Taking the leap to become an EMDR Facilitator
You might well know by now, I absolutely love EMDR!! I remember getting to the point when I had reached Consultant level, I was so proud of my journey and what I had achieved. I became an EMDR Consultant in the weeks before the EMDR Europe Conference was held in Edinburgh so I decided to go along to the Consultant workshop day prior to the conference starting. I feel lucky to have been here as Francine Shapiro attended. As she walked to the front of the room the attendees stood and clapped, it was an emotional experience. So amazing that everyone in that room were there as a result of that famous walk in the park and just how wonderful that Francine’s initial finding has grown into such an amazing therapy. She talked again at the Conference but it didn’t quite have the same feeling as talking to the Trainers and Consultants’ day.
Anyway I digress! I started writing thinking I was going in one direction but I decided to just ‘go with that’ and follow my thoughts! Sound familiar? Lol!
So after a good few years of being a Consultant, I began to think, what’s my next pivot, where should I go now? There wasn’t a clear path, I didn’t really want to be a trainer and according to EMDR Europe that was the next level after Consultancy. From my colleagues Caroline and Shirley, I found out about the Facilitation role. A role where you support the trainers with leading on the practicals and supervision sessions. I was unsure at first. The training involved a process of attending and observing all parts of the standard training once (7 days) followed by at least 2 further run throughs under the observation of the trainer until you met the level of standard expected, so at least 21 days. This was all self funded, a big time commitment and also the thought of being observed was, well really quite frightening! So I did my usual thing and carried on doing what I was doing thinking that facilitating was too much money, time and perhaps most importantly bought too much fear in me by pushing me out of that comfort zone.
However something began to change within me. I noticed I was really enjoying my supervision sessions and if I did any teaching, again I was finding that fun. I still had my reservations about facilitating and my fear which I think were holding me back. I was scared to take that leap, I was scared of failing, I was scared of spending all that money and nothing positive coming from it. Isn’t it awful to be stuck in that fear pattern, going nowhere …slowly!!
Have you ever just felt that the universe is helping you out and directing you in a certain way? I’d been feeling this fear and avoiding it for a long long time. I remember the day things changed so well. An extremely hot day in May. Harry and Megan married, my wonderful friend Caroline married and so heartbreaking for my family, my sister had recently been diagnosed with terminal secondary cancer. The mixture of sadness for some people in my life and joy for others on that day was hard to tolerate. I often found myself deep in thought. On the evening celebrations of the Caroline’s wedding, she whispered to me, EMDR Academy are looking for facilitators, you should go for it. For some reason, this just felt like my pivot, it felt like the right thing to do. I know it’s a cliche but life really is too short to be held back by your fears! So I did it, I made my leap and about 6 weeks later I was like a nervous child again as I attended the first part of my training. I was so nervous, when Matt (the trainer) asked me to count how many delegates were there, I couldn’t even get that right!!
But now, here I am celebrating a year of qualifying and working as an EMDR Facilitator!! I have to say I love this part of my job, I love being back on the standard trainings and I feel inspired by the change journey trainee EMDR therapists go through. I’m so glad I listened to the universe, pushed through my fear and again took a leap! Those leaps have for me often lead to amazing things!
Follow me on my facebook page Www.facebook.com/theemdrsupervisor
0 Comments