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March 16th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
During the pandemic, my friends cleaned out their garages of stuff they no longer needed. I chose to clean out bad memories of traumas I wish I never had.
For years I’ve hid how my past enslaved me. I wanted to be free, but like Pharaoh, my heart was hardened, and I refused to seek help. But now, besides my desire to now finally do the (inner) work, I wanted to understand why I recently ended a romantic relationship that was so good, yet never felt right.
Slowly, I started my exodus to self-discovery and, ultimately, self-love.
I envisioned an archeological dig into my soul to make peace with my demons and deactivate my emotional landmines. I yearned for a different approach, so I went outside my comfort zone and had an healing session with a Shaman, who energetically opened my soul. It was an amazing start, but it felt passive. I wanted to be an active participant in the process, so I kept searching.
Then, a friend shared a book with me that led me to a transformative treatment. “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in Healing of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk introduced me to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EDMR.
EMDR is a remarkably simple, effective way to reprogram your brain and emotions around past traumas. You talk with the therapist about a traumatic event, then relive it in your mind quietly while you watch them move an object back and forth. The steady eye movement, while thinking about the trauma, somehow releases the triggers and allows you to let go of the horror of the memory.
I found an EMDR-certified therapist, and she asked me to list my life traumas. I made a list that felt like the 10 plagues, each seemingly worse than the next. We began tackling them one per session.
The miracle of EMDR is that it allows me to time travel to the traumatic moment and comfort myself. For example, I did EMDR for a situation when I was 10 years old, when my drug-addicted dad came to pick up my brother and me for his scheduled custody visit. My dad was high as a kite and my mom was screaming, “How dare you! You’re going to kill our children!”
I was terrified, but I still got in his car. It felt like my mom hated me for wanting him to love me, but I was a child desperate for my daddy’s love. Sadly, at the time, he was too high to care.
Through EMDR I finally saw myself as a scared little girl, long hidden away, feeling hated by her mother and rejected by her father. For the first time maybe ever, I held and comforted her. I told her, “Everything will be OK. Your mother wants to protect you. Your daddy loves you, but he cannot love you now through the cloud of drugs. This storm will pass, and his love will shine as bright as the sun.”
The trembling, terrified 10-year-old me began to relax in my 50-year-old’s embrace. She finally felt safe and believed “everything will be OK.”
As my awareness came back into the room, I sat across from my therapist while she waved a green tip wand back and forth like a metronome. My tears stopped streaming down my face. I held up my hand to end the EMDR session. For the first time in a long time, I felt light and peaceful.
A few days after this EMDR therapy, the “why” I had ended my recent relationship was clear: Until now, I had never comforted my scared little girl.
Until now, I had never comforted my scared little girl.
My last boyfriend held me and made me feel safe. Although he could “fix” anything, he could not heal the scared little girl in me. Being with him made me feel safe but stuck. I kept telling him again and again “I hate how much I need you.”
I didn’t realize it at the time but I was in a codependent relationship, and I had to free myself from it. Why? Because subconsciously, I knew I was a slave to love. I wanted to stand strong on my own. I simply didn’t know how.
Now, I feel I do.
My journey has been to love myself unconditionally, be my most fierce champion and feel safe alone. When I begin to date again, I will approach a partner knowing I am loveable, whole and safe. I no longer need anyone to fill those voids.
As we approach Pesach, the story of our freedom, I am grateful that I embarked on this journey to free myself from my past and be hopeful about the future.
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said, “The Exodus from Egypt occurs in every human being, in every era, in every year, and in every day.” I’m grateful EMDR was my Exodus. I hope you share this story with others who yearn for their emotional freedom.
(To learn more about EMDR therapy and find a certified therapist visit: https://www.emdria.org)
Audrey Jacobs is a financial adviser and has three sons.
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