Getting Unstuck: How Brainspotting Helps Release Emotional Weight
What is Brainspotting?
Brainspotting is a gentle, yet powerful therapy that helps your body and mind release the deep emotional pain you may not even realize you're carrying. It works by using specific eye positions to access stored memories and emotions that have been stuck in your body.
Brainspotting helps your system process what's underneath it all. This might be old pain, heartbreak, fear, or the sense that you’ve lost yourself somewhere along the way. This healing method was created by Dr. David Grand in 2003 and is rooted in the idea that “where you look affects how you feel.”
It is especially helpful for people who carry pain quietly, who have gone through experiences that were too much, too fast, or too long-lasting. You may have learned to survive by putting your own needs last, by staying quiet, by being the strong one. But you don’t have to keep carrying it all alone. Brainspotting helps gently bring the pain into the light, so your system can finally begin to release it and rest.
When Relationships Feel Too Heavy and You Keep Losing Yourself
If you often feel anxious, emotionally overwhelmed, or unsure of who you are in relationships, this could be a sign that your nervous system has been shaped by past emotional pain, attachment wounds, or moments when you felt deeply alone or emotionally unsafe.
Brainspotting can help untangle these patterns from the inside out. Without needing to analyze every moment of your past, your body can start to release the emotional weight you have been carrying. This can help you feel more grounded in your relationships, more connected to yourself, and more able to ask for what you need without shame or fear.
How Trauma Affects the Nervous System
When you go through something emotionally overwhelming, whether it was years ago or more recently, your nervous system can get stuck in survival mode. You might not have had the words for it, but you’ve probably felt it. Always being on edge. Emotionally exhausted. Easily overwhelmed. Or maybe you shut down completely and withdraw.
Even if the original pain is long gone, your body might still be carrying it. You might find yourself reacting strongly in relationships. You might feel anxious out of nowhere or struggle to calm down even when nothing bad is happening.
Brainspotting helps soothe your nervous system by giving your brain the space it needs to process what happened. You don’t have to explain everything in detail. Your body already knows the story. We just give it permission to begin releasing it.
How is Brainspotting Helpful in Treating Trauma?
Sometimes the hardest part of healing is not knowing why you feel the way you do. You may blame yourself for being too sensitive or too much. But the truth is your system is holding on to pain that never had a chance to be fully felt or understood.
When trauma or emotional wounds don’t get processed, they stay stuck in your body. Even small triggers in your daily life can make your system react like something dangerous is happening again. It can feel like you’re trapped in emotional cycles you can’t control.
With Brainspotting, we gently find where that pain is held in your body by noticing where your eyes naturally go when certain emotions come up. This allows your brain to begin processing the pain without needing to talk through every detail. You just allow the healing to happen at your own pace while I stay right there with you.
Reconnecting to Your True Self Through Brainspotting
When you’ve been stuck in survival mode for a long time, you can start to feel like a stranger to yourself. You might go through life doing what you “should” do, but feel disconnected, numb, or deeply sad underneath.
Brainspotting helps clear away the emotional noise so you can hear your own voice again. The real you. The tender, wise, deeply feeling part of you that is still in there, waiting to be held and seen.
What You Can Expect in Brainspotting Therapy
1. Building Trust and Safety
The first and most important step is helping you feel safe. You don’t have to jump into anything right away. We will take time to create a calm, supportive space where you can just be yourself. I will walk you through what Brainspotting is and answer any questions you have. You never have to go further than you feel ready to.
2. Emotional Exploration
When you are ready, we will gently explore what has been coming up for you. Whether it is a memory, a feeling, or a pattern you do not fully understand, we will follow your body’s cues. As we do this, we will notice where in your body you feel the strongest emotions and find the eye position, called a brainspot, that connects with that emotion or body sensation.
3. Processing Memories
Once we have found the brainspot, you will hold your gaze there while your brain and body begin processing. You do not have to talk through it unless you want to. Your system does the work for you in a natural way. I will be right here with you, offering gentle support and helping you stay grounded.
4. Emotional Integration
As things start to shift, you may feel emotions rise and fall, sensations move through your body, or new thoughts and insights come up. We will take time to notice those changes together. Your brain is learning how to place the memory in the past so it no longer controls your present.
5. Reconnecting with Your True Self
Many people leave sessions feeling lighter, clearer, and more in touch with themselves. Over time, you may begin to feel more emotionally balanced, less reactive, and more able to show up in relationships as your full self. That is what this work is about. Coming home to the you that has always been there underneath the pain.
If you would like to book or have questions about Brainspotting, I encourage you to click here .
