Welcome to the Daily Ascent. I'm Molly Carmel and this is the podcast I always wish existed. A bite sized on the ground spiritual note that can shift your thinking and your outlook on life to help make us all a little bit more awake, alive and ascending. So I've been sharing about the recent trauma work I did, emdr, and I want to talk about something that's really been on my mind since, which actually isn't really about emdr, but really about staying on the path.
So people are asking me, like, why did this EMDR work so well? Like, why did I have such a profound experience? And like, I just want to have such a great answer for it. Like, I want to say, like, you know what it was the modality, or like Catherine's the best therapist, or like the timing was right.
But honest answer is I really have absolutely no idea. Like, I've been doing healing work for a long time, personally and professionally. And personally I've done therapy, I've done recovery, I've gone to programs, I've sat in rooms and on couches and in circles and all the things for years and years and years. And so much of that work has really been amazing.
And so I'm not really someone who has tried a bunch of stuff and nothing worked until this EMDR experience came along. I mean, I've had really incredible breakthroughs in therapy and I've had really, really life changing women's recovery rooms. And I've had conversations with teachers and friends that have really rearranged how I've been able to experience myself. And you know, while I'm at it, I've also done things that I've like, totally sucked.
I've had therapists that I didn't click with and not saying it nicely. I've had modalities that were not a right fit. I've had situations where I've given it like a real honest try and then, you know, left. And not because I was quitting, but because it just wasn't the right room for me.
And I want to give you, like, to the extent that I'm a guide to you, like carte blanche, like full permission for that too. You know, staying relentless on the healing path does not mean staying in every single thing. It means staying on the path. You know, some doors we walk through and stay and some doors we walk through and leave and we say like, you know, this isn't it so.
But back to this, like, EMDR came along and cracked something open in me in a way that nothing else had. And if I'M honest with myself. I really can't explain why. You know, part of me thinks maybe it's the accumulation of stuff I've done before.
You know, like, all this work I've done building a container. Part of me thinks maybe, you know, the student was ready and the teacher arrived. You know, I have my hypothesis, and I don't think I need to have a definitive answer because I don't know. Spiritually, that's not remotely the point.
Because what I've learned and what I want to share with you today is this. You never know. You never know. You never know what experience is going to be the one that changes everything.
You just don't. You don't know what book or what session or what meeting or what conversation or what modality is going to crack you open. And because you don't know, the only sane response is to keep going, Right? I mean, scary, but sane.
Staying open, staying relentless. You know, keeping walking through doors, even when the last five doors led to rooms that didn't look like much. Because here's really what I want to tell you. What I see happen with myself, with my friends, with my clients, is that people have one therapy experience that doesn't blow their mind and they're done with therapy, or they have one amazing experience, and then they expect every session after that to feel like fireworks.
And, like, they get really discouraged and quit when it doesn't. Or, you know, they try something new, it doesn't give them instant results, and they decide, like, this doesn't work for me. I mean, that's kind of the plight of America right now, isn't it? But listen, if you.
You know this, you know this in the bottom of your soul, but I'm gonna tell you anyway, this is not how healing works. Healing is not a vending machine. You don't put in the effort and get the results every single time. By the way, life is not a vending machine.
You don't put in effort and get the results every time, right? The whole thing, this whole experience, it's. It's farming. If we had to make an analogy, right?
We plant, we tend, we wait. We plant, we tend, we wait. And sometimes the harvest comes from a seed that you forgot you even planted, like, 10 years ago. And so that brings me to our pocket stage today.
Ugh. We haven't done a Daily Reader in so long, so I thought I would bring it back. And it's from the Al Anon Daily Reader, Courage to Change. And it's from the first reading of the year, January 1st, which actually kind of feels fitting, right?
So I love a daily reader. I think it's like a little daily hard, little spiritual horoscope we can give ourselves every day. And this is an absolutely great one. And the reading says, recovery is a process.
It takes time to regain, reclaim and recoup all that was lost. Building trust takes time. Change takes time. Healing old wounds takes time.
There are no immediate ready made solutions. Let me read that again for those of you in the back. Recovery is a process. It takes time to regain, reclaim, and recoup all that was lost.
Building trust takes time. Change takes time. Healing old wounds takes time. There are no immediate ready made solutions.
You know, the reading ends with this beautiful line, and I'm going to read it to you. I will trust the process of recovery. I will let time take time. I will trust the process of recovery.
I will let time take time. That's actually like my most favorite, least favorite slogan in the whole world, right? Let time take time, right? Because we are so impatient with our own healing.
We're impatient with the healing of others, right? We want the timeline. We want to know how long in hell I'm better, how many sessions, how many books, how many meetings, right? The answer is like, we don't get to know, but we do get to keep showing up.
And so our word of the day today is relentless. And not like the kind of relentless that we use, like grinding, right? Or white knuckling your way through life, but relentless. Like not done yet, right?
Relentless. Like, I don't know which door leads to the room, but I'm gonna keep opening them. Or like, you know, that last thing didn't crack me open, but something will and I'm gonna be there when it does. And our reading today is really saying that there are no instant solutions.
And like, most of us know that somewhere inside of us, but emotionally we keep hoping for the shortcut, right? We keep wanting the one thing. And when we don't get instant results, we quit. And you know, social media is no help here, right?
And diet culture is no help here. All of these quick and quick and easy fixes that are getting sold to us, but back to reality. Like, what if the thing that you quit on was the thing right before the breakthrough? Like, what if the door that you didn't walk through was the one that led to the room that you've been looking for?
And like, it can be totally maddening because we don't know, right? But you know, that's really the beautiful, humbling truth of healing. We don't know. We can't know.
And so the only option is to stay relentless and to keep trying and to keep showing up and keep being open to the next thing. Even, like. And especially when the last thing didn't seem to work. And so here's what I want you to sit with.
Today. I went into this trauma intensive, brave and open. And I think part of why I could do that is because I've done a lot of other hard things before, especially in this context. So I have references in my body and I have evidence from my own life that I can go deep and come out the other side.
And I didn't get that evidence from one experience. I got it from staying on the path long enough to collect it. And interestingly, for the first time in a really long time, I feel complete right now. Like, I don't feel the urge to rush into another round or chase another breakthrough.
I'm really in the process of letting what happens settle. And maybe something else will come. I don't know, right? Maybe a different modality, a different teacher, a different doorway.
And if it does, and I feel called to, I'm gonna walk through it. It's kind of girl I am, you know, and it's just because it's what I've learned about being a seeker, right? You keep walking through doors, not because every door leads to somewhere extraordinary, but because you don't know which one is going to do the thing for you until you open it and walk through it, right? So listen, this.
I just want to say this to you. If you're someone who's been in therapy and it's felt slow, don't stop. If you've tried something that didn't give you the results you were hoping for, don't stop. If you're discouraged because you haven't had a big breakthrough yet, don't stop.
Don't stop seeking, right? Stay open, stay relentless. And let time take time. Because the path is actually the thing, not any one stop along the way.
So here's my reflective question for you today. What have you given up on in your healing that might deserve another chance? And listen, if this is landing for you, if you have been thinking about doing something new, especially for your relationship with food or your body, your relationship with dieting, but you're hesitating because you have tried so many things before and they didn't stick, I want you to hear this. None of those experiences are wasted.
They are all part of the path. And my program, stop starting over. All we do is build on everything you've already done. You're never starting from zero.
And I say that about stop starting over. And I say that about life, right? You're starting from everywhere that you have ever been. And so if you want to talk about walking through that door, you know, I'm obsessed with you, and I'm obsessed with talking to you.
And you can find a link to schedule a call in our show notes, or you can go to mollycarne.com learn more about the program. I am right here with you Ascenders, staying relentless and letting time take time. And listen, if you're loving this episode and all the episodes, let's get our Ascender Crew rockin and roll and send this to somebody. Share it on your social media.
Like, subscribe all of the things we really want to make our Ascender Crew large and in charge. And listen, we rise together. Until next time.