((((geez))))),

Ok, its alright if you didn't do the EMDR. You ARE with a new therapist and you were with the other therapist for a while and with that other therapist you took a while, but you started to engage life. And that other therapist encouraged you and she was somewhat of a mentor to you as well. It sounds to me that you had finally broken through and had someone there to provide and example of participating in something and gaining from it. As you did that geez you developed your emotions and began to realize that you COULD do just that. Somehow by doing that you discovered that you COULD tap onto your emotions and utilize them to build a safety net around you.

I think what you discovered that was so helpful is you discovered that you CAN get in touch with your emotional self and you have been a part of something (running I believe right?) So you discovered the emotional YOU in ways that you had not realized before. And you like it, you have connected with other people within a somewhat social activity and you realized not only could you do it, but it was fun and also made you happy and more outgoing.

Now in many ways you want to protect this, because lets face it, it feels right. For the first time something in you feels right and you want to keep moving with that.
geez, that is normal, that is what we are all meant to do. And you have done really well establishing your emotions to have a sense of "safety" and well being with this.
You are heading in a very good direction.

Now, with a new therapist you are challenged again. And this IS something new, but you are being asked to step back and address something else you have problems with. And whenever we address anything that is unpleasent, perhaps did threaten our ability to have a balanced set of emotions that helped or told us we were safe, you are worried. And probably there is an old desire to be "avoidant".

Well, you have homework that says "get in touch with your emotions or search them and see what you come up with to talk about" in therapy. And you don't really know how to do that yet. You know how to build on an activity and develope emotions around that, but you still have not really figured out the past and the emotions that were in that. Part of that is because you shut them off so you could just exist and now you are starting to see that.

From what I remember geez you were trying to get back into your marriage and relationship with your husband and some new things came up that you were troubled by and didn't understand. And then you were able to talk about and identify it a little better here. Something new came to the surface and it troubled you.

When we are re-establishing ourselves and things start to surface that we didn't truely know how to address in our past, we can get worried. But what that really means is we had something happen that we never truely emotionally processed.
What does emotionally process mean? Well, when something happens that is upsetting in some way it means that for some reason we didn't have a healthy emotional foundation to process it, or it was something new that we never developed and emotional way of dealing with. geez, this is normal you know, everyone has periods in their lives where they come across things they don't know how to emotionally process to where they have a balanced safe feeling about the event/situation/time in life. As a matter of fact, some of how your husband is dealing with his life right now? Well, he has unknowingly shut himself off and put himself in a low key simple daily routine that isn't really requiring him to challenge his emotions. And you ARE/HAVE BEEN and this is causing you to become displeased with him. And you began to come out with, "I don't know if the new person I am becoming is going to fit in this relationship/lifestyle I was involved in". Well, that is a normal healthy question geez.

geez, you have come a long way you know. You have found out that you CAN do life and develope a strong emotional sense that you didn't do before. There is nothing wrong with that, that is what we are all designed to do. And with this new therapist, that is supposed to be built on and appreciated and rewarded. And you are NOT supposed to feel that because you have this something is now wrong with you EVER.
But you are questioning your relationship and the empty shell that was there for a long time while you were married and had a family. And your family doesn't realize what is going on with you, they knew that other person, and don't see that you have, through therapy, become a healthier person.

You have to take time and evaluate what you are struggling with now geez. You have to let this therapist know how you progressed and are now finding it hard to explain to your family what this means. You DO deserve to thrive and enjoy yourself and these new healthy emotions that circle around the activites and new ways of interacting geez. So maybe that is where you need to focus here.

Take some time and write down where you are right now and what you are struggling with now. You don't have to go backwards and adjust YOU to fit into your family now. Your husband has to step up to the plate and find ways to support this newer healthier person you have become. You have to be given permission to continue with your progress, not draw back from it.

So think about that geez. Write down what you would like to see happen now and what you had been discussing a while back about your husband not seeing what has really taken place etc.

Open Eyes