Art and Musical EMDR: How to Use Them for Grounding

Grounding is a major tool for working out of dissociation (Master Toolbox 1), lowering stress, and managing our flashbacks (Trauma Glossary 2). It calms us by using our five senses to become aware of our present environment. What is it you see? Hear? Touch? Smell? Taste? When we’re working with art or music, (and musical EMDR, which I’ll get into later) we are getting proactive with our present environment. We’re amplifying the visionary and auditory components of grounding by creating something to see and something to hear.

What is it you need to see? What is it you need to hear? Whatever it is you create, it’s a reflection of your power, a reminder that YOU did this. You took control and created something for you to look at and something to hear.

Art: Visionary Grounding

This is a great one for anyone who’s visual. You’re creating a scene to both soothe and empower your mind out of flashback. When we’re creating a scene, we’re giving our eyes something to focus on. At the exact same time, the scene that’s pulling us out of flashback is also reminding us of the thoughts, feelings and care we put into the creation of what it is we’re seeing.

What you create can be as small or big as you wish. It can be a focal point you hang on the wall. It could be a piece you embed in something that’s always with you, like your phone or bullet journal. That way it’s always on hand whenever you need it. Even decorating a room, where you can go in a flashback, look around and take it in works, because you’re creating a space for it.

Working with contrasts: “This happened to me, but this is me now.”

You’re acknowledging what happened to you while giving it a counterweight. It’s reclaiming what was lost by surrounding the darkness with light and beauty.

My tagline is using words as contrasts: Forged in Trauma (bad things happened while our minds were developing); Rising as Warriors (rising in defiance of what happened). I used it in my wall art, the sun with the silhouette of my favorite yoga pose, the warrior, of course. It serves as an excellent focal point, a reminder of what I’m doing and why I am doing it.

Notice how Forged in Trauma is the darkness I’ve acknowledged. Everything else in this piece is both soothing and empowering. This site’s logo was inspired by my wall art. I simply wanted to give it a more universal element, so it became broken chains over the rising sun.

My vision board for summer of ’86 has become one of my major tools for managing that particular flashback. I keep it in my bullet journal so that it’s always on hand:

Notice that Mini N.’s artwork is the darkness I acknowledged (“This happened to me.”). The rest of this piece is surrounded by affirmations, including Mason Cooley’s beautiful quote on compassion. It’s topped off by Nicole Troup’s artwork (“But this is me now.”)

Being present for our trauma is key

I know that “just put it out of your mind” and “let go of those sticky thoughts” is all the rage among the toxic positivity thinkers. They also don’t know what they’re talking about. Take it from someone who believed them for years, it doesn’t work. Sure, you can on some days, put it out of your mind successfully. But I guarantee you that those flashbacks will keep roaring back, just as intensely as before.

In order to manage the flashbacks, we must show that we acknowledge what happened to us. When we use art for visionary grounding, we are saying to the trauma, “I see you and now I am giving you something to look at.” Soothe and empower; show and tell the past us that we are on its side today. If you can do this for your trauma, you will start to notice a significant decrease in both the number of flashback occurrences and the intensity.

Music: Auditory Grounding

Music is a powerhouse. It gives our thoughts and feelings a voice while fueling the imagination. Different types of songs can trigger different types of emotions and thoughts. It’s why playlists are so popular.

The traditional playlist is not something to be taken for granted. In fact, I recommend creating multiple playlists for working through or to trigger specific feelings. A collection of songs for self-soothing; a playlist specifically designed for feeling empowered; even a playlist or a single song that can help you grieve. A little note on the latter. There’s a huge difference between songs that trigger depression and songs that help you work through the grieving process. Allowing yourself to grieve over your lost childhood is a necessary part of the healing process.

This is how we can take music and add basic structure for auditory grounding as we work with our emotions. We can add more structure to our playlist by creating a musical “story” for our imagination and playing on a few basic principles of EMDR.

Musical EMDR: the structured playlist

I created this one for myself. To those unfamiliar with EMDR, you’re using your imagination to contradict or master how you felt in the original trauma. It utilizes a “shelving” technique, by processing your trauma for a few minutes, going to “safe place” in your mind for about a minute, then processing your trauma for another few minutes and so on. Musical EMDR is less intense than an EMDR session. It’s how we can use music to work with contrasts in the same way I described working with contrasts when using art.

Create a playlist by first, determining that ONE song that triggers a comforting feeling in hindsight (e.g., a song you’d like to play for your inner child or a song you leaned into at the time to cope). This is your baseline song, the one you will use most often as you will keep returning to it in your playlist. Then use songs (from any period up to modern music) that validate what you endured while inspiring the imagination towards empowerment over the trauma. Once you have your songs selected, basic setup is: Start with baseline song, then either one or two of the other (validating/empowerment songs), followed by baseline song, then one or two more songs, back to baseline song again and so on.

I recommend creating this playlist on YouTube. The reason is music sites such as Spotify and Pandora don’t understand why you would want to use the same song multiple times in a single playlist. YouTube doesn’t understand this either. The difference is multiple accounts have uploaded the same song. YouTube “sees them” as different videos, despite them all being the same song.

My Musical EMDR Playlist

This is another one of my major tools for managing my summer of ’86 flashbacks. Being the history buff that I am, I’m a bit obsessed with the Hamilton Musical, as you’ll see below. Also, a minor spoiler alert concerning my third history comic (March 7^th) George Washington was raised by a Cluster B (Trauma Glossary 1) too. Because he achieved so much with his life despite his childhood trauma, he became my “safe place” in EMDR. With all that said, here is how I used him, through music, to soothe my summer of ’86 flashbacks.

1. Glory of Love by Peter Cetera
2. Right Hand Man from the Hamilton Musical
3. Glory of Love by Peter Cetera
4. Stay Alive from the Hamilton Musical
5. Glory of Love by Peter Cetera
6. History Has Its Eyes on You from the Hamilton Musical
7. Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down) from the Hamilton Musical
8. Glory of Love by Peter Cetera
9. One Last Time from the Hamilton Musical

Notice my baseline song: Glory of Love by Peter Cetera. This was a major billboard hit in 1986. This song first became meaningful because it was one of the ten songs of ’86 that were attached to good memories, however fleeting. The concept of the song “I’ll be the hero you’ve been dreaming of” played on my imaginative escape hatch when I fantasized over rescue from my prison. Then it morphed into more significance upon realizing that many lines in the song also defined what my historical hero means to me.

My musical “story”

Each time Glory of Love plays, I’m in my grown-up body. The war of the 18^th century is over and so is mine. I’m walking alongside George Washington, who is congratulating me on my success. So, my story opens at the end. It’s told in a series of “flashbacks” that show how I won my war and earned the right to walk with my hero.

My musical flashback story flows like this: Right Hand Man I am offered an escape into the 18th century if I’m willing to serve as Washington’s right hand… child. Stay Alive: Washington is coaching me on how to endure that hellish summer without succumbing to the darkness. In History Has Its Eyes On You he is giving me the ultimate pep talk and briefing me on my special mission. In Yorktown I am acting on those orders in my grown-up body; I beat my borderline mother to a bloody pulp and spring out age 12 me from prison. In One Last Time George Washington shows me that he has lived a full and thriving life and now it’s my turn.

You may notice some contradictions in my story’s summary. In the first song, I escaped into the 18th century. Yet, in the very next song, I’m right back in my childhood home and being coached into enduring it. Then there are two me’s: grown-up me and age 12 me. But by my playlist’s conclusion, I feel soothed, assured and empowered. Do you know why?

Imagination: The Dreams We Control

My musical story flows in a dream-like state, where plot holes and no logic are all acceptable. I’m simply conscious of this and therefore, I’m controlling my imaginative experience. At the same time, it’s playing on one more element of EMDR.

EMDR manipulates the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) we make when we’re in deep sleep. That’s how the memories we process in an EMDR session are so intense and vivid. It’s also the reason we take several breaks each session and go to “safe place” in our mind. It should come as no surprise that one of the most common side effects of EMDR are vivid dreams.

This is the beauty of creating a musical story that copies the structure of EMDR. First, Musical EMDR is not manipulating REM and therefore, we’re not giving ourselves vivid dreams simply by creating a playlist. Nor is our traumatic memory as intense as an EMDR session. What we are doing is giving our imagination uninhibited freedom.

More on being present for our trauma

When we use music for auditory grounding, we are saying to the trauma, “I hear you and now I am giving you something to listen to.” We’re taking advantage of music’s unique power and going one step further with it. With each song, we are envisioning the memory while supplanting it with imaginative scenarios that soothe, assure, and empower. Musical EMDR was just one means I found for achieving this, but if the less structured playlist is more effective for you, by all means, stick with that. If nothing else, I hope I’ve given you ideas on how to use music even more to your advantage.

Working with art and music is giving our trauma a chance to be seen and heard. When we soothe and empower that trauma, it gives us a chance to practice reparenting. Something to look at and something to hear.