7 steps to fix it today.

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Don’t think about it, just start one.

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If you’ve never actually been to a therapist to help deal with stress or other life-related crap, chances are you’ve heard that they exist, both the therapist and the life-related crap.

No? Well, then you must have at least heard this one…

A therapist walks into a bar and the bartender says, “Am I being replaced?”

Whether we admit it or not, we’ve all gone through stuff in our lives. Not properly dealing with it can cause even more stuff in our lives.

“Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences,” that’s straight from emdr.com,

Nope, I don’t like it either. I just read psycho and therapy in the same sentence. Fine, slightly out of context, but it still requires an admission of sorts. My life’s had some ups and downs, and I wanted to address the downs that were weighing me down.

If my experience and explanation below help to point you in the direction of finding some inner peace and a bit of a better life, then admitting that I’ve dealt with my share of stuff, too, is well worth it.

A nickel for your thoughts

Personally, talking to complete strangers about my deepest, darkest secrets or traumatic experiences never sounded much of a good time. The first thing they tell you in session number one is that “this is a safe place and anything we discuss here is completely confidential.”

Mmhmm.

Me? Trust issues? Nah.

Still, over the years, I’d had a couple of sessions with therapists to try to figure out the best course of action for allowing more rays of sunshine to beam into my social media seeming life. You know, when on the outside, you show everyone the best side of you even if that side is complete BS and actually in no way reflects who you are or how you’re actually feeling?

Yeah, that was me, except for the fact that if you used to follow me on social media, we’d never actually go anywhere because I never posted much. I didn’t want to brag about the walks with my dog or the days that I didn’t feel like walking with my dog.

The problem with my previous therapeutic stints was that with the first, it took me all of 10 minutes to realize that I was the smartest person in the room. She was a very sweet lady, but she couldn’t keep up and I quickly noticed her looking down at what seemed like a two-thousand-page book in her lap as she sat behind her desk every time I answered a question. The book was as big as she was and I didn’t have time for her to go find the pages about me when Google existed and I could just stay home and figure it out for free.

The second one got me- quickly. Sure, she had to use a proverbial can opener to get me to elaborate more on certain things that I mentioned in our right-around lunchtime sessions. Still, I enjoyed the conversations, and if nothing else, it was a bit of mental fresh air to feel comfortable enough to at least consider trying to make this work.

I had initially chosen the timing of our meetings in hopes that if it wasn’t working out and she heard my stomach growling, she’d excuse me early and let me get something to eat. This would prevent me from further having to expose myself, mentally speaking. Apparently, therapists have a name for this tactic, but she left the practice before I had a chance to find out what it was, also leaving me cold and hungry to fend for myself.

I’d had enough at that point. I just couldn’t muster up the energy to meet with someone new and have another verbal sparring session to determine who got to sit behind the desk and who actually belonged on the couch.

Back to my dog walks it was.

I had no idea

A friend of mine had recommended EMDR after he said it literally saved his life in just a small amount of sessions.

I’d known him for decades and he never seemed like the type to be anything but pretty happy with life. It turns out, he was. He’d just dealt with being pretty sick and even after physically getting better, he went through a patch where he felt suicidal.

Never having feelings like this of any sort in his life up until this point, he spoke to his wife about it. He didn’t want to take any medications and after talking to a few close friends, this type of therapy was suggested as it was said to provide much faster results than standard talk therapy.

He and I were catching up on the phone and he’d given me the quick recap of the past couple of months where he’d gone from dire mental straights to back to being his happy self with what seemed to almost be a too-good-to-be-true story. He credits his EMDR therapist completely for saving his life.

His ordeal marinated in my brain for the next few months. The thought of medication for feeling down more days than I thought was normal wasn’t my idea of a good time. I second-guess myself when I have a headache and reach for an aspirin wondering if I really need it.

EMDR doesn’t require oversharing

When I spoke to the therapist initially on the phone, she was quick to tell me that there was no guarantee that it would work. She also mentioned that after changing to nothing but this type of therapy two years prior, it had been successful for one hundred percent of her clients. I was up for the gamble and booked a session.

Have you ever been in the middle of something and out of nowhere, it stirs up a memory? Sometimes the connection is obvious. Other times, the memory is so far from what you’re currently doing that you find yourself daydreaming.

Now, picture that memory as a two-foot-long piece of string. Yes, I know, stick with me here.

Imagine yourself holding that piece of string directly out in front of you, one end in the right hand, the other in the left. Now, let it fall to the ground. If one end of the string was the beginning of the memory and the other the end, you could very easily see where it starts and stops.

Continue doing this with every memory that you’ve ever had, each as a piece of string, each falling to the ground on top of the rest until there are hundreds of them.

Now, look down.

Can you still see where the first one begins and ends? Are you able to see where any of them begin and end, or, which other specific strings they seem to touch in some way? Chances are, aside from a few, you can’t.

Imagine again that these strings, or memories, are events in your life that your brain never completely processed. Most seem irrelevant and quite possibly are things, events, or people that you haven’t thought about in years or even decades. Still, somehow, they’re connected. Not all of them, but each string, or event, that comes into contact with another, is connected in some way. We just don’t know how, or even why.

A simple example

Paraphrasing a bit, EMDR helps a person alleviate particular stress that seems to be caused by traumatic events.

For example, if you’ve always been a dog lover and one day on your walk home from school or work you were attacked and bitten by a dog, that traumatic event may cause you to now fear all dogs. EMDR has the potential to fix this. You won’t forget the event that happened, but it will no longer cause you to be fearful of dogs.

You can insert your fear of choice here as we continue. It could be anything from a vivid event that’s happened to you, a place or person that makes you uncomfortable, a fear of heights, or anything of the sort. This is your life. If something is causing a traumatic response inside of you, that’s your thing.

In my experience, the memory of what was causing the stress or fear rarely, if ever, comes to mind once the processing has been done.

A session is normally considered to be approximately one hour of this therapy. Depending on the extent of the trauma, anywhere from a few sessions to a dozen or so may be needed. This is completely dependent on the event, the individual, and how well they take to the stimulation.

Side note; I wasn’t bitten by a dog.

How it works

EMDR is nothing like Talk Therapy. The therapist only needs to know what is currently happening to find a starting point for reprocessing. Yes, you heard correctly, what is currently happening. Unlike traditional client/therapist sessions where you may be asked about your childhood or how you were treated in school, EMDR therapy starts with what’s happening now and works backward.

After discussing the basic issue and how it affects you, you’ll be asked to focus on each of those things as your eyes follow a light at a speed determined by the therapist. This isn’t like trying to trick your cat with a laser pointer, these people are actually trained in this, and there’s a science to it.

Other bilateral stimulation methods may also be used such as each hand holding a vibration device, but the goal is to stimulate the left and right brain by purposely pulling your attention to the left and right very deliberately, yet fluently with a specific rhythm. As this begins, you bring the thought to mind as well as how it makes you feel.

What happens next, is perhaps the magic and genius of it all.

I should take a moment to stop here and explain that what goes along with what is about to occur during this process seems very much related to one’s personality.

If the client being treated is someone who is normally very emotional, a river of tears may start flowing. If the person is normally very strong and emotions don’t normally get the best of them, they could simply go through this process unscathed. However, take it from me who leans toward the latter, heartstrings will be tugged on regardless. There are some memories that we just aren’t prepared for, good, or bad.

As the light or bilateral stimulation is being done and you’ve brought that thought to mind and how it makes you feel, you do nothing.

That’s the wonder of this. You do absolutely nothing, aside from following the light with your eyes.

As long as the therapist has chosen the correct starting point, your mind will begin to almost wander, but in a way that takes you down a lane of memories that may at first seem connected, followed by some that you may not see any correlation to your initial thought at all. As I mentioned earlier, some of the memories may have not ever crossed your mind before and you aren’t quite sure what they have to do with this. Some of my memories during the process went from quick flashes of a person or place to a specific moment in time, seemingly staying there to get all of the details of a few moments 35 years prior.

Why “these” memories?

At some point, they weren’t properly taken care of by your brain. It’s quite possible that most of them never needed to be right up until that one event occurred that happened to be tied to them. It’s then that those that seemed unimportant became valuable to resolving the issue.

Remember the strings that you dropped on the ground and couldn’t find the ends or identify what other strings they were touching? Through the process of EMDR, we don’t know what memories are tied in together or “touching” until we start to follow one end of the string. Some may only come in contact with a few others, while some may be attached to a dozen or more. Additionally, some of the memories may be short and simple, with others being more drawn out. Some of these thoughts may not affect the person at all in the process, while others may be so far forgotten but so impactful that they create an emotion of extreme sadness, happiness, or anything in between.

The good news is that once this reprocessing is completed, you no longer are affected by what was causing your reaction. The trauma has been mitigated, for good.

One caveat, while dealing with a major traumatic event will almost feel like a heavy weight has been lifted within the next twenty-four hours, it may leave space for other smaller events to come to the surface that will now also need to be addressed through additional EMDR sessions.

Fixed

I no longer struggle with the things that were weighing me down in my everyday life. EMDR has allowed me to focus more on what’s happening now versus things that happened in my past or future worries that I had.

Life still sneaks in some unexpected twists and turns that need to be dealt with. With no longer being affected by things that were completely preventing the ability to do so prior, the day-to-day stuff is more manageable. I also now look forward to walking my dog each day.

I equate the success of EMDR therapy in my life a bit to getting out of the stress of financial debt and coming into some money. You still have problems to deal with, you just don’t have any money problems.

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When I was fresh out of high school, I was having a discussion with my brother-in-law about my career.

He worked a 7–3:30 job at the time making a pretty standard just above minimum wage wage. After hearing my basic strategy for success in the music business, he asked, “What’s your backup plan?”

The all-knowing eighteen-year-old me was like, huh?

Oh…I get it, I said that I was going to be a musician and since that’s not something that you see as normally being “lucrative,” you think I should have a backup plan that includes a job like yours.

Yeah, no thanks.

The sh*tty thing about backup plans is that they’re not even a safety net. A safety net would be money saved up beforehand, or being able to sleep on your friend’s couch, or moving back in with your parents while you spend every waking moment striving toward whatever will bring that thing that you love full circle to legitimacy.

A backup plan is a replacement for what you originally intended to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for working whatever mundane job you have to so that you can save up a little money before taking a deep breath and going all in on your passion. Unless what you’re about to dive into pays you dividends out of the gate, that’s just common sense.

Being hungry, sometimes both literally and figuratively, is absolutely necessary to do what YOU want to do.

Side hustles are great, I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about your dream job. Not going all in and working some life-sucking day gig that makes you look and feel like your coffee mug because of the naysayers will leave you forever burdened with a defeat that will haunt you.

You know when people discuss what they regret in life? If you skipped out on your passion because someone else planted the element of doubt inside of you, you will regret it. You’ll be part of the college kid essay’s focus group of people with only moments left on this earth with that thing being in your list of “wish I hads.” There will be plenty of other bad choices to round out your top ten. Don’t let this be one of them.

This isn’t about making different decisions because of the curve balls that life throws at us all. It’s not about changing your focus because one day you found something else that you were more passionate about. I’m talking about now. We all discover new life loves and that’s okay. Following what we love is what makes that possible.

No matter what anyone says, it’s not too late, you can do it, and you most certainly deserve it. Pay attention to those that feel this way about you and your dreams, and surround yourself with them every day.

Many of the people that I’ve worked with during my music career are pretty big in the business. Below is a write-up from one of my releases:

Sean’s EP, “Everything Has Past”, was produced by Steve Bertrand (The Tories, Avion) and features drummer Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, John Fogerty & more), bassist Chris Chaney (Jane’s Addiction, Alanis Morrisette), guitarist Sean Woolstenhulme (The Calling, Lifehouse) and keyboardist Scott Simons (LA-based Solo Artist). Added to the mix were Grammy Nominee & Juno Award winner James “Jimbo” Barton assisting with engineering & world-class Mastering Engineer Tom Baker (Precision Mastering). The EP contains a power-packed punch of fresh, new material that will fit perfectly into the collection of any fan of today’s new rock music. Bertrand states of the new release, “Snow Patrol meets Kings Of Leon……the best recorded version of Sean McCarthy to date.”

I’ve done a few things. I’ve also postponed a lot in my life. I’ve often chosen what I felt was more important at certain points of my life over my music career with zero regrets. I’ve lost sparks, fanned flames, and fallen victim to burnout. There are plenty of times when the squirrels of life have caught this dog’s attention and gotten me off course. I’m wiser for it. I now more quickly realign with my goals.

First-hand experience qualifies me to share this with you.

If you feel like you’re suffocating or all of your hopes and dreams are smoldering, there’s one single thing that will allow you to breathe and cause what’s smoking to ignite- fresh air.

Fresh air is waiting outside of your comfort zone. Fresh air is waiting around the corner where you can’t see it. It’s through that door that you’ve hesitated to open for whatever reason. Fresh air is right……there.

Go. Now. The world is waiting for you.

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I have a habit of looking around and noticing things.

As I sat in the restaurant, everything seemed to be where it belonged. Customers dining, getting up and making way for those next in line. The staff did their normal routine shift tasks making sure that tables were wiped and quickly set again.

Then…there it was.

Dust.

Yeah, another habit of mine in establishments like this, I look up.

It was clear that the focus was on the standard stuff; condiments, the nightly vacuuming, and the flatware. It seemed like a lot of time was spent on what people saw at eye level vs. what was clearly above them. The thick layer of what had now become grime, coated the ductwork and ceiling fans and was also clinging to the light bulbs themselves.

I knew the owner. He worked hard day after day focusing on putting out the best menu items for his loyal patrons and the food was pretty good, but not always great. I also knew that money wasn’t an issue, needing to be in control was.

With him being the chef and always being distracted by the service side of things, he missed some key things that people like me noticed in just a few short minutes.

He was always busy being the boss. The trouble was, for as great of a chef as he was, he sucked at making sure that all of the front-of-house duties were taken care of. Not only did that mean that what customers saw when they walked in was subpar, but the added responsibility of doing a half-assed job outside of the kitchen meant that his head wasn’t completely in the game being played where he was needed most.

I understand how hard it can be to take a step back and relinquish the reigns to something that I’ve built, especially if it’s my passion. Sometimes though, what we’re passionate about gets buried in the day-to-day responsibilities of making that thing a reality.

I’m just wagering a guess here, but if you’re a chef, chances are you enjoy cooking. If that’s the case, then fucking cook.

If you’re in charge, locate people who share your vision, and hire them. Put a team together who are as passionate about their role in your business as you are about the reason you started it all in the first place.

Wanna know a secret? There are people out there who absolutely love being front-of-house managers.

Do you have a large staff? Do you cook better than you supervise? Still staying late to wash the last of those dishes once the door sign has been flipped for the night? Hate bookkeeping and accounting?

See where I’m going here?

Presentation is everything. If you drive by a mansion, what’s the first thing you see? I’ll give you a hint- It’s the work of the gardener.

The dedication to the beauty outside lends a fairly good view of what’s inside. Even if we never open the doors, we’re pretty confident that what’s behind them is pretty dope, too. If you’re the chef, the inside of your mansion is the food that you prepare. If you’re always tending to the pretty flowers or trimming the hedges, is that food going to be the best it can be?

With the right people in place, it’s okay to let go of the responsibilities that are robbing you of what you enjoy doing most. Delegate.

Letting go a little isn’t a sign of weakness. Understanding what you do best and bringing in the right people to do the rest, usually much better than you can, is just the opposite. It’s a definition of strength.

If you already have staff but don’t have the confidence that they’re taking care of everything outside of the kitchen, find new staff.

Go on, hire the gardener. Not only will they take care of all of those things that you never went into business to do in the first place, but they’ll make sure that when the doors have opened, the dust has (been) cleared.

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The word consequence to me always seemed negative.

Whenever I think about it, rarely do people say, “Think of the benefits of your actions.” It always seems to be more about being careful about what we do in life. Whether it’s the decisions we make or the company we keep.

There’s a consequence.

Breakfast

I had just finished eating a banana as I was about an hour into my four-hour road trip. Look at me…being all healthy and sh*t.

When I was done with it, I found myself dangling the peel over the empty passenger seat like it was a pair of Grandma’s dirty underwear.

Come on, whenever we talk about Grandma’s dirty anything, it’s funny. Plus, it’s not like I mentioned Gram’s boob sweat or Vajayjay, relax.

I wasn’t about to drop it on the seat. Gross. I knew if I tossed it on the floor, in about an hour I’d be traveling with the scent of warm, rotting fruit as the heater in my truck gently blew down on it at the lowest setting for the next few hours until I arrived at my destination.

Hold on

The Sunday morning traffic was really light. I knew as soon as I rounded a few more interstate corners this wouldn’t be the case. I had to act, and act fast. Plus, I had one hand on the wheel and I’d just seen a big highway sign that read, Hands-free Law in Effect.

Upon seeing the sign, I was immediately transported back to my childhood during a bike ride home from my friend’s house. He lived at the top of a long, steep hill. I thought it’d be cool to ride down it without holding onto the handlebars. In less than a hundred feet at 30 miles per hour, the handlebars started to wobble, followed by the entire bike shaking, until I proceeded to go ass-over-tea-kettle and tea-kettle-over-ass repeatedly until I came to a whimper of a stop after what seemed like fifty feet of the worst road-rashing I’d ever received.

At least it was only on one arm…and leg…and only one side of my face. I cried like a baby for the next quarter mile as I tucked my ego between my recently dropped balls and pedaled my sorry ass back home. The total trip was about a mile. The last half of it consisted of nothing more than the occasional sniffle along with the painful burning of the tiny pieces of asphalt impaled in my youthful skin.

Consequences.

Sign language

The sign- I was eager to go all in and take advantage of this obviously well-thought-out public service announcement. I couldn’t very well be completely hands-free with both hands off the wheel and one still holding the peeling of a fruit.

Can you imagine? The assumption that everyone on the road today who doesn’t realize that texting while driving is dangerous to our habit of living will understand such a generic message is pretty presumptuous- Hands-free Law in Effect.

Companies had to add warning labels to tell kids a few years ago not to eat laundry soap because of a few rogue taste testers. If the suggestive nature of this sign were to even cause one soap-swallowing new driver to pull my wise bike stunt from back in the day, the bike’s banana seat going up their ass as they flail out of control on a quiet suburban street could be the least of their worries.

Consequences.

My plan in action

I came up with my plan. Familiar with this stretch of highway, I knew that a half-mile straight was coming up in the next 10–15 seconds. I had to time the sequence perfectly, and everything had to fall in line.

1. There could be no cars in either direction. If anyone witnessed any of this, they’d think I was littering, and the .0001 percent chance that they’d tell someone had a bead of sweat forming on my brow.
2. Once the desolation was confirmed, I’d pull double-duty with my right hand, maintaining my grip on Grammy’s dirty peel while sliding my fingers atop the steering wheel to hold steady at a few miles per hour above the speed limit, but not fast enough to draw attention to myself.
3. Almost simultaneously, with my left middle finger, I’d open the passenger side window. I was choosing my middle finger because I like the way it naturally sits on top of the window control button to effortlessly guide the window down and just as smoothly slides down and underneath the same button to quickly raise it back to the fully closed position. Since it was winter and pretty frigid outside, the down-up motion of the pain of glass had to be flawless in order to maintain the internal vehicle temp. I also have a habit of keeping loose napkins all over the place (don’t ask). I pictured one of them blowing up across my face, causing a brief blinding moment that could derail this entire operation. I knew a larger traffic flow was coming between here and my final exit and this opportunity was a one-time offering. Taking any pleasure at all in this was an added and unexpected bonus.
4. The three-punch succession of getting my left hand back on the wheel, flinging the peel the distance of the vehicle’s interior width and out the window while bringing it all back around to get the window closed again, required perfection. The chance of blowing it all by an early release of the right thumb and index finger would cause the still-currently-yellow wrapping to slap against the right side of the windshield and come to an instant screeching halt on the dash. This would no doubt leave a spooge in both places that based on the still-existing dashboard dust from the prior season, would remain at least until we sprang our clocks ahead and it got warm enough for me to even consider wiping it off. Premature ejection was not an option. A late release and I’d be dealing with a hidden gem that would eventually be found by whomever I overpay to clean this beast.

Batter up. The coast was clear. Deep breath, fuck…slight wheel jerking…get it together, man!

The place where it all happened

As I witnessed the slow-motion rotation of the brunt of all slippery jokes of the last century as it expertly threaded the needle of the adjacent window, the potential consequences of my actions became more clear to me.

Just then, out of the corner of my eye, it appeared. Time almost stood still. The scene was just like driving by a nightclub and seeing someone who told you they were too tired to hang out with you standing among their group of new best friends on the sidewalk- mile marker 115.

I made a mental note for my future story. It seemed key at the time. Now? Not so much.

Sure, I had the mile marker, but due to my excessive speed, I missed the chance to see specifically where the protective housing of the best thing I’d eaten all morning ended up, despite my superbly executed delivery. I pictured it resting quietly in the cold snow, potentially flash-freezing long before any fur-bearing or feathered creature would ever find it. What if it got hung up in a dangling tree branch? With the exception of the elusive red or gray squirrels, this would for sure hinder the efforts of anything with a fluffy tail from getting it.

I settled myself down and convinced myself that the best thing would be for a murder of crows to share in my waste. I’m not even fucking with you right now, a group of crows is called a murder, ask PBS.org. I literally learn something new every day.

Maybe it sinking into the melting snow and staying hidden from predators until it composts into fertilizer for the upcoming flower season would be best. For some reason, that seemed almost romantic.

Consequences?

What are the actual consequences of my actions for throwing out a banana peel at mile marker 115?

Does it really matter?

Not a clue. It’s a fucking banana peel. The amount of mileage that I got out of it should make you wonder what the rest of my life is like.

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I’ll start.

GSW (tap, tap, tap, tap, tap)

Gun shot wound (tap, tap, tap)

That is all.

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