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EMDR
By Randy Young, Editor-in-Chief
Monday, March 20, 2023
I recently started EMDR therapy - EMDR stands for "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing." I've lived my entire adult life either in therapy or "therapizing" myself and let me tell you: it's rare that before the end of your first ANYTHING session, you FEEL the changes being made to your brain.
Let's keep it simple. You have a rotten tooth, they extract the infection. You have a traumatic memory, they CHANGE the memory into some other, more comforting version and it will never be exactly the same again.
Here's a quick personal example, taken from my last appointment. I've always had a very specific memory, that is huge part of my traumatic emotional barriers as an adult man. It involves my mom being extremely unhappy and weeping in the dark, when I was somewhere between five and seven years old. I was as shocked as anyone could possibly be when by the end of my first EMDR session I was conflating a memory that I've had for forty years with the new memory I created sixty seconds ago. It was wild - and frankly, I can't wait to continue wading through all of the memories that I sit and perseverate over, as a way to waste my time, talent and mental health away. Imagine tweaking that incessant memory, that nags at you, boils your blood or puts doubt in your mind, into something that is so mundane and cookie-cutter that there isn't a reason to think back to it.
A memory of my mother in a state of suffering became a joyous dance party and I'm shouting from the rooftops that it's a miracle. Artists in general and animators, in particular (especially with more remote work now than ever), can fall into long stretches of isolation, leaving their minds to their own devices. Devices of mass distraction and confidence disruption, that often times prolong tasks that should take moments into hours-long sagas, which just make our jobs more difficult. I once heard a fancy-pants celebrity say, on a fancy-pants podcast that "if your therapist isn't suggesting EMDR to you, they don't want you to get better" and I can now firmly say that I agree.
This isn't advice, but it is a testimony - EMDR is magical. Take care of yourselves... you can't spell "EMDR" without "Dr. Me!"
-R 💚
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The A+B Podcast: What To Expect
By Randy Young, Editor-in-Chief
Sunday, March 19, 2023
Screenshot of Randy Young, recording a vlog, circa 2019.
The express goal of The A+B Podcast, a.k.a. The Animation Battery Podcast, and the "A+B Community" is to foster an international EMOTIONAL SUPPORT system for animation industry artists and create a happy, fun, soft landing place for animators that covers all of the areas that our current sparse system of independent labour unions seems to miss. As an empath, I quickly realized that not only were people around me struggling at any given studio at any given time, but they had nowhere to vent at work. Animation is that unique industry where although so many of us grew up as emotional children, using art as therapy, as adults, it has become our white-collar jobs, where weakness is frowned upon and office politics abound.
Last year, when my friend (and industry production professional) passed away from an aggressive cancer, I vowed to find a way to help people and attempt to make certain that I was a net POSITIVE to society. I don't want to be a cancer. I don't want to only take. In fact, my mortality revealed itself so much that I'm now convinced that unless I DO give back somehow, my successes literally don't have any real validity.
To make a long story short: A+B will focus on turning y'all into the superstars that you are (before AI renders all of us obsolete) mental and physical health, wellness, navigating office politics, finding work, self-esteem, community questions and light industry news. Sometimes we'll have interviews, many times it'll just be me, not giving advice, but sharing my experiences in the industry and my journey of learning how to keep my Animation Battery fully charged.
Welcome to this community and I hope to meet you one day in real life so we can exchange energy and marvel at how far we've come!
Cheers! See you soon!
-R 💚
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COMING SOON!
