In this Aspirational Dreamscape, Laura is looking beyond the pain of a major car accident and sexual assault to thrive again. She is wearing her grandfather’s totem – a cross – and is running on her own track, allowing her mother to run unimpeded in hers.  The running began in high school where Laura was a “very active athlete, almost in rebellion with Mom,” a marathon runner like Laura.  From EMDR, Laura came to learn that her binging-anorexia-bulimia had less to do with control, and more to do with insecurity.  “Little things” bothered her, but at the same time, there was real “hurt and bully-ing” from age 8 to 17.  Choosing this image of Laura running along the Cliffs of Moher, breathing in the salty smell of the ocean would be a reminder of the plans her family had to visit Ireland not long after the accident.  With her hair in the wind, Laura says, it’s as if “nothing can toucb me.”  She adds:

When I’m stressed out, I feel a tightening in my chest. But when I’m bursting with happiness, moving, running forward, I feel free.

For more about cases like this one, visit The Healing Memory Project, my collaboration with art psychotherapist Lauren Lazar Stern.