot of positive things in our lives. So I will just mention before I go that I have started to put my podcast up on YouTube. So if you want to [00:11:00] watch me as well as listen to me, you are welcome to head on over to YouTube and if you Google, uh, if you search in YouTube for the EMDR Doctor podcast, you will find me. Alright, I hope that's been helpful.
I will talk to you again next week. In the meantime, take good care. Bye for now.
