Healing isn't about forgetting.

It's about helping your nervous system understand that what happened is in the past, while allowing your heart to remain open to love, connection, and hope.

Sometimes the greatest freedom comes when we gently release what was never ours to carry.

In this episode of Tendrils of Grief, I welcome Dr. Laurel Parnell, psychologist, internationally recognized trauma expert, and developer of Attachment-Focused EMDR, Resource Tapping, and Multidimensional Integrative Healing, for a deeply insightful conversation about healing after loss.

For more than four decades, Dr. Parnell has helped people recover from trauma by integrating psychology, neuroscience, attachment theory, and spirituality. She has trained thousands of clinicians around the world and continues to advance the field of trauma healing through her clinical work, teaching, and writing.

Together, we explore one of the most important questions in grief:

What if some of the pain you're carrying was never yours to begin with?

Drawing from her newest book, Releasing What Isn't Yours, Dr. Parnell explains how grief, trauma, inherited beliefs, and emotional burdens can become stored in the nervous system, affecting the way we think, feel, and respond to life's challenges.

We also discuss how Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) helps the brain process painful experiences so they become memories of the past rather than experiences that continue to overwhelm the present. Rather than erasing grief, EMDR helps people remember with less emotional distress, allowing healing to unfold naturally.

Throughout our conversation, Dr. Parnell offers a compassionate perspective on trauma, resilience, spirituality, and the remarkable capacity each of us has to heal.

Whether you're grieving the loss of a loved one, working through childhood wounds, or simply longing to experience greater peace, this episode provides hope that healing is possible.

🔑 What We Talk About

What EMDR is and how it works
Why trauma becomes stored in the nervous system
Attachment-focused healing
Releasing inherited emotional burdens
The connection between grief and trauma
Spirituality and psychological healing
Living from your authentic self
Finding peace after profound loss

🔗 Resources

Dr. Laurel Parnell

📖 Releasing What Isn't Yours: Living From Your True Self Through Multidimensional Integrative Healing
🌐 Parnell Institute
📚 Learn more about Attachment-Focused EMDR and trauma healing

🌿 Continue Your Healing Journey

Healing doesn't happen only in our minds—it happens through movement, connection, and caring for our whole selves.

If you're looking for another way to reconnect with yourself, I invite you to explore New Ways Barre.

Proudly serving the Kentlands, Gaithersburg, Maryland, and surrounding Montgomery County.

📅 Book a class: https://classpass.com/studios/new-ways-barre-gaithersburg
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sueways
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/New-Ways-Barre-61570706490968/

Join me on the path toward healing, hope, and moving forward—one breath, one step, and one day at a time.