EMDR Intensives for Deep Healing and Faster Relief

Trauma Doesn’t Have to Be “Big” to Be Real

When people hear the word “trauma,” they often think of war, disasters, or violence. Yes, war veterans often experience trauma. But you don’t have to have been in a war for your body to react this way.

Trauma isn’t just a story in your mind — it’s a memory stored in your body.

If you felt intensely powerless, afraid, or overwhelmed, and your body still reacts like the threat is happening now, that’s trauma.

It might have been one terrifying moment—or it might have been years of chaos or invalidation.

A few examples that can cause trauma:

• A car accident, assault, or natural disaster
• A toxic or emotionally abusive relationship
• Having critical, addicted, or unpredictable parents
• Growing up in a home where your needs were ignored or dismissed
• A medical crisis or sudden loss
• Work or caregiving environment that exposed you to repeated stress or fear
• Even being yelled at in a way that left you frozen and helpless

Why does this happen???

When we are highly stressed, or when we can’t sleep well after intense experiences, that memory can get “stuck” in our nervous system. Anything that reminds our nervous system of the initial experience (or experiences) can cause our body to react with emotion. While these reactions might seem irrational, they’re the body’s way of trying to keep us safe.

If your body, emotions, or thoughts still react like the threat is happening now… that’s trauma.

You might not even know what caused it, but you do know you want to feel or function “better.”

If you experience these, then an EMDR Intensive might be a good fit:

• You’re having ANOTHER night where you can’t sleep because your mind is racing, or the nightmares won’t stop.
• You feel like you don’t have control of your body anymore—you shake, can’t catch your breath, or can’t calm down no matter how hard you try.
• It’s like you’ve stepped back in time when you relive the horrible memory in vivid detail—smells, sounds, images, emotions—it’s all there still.
• When you tell loved ones what you worry about, they tell you you’re too sensitive. It seems like nobody understands.
• You’re scared you might lose your job because you can’t control your emotions and you could blow up at a coworker or worse, your boss.
• You can’t understand or explain why you’re so angry, sad, scared, or irritable—especially with the people you love. You’re scared they will stop loving you.
• You’ve tried to ignore it and move on, but you just can’t (and you wonder why everyone else seems to be able to). Why isn’t “mind over matter” working?
• Wondering, “What’s wrong with me? Everyone else seems to be getting through life fine.”
• You’re at dinner and you have to leave the table because random memories show up for no reason and you start to panic.
• Missing out on new opportunities—like a promotion—because of the loud negative self-talk that tells you you can’t do it or that you’re not good enough.
• You’ve started lying to others so you can keep avoiding things that make you panic, like presentations, family gatherings, or even driving.
• The guilt, shame, and embarrassment feel unbearable, and you are ready to feel free of them.

You might have even tried talk therapy, and while it did help a little, you still feel stuck in the cycle of panic, anger, guilt, and shame.

Here’s what I need you to know: there is a way out of this

What could become possible if you were free to be your authentic self — without the old burdens that have held you back?

EMDR Is A Proven, Reliable Method To Help You Heal

The Brain Science Behind EMDR — Why This Works:

EMDR is a therapy designed to help the brain and body process traumatic experiences that never got fully “digested.”

Here’s what that means in everyday language:

First of all, your nervous system is doing its job—trying to protect you.

It responds with stress hormones and survival responses like fight, flight, or freeze. The stress hormones help you get away from (flight), fight off, or hide from (freeze) a threat. (There are a few other reactions, but these are the most common ones.) You have little control over this system once it is activated, and the bodily sensations it produces can be very intense. When that protective system is running on overdrive, it’s exhausting.

Traumatic memories get stored differently than normal ones. Brain scans show us that traumatic memories seem to get stuck in the right side of your brain, the emotional part of the brain—separated from language, logic, and time, and cut off from making connections to the left side of your brain.

(That’s why trauma can feel like it’s still happening now, no matter how much time has passed.)

EMDR activates both sides of the brain, allowing memories to move from being stuck in emotional chaos (right brain) to making sense and feeling resolved (left brain). EMDR helps your brain reconnect the dots—so the memory gets filed away properly, like non-traumatic memories do.

You don’t forget about the trauma, but when you think about it, it no longer hijacks your body, emotions, and mind.

Ultimately, EMDR works with your body and brain’s natural healing processes and you get quicker, more complete results.

These are the results clients experience:

• Restful sleep without the bad dreams or nightmares.
• Having more freedom because you don’t have to avoid people, places, or memories that used to cause anger, fear, or sadness.
• Feeling calm and in control of your emotions and not living in fear of another emotional meltdown.
• Finding more happiness and peace with life and with your future.
• A life that finally looks like you designed it with all parts working better—work, health, relationships, personal passions.
• Feeling hopeful and inspired again.
• Feeling confident that you can manage yourself in “those” situations or being around “those” people now.
• Improved relationships with friends and loved ones.
• Being less reactive and feeling proud that you’ve finally overcome “it.”
• Finally feeling like yourself again!

You stay grounded. You stay present. You are in control.

And Amazingly—

• You don’t need to talk through every detail to find understanding.
• You don’t need to explain every moment to release it.
• You don’t even have to know what is causing it.
• And you don’t have to do it alone.

And You Don’t Have To Do It Alone. 

What is an EMDR Intensive?

Although EMDR results happen more quickly than in talk therapy, in a standard EMDR session, you might meet with a therapist for 60 minutes weekly for many weeks or sometimes months.

An EMDR Intensive like this one, however, is longer and more focused.

An EMDR Intensive is a customized therapy experience designed to accelerate your healing by processing stuck trauma in a focused time frame—instead of weeks or months.

An EMDR Intensive allows you to work through and release your stuck symptoms in a matter of three, five, or six hours, sometimes over a few days, depending on your needs.

How EMDR Intensive Work Could Help You (Why should you choose an EMDR intensive)

Faster Relief
A longer session means less time suffering. You’ll begin to feel relief in days—not months or years.

Deeper Processing
Intensive EMDR sessions allow your brain and nervous system to stay engaged without being interrupted. You’ll accomplish more in your healing with an extended session than in traditional therapy.

Highly Personalized Care
I’ll adapt your treatment in real time to exactly what’s coming up for you. That level of customization is rarely possible in weekly sessions.

Reduced Overall Treatment Time
You’ll likely need fewer total sessions than in traditional therapy—and save both time and money in the long run.

Flexible Scheduling
Ideal for busy professionals, parents, caregivers, and anyone who struggles to fit in weekly therapy.

Cost-Effective
Though the upfront cost is higher, intensives often mean less overall treatment time, fewer missed work or school days, and faster symptom relief.

Maintained Momentum
You don’t stagnate between sessions. That continuity supports faster, more stable results.

Deeper Emotional Breakthroughs
Many clients report powerful emotional shifts, insights, and transformations that would typically take months of weekly work.

Improved Daily Coping
After an intensive, clients often feel more confident, regulated, and empowered in everyday life.

What happens during an EMDR Intensive?

An EMDR Intensive is a customized therapy experience designed to jumpstart your healing by processing stuck trauma in a focused time frame—instead of weeks or months, an EMDR Intensive allows you to work through and release your stuck symptoms in a matter of three, five, or six hours, sometimes over a few days of extended therapy sessions, depending on your needs.

We begin with grounding, calming tools to stabilize your nervous system.

Once the alert system is activated, the chemical processes in your body are out of your hands, but I will teach you ways to calm and regulate your nervous system; this will help you feel more in control because you will have more control. The great thing is that once you learn them, these tools and skills will be available to you anytime and anywhere.

You’re always in control of the pace, and we check in constantly.

A traditional therapy format—50 minutes once a week—often feels too slow, especially for trauma survivors. The weekly interruptions can be frustrating for clients. That’s why EMDR Intensives offer an alternative: focused, extended sessions designed for faster, deeper healing.

EMDR intensives might be right for you if:

• You’ve experienced a traumatic event (or several) that you’ve never fully processed or “digested”.
• You’re stuck in patterns that don’t make sense but feel impossible to change, like addictions, overworking, or perfectionism.
• You tell yourself you’re worthless or a failure, or are always “playing it safe” in life.
• You feel emotionally triggered in daily life and don’t always know why, and maybe you take it out on the people you love most.
• You want to stop avoiding things that remind you of pain, like not being able to drive certain places, or talk to certain people.
• You’ve tried therapy, but something still feels unresolved and maybe “stuck.”
• You’re ready to feel relief—not just keep “white-knuckling” through life, waiting for time to heal it, or wondering if you ever will feel better.

Hi! I’m Deb Navarro. Like many of us, I grew up in a family that didn’t know how to handle emotions.

After going through some traumatic experiences as a teen, my father had the good awareness to get me to a therapist.

After that first session, I knew therapy was going to become my life’s work.

With my therapist, I experienced consistent and genuine acceptance for the first time. She listened without judging me, and I could finally express all of the thoughts and emotions I hadn’t been allowed to speak about before. It was liberating.

Through our work together, I gained a greater understanding of my challenges, and I learned new ways to manage what I was going through—physically, mentally, and emotionally—which made getting back on track so much easier.

Even years later, whether I was experiencing an unexpected change, recovering from various traumatic experiences, unexpected changes in my life, and even just feeling like I wasn’t thriving, I knew I could turn to a trusted therapist for help. And every single time, I was able to get back in touch with my goals, my desires, and my joy.

You can heal and grow from whatever is getting in your way of living your best life.

While that might sound impossible to you right now, it’s something I truly believe—because I’ve experienced the transformative possibilities of therapy over and over again.

You deserve to have that, too—and it would be my honor to create a space where you can feel accepted, understood, and safe enough to heal and thrive.

I’ve wanted and needed feedback about my circumstances, and strategies for overcoming issues from someone who was objective. Talking to family or friends can be tough sometimes because they know you too well or think they know you and what you need, so they can’t be objective. As much as they might want to be, they aren’t always helpful.

My very first experience with therapy was when I knew that I wanted to make this my life’s work. Like that therapist who helped me through a very rough time in my life, I knew I also wanted to help guide people to wholeness.

You can also experience transformation through therapy and start to thrive.

You’re Not Alone in This

It’s normal to want to avoid the pain.
It is normal to “shrink” our life when we are uncertain or scared.
It’s normal to wonder if healing is even possible.
It’s also completely possible to feel better.
You can feel safe in your own body.
You can stop living in fear of your own memories, thoughts, and emotions.
And it’s never too late to heal.

 

What could become possible if you felt fully yourself again — or finally discovered who you were meant to be, without the weight of the past holding you back?

Imagine…

• Sleeping through the night without fear or nightmares and waking up feeling rested.
• Being calm and in control of your emotions and living life without calling in sick to work or turning down offers to spend time with friends or family.
• Living a mentally happier life without the burdens of the past.
• Not feeling scared that you will have an emotional meltdown or embarrass yourself again.
• Having more freedom because you no longer avoid people, places, or memories.
• Feeling more happiness and peace with yourself and your life, and your future.
• No longer being triggered by things that don’t make sense to you and feeling safe in your own skin.
• Feeling more in control of your mind and being able to get basic errands done again.
• A life that looks like you want it to in areas that matter to you—like relationships, excelling at work, or pursuing personal passions.
• Feeling confident enough to take chances on those things you’ve been putting on hold—maybe a new career, going back to school, moving, or a new relationship.
• Feeling hopeful and finding the real you or feeling like yourself again.

You and I Working Together in an EMDR Intensive Session Can Help You With This

You’ve already survived the hardest part.

It’s time to truly heal.

Take the First Step

Let’s start with a free 15-minute consultation. We’ll explore what you’re experiencing, I’ll answer any questions, and see if an EMDR Intensive is the best fit for your needs.