Maggie Kelly LPC

06/11/2026

Something unexpected made it onto my training list this year: Therapeutic Fly Fishing with EMDR. 🎣

I've been fishing since I was a kid. That's me in the second photo with my twin brother, who clearly did not share my enthusiasm 😂

Long before I'd heard the words "bilateral stimulation," I knew the water was where my nervous system went quiet. Years later, as an EMDR therapist, I understood why.

Fly casting is bilateral stimulation, the same left-right rhythm behind every track on my EMDR Music YouTube Channel channel.

And through the lens of Dr. Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory, the river is working too. Moving water carries much of its sound in the mid-frequency range, the same band as the human voice. Low rumbles signal threat, high pitches signal distress, but mid-frequencies tell the nervous system: you're safe.

Bilateral rhythm through the cast. Safety cues through the sound. Co-regulation with nature itself. My two worlds were talking to each other all along.

That's why I'm training in TF-EMDR® through the Seiyu Institute, the first formal integration of EMDR and therapeutic fly fishing. And I'm bringing it to Colorado. 🏔️
✨ Single sessions: a half-day of EMDR on the river. No fly fishing experience needed.
✨ Intensives: multi-day, retreat-style work for deeper processing.

Healing doesn't only happen in a therapy office. Sometimes it happens with cold water running over your waders and a line in your hand.
Interested? Reach out at [email protected]

05/30/2026

EMDR Music with Alpha Waves

🧠 Alpha waves (8–12 Hz) are the brain's "relaxed but aware" state the bridge between conscious thought and the subconscious. This is the zone where meditation happens, where creativity flows, and where the nervous system finally exhales.

🎧 Bilateral beats alternate sound between the left and right ear, engaging both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously. Research shows this calms the amygdala (your brain's fear center) and supports emotional processing which is exactly why it's a core component of EMDR therapy.

✨ When you combine them:
→ The amygdala quiets down
→ Both brain hemispheres begin to communicate
→ You enter a state that supports trauma integration, memory consolidation, and deep nervous system regulation
→ It mirrors what your brain does naturally during REM sleep

Works best with headphones

04/25/2026

I am so honored to have received the Hope and Healing Award from the Ray of Hope Cancer Foundation today at Hope Blooms at the Denver Botanic Gardens.

As a therapist, it is an honor to walk alongside people through their cancer journey. The fear that comes with a diagnosis. The grueling days of treatment. The complicated emotions of survivorship. And for some, the sacred space of end of life. Cancer touches nearly every family in some way and no one should have to walk through it alone.

If you or someone you love is navigating cancer in Colorado, here is what Ray of Hope offers:

The Mental Health Support Grant covers up to $600 in counseling sessions for patients, family members, and caregivers because the emotional toll of cancer doesn’t only fall on the person in treatment.

The Essential Needs Grant provides $500 directly to patients in active treatment for groceries, transportation, rent, and utilities with no restrictions.

If you are a Colorado resident, visit rayofhopecolorado.org to apply or learn more.

01/19/2026

Some wounds don’t come from what happened.
They come from what was missing.

When early relationships lacked consistent safety, emotional presence, or comfort, the nervous system adapted. Those adaptations often appear later as anxiety, emotional shutdown, people pleasing, or difficulty with closeness.

Through decades of clinical work, Dr. Daniel P. Brown identified a consistent pattern. Secure attachment develops when core attachment needs are reliably met. When they are not, the nervous system organizes around survival instead.

Attachment needs and how they shape the nervous system:

👉 Safety and protection
When met: a felt sense of safety, ability to relax, confidence in the world
When unmet: hypervigilance, chronic anxiety, difficulty settling

👉 Attunement
When met: feeling seen, understood, emotionally connected
When unmet: emotional loneliness, feeling invisible or misunderstood

👉 Soothing and co regulation
When met: emotions rise and fall without overwhelm, ability to recover
When unmet: emotional flooding, shutdown, difficulty calming

👉 Support for autonomy
When met: confidence in needs and boundaries, freedom to be oneself
When unmet: people pleasing, guilt around needs, fear of disappointing others

👉 Delight and warmth
When met: a stable sense of worth, ease in being oneself
When unmet: shame, self criticism, feeling valued only through performance

Dr. Brown developed the Ideal Parent Exercise to address these exact attachment needs. Through structured guided imagery, the brain and body can experience what was missing in a way that builds regulation, internal support, and trust over time.

Attachment wounds are not resolved through insight alone. The nervous system learns through experience.

🎧 To explore the exercise, listen to the guided Ideal Parent Exercise here:

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01/19/2026

I just got PADI certified in Belize, and I keep noticing how much EMDR Therapy mirrors scuba diving. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, an evidence-based therapy that helps the brain safely reprocess traumatic or overwhelming experiences so they no longer feel stuck in the nervous system. Like scuba diving, the work involves gradually going to emotional and neurological depth, with careful pacing so the system stays regulated rather than overwhelmed.

Here’s the parallel 👇

1. Preparation on the surface → History taking & resourcing
Before entering the water, you check your gear, review signals, and assess conditions.
In EMDR, safety comes first. Resources, consent, and clarity come before touching anything intense.

2. Regulated breathing → Bilateral stimulation
In scuba, slow, steady breathing keeps you calm and conserves air.
In EMDR, bilateral stimulation creates rhythm and regulation, helping the nervous system stay organized as depth increases.

3. Buoyancy control → Dual awareness
Good divers don’t sink or shoot to the surface. They stay neutrally buoyant.
Dual awareness keeps one foot in the present while the other touches the past. Aware, not overwhelmed.

4. Slow descent → Titration
You don’t rush depth. You equalize, pause, and listen to your body.
EMDR opens memory networks gradually, at a pace the nervous system can tolerate.

5. Exploring the reef → Processing
Once stable, you can actually see what’s there: colors, details, movement.
Processing allows the brain to reorganize what it finds without panic or force.

6. Safety stop → Integration
Before surfacing, divers pause to let the body adjust.
In EMDR, we close with grounding and integration so the nervous system leaves balanced and complete.

7. Surfacing → Returning to daily life
You come back with air left, not depleted.

Effective EMDR leaves people steadier, clearer, and more embodied.

Trauma healing doesn’t have to feel like being thrown into deep water.

When the structure is solid, the system knows what to do.
Same rules for entering the depths.

01/14/2026

If you grew up without consistent emotional attunement, your nervous system may still be scanning for safety.

This Nurturing Figure Exercise offers a different experience.
In this guided practice, you’re invited to sense an emotionally attuned presence that is warm, steady, and non-demanding.

Nothing is required of you. No fixing. No performing. Just receiving.

Many people notice
• a softening in the chest or shoulders
• a deeper sense of safety in the body
• relief from self-criticism
• a feeling of being accompanied rather than alone

This kind of nurturance supports attachment repair, trauma healing, and emotional regulation by giving the nervous system something it may never have fully had.

You can return to this exercise whenever you need grounding, reassurance, or a reminder that you don’t have to do everything on your own.

🎧 Watch the full guided exercise here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsyZawTijq4
💜 Gentle, trauma-informed, and free to access.

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01/10/2026

Join millions of listeners finding peace and calm through gentle bilateral beats.

01/07/2026

Gentle bilateral tones and soothing music designed to help your nervous system settle and restore calm.

01/07/2026

Therapists who LOVE yoga 🧘🏻‍♀️ Do you want somatic based tools that go beyond repeatedly asking, “What are you noticing in your body?”

I recently had the pleasure of talking with Arielle Schwartz about her Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery Certificate, and this training shows you how to branch yoga practices right into your therapy office with clear structure, consent, and nervous system informed pacing.

What you gain
• Practical body based tools that fit therapy sessions
• Polyvagal informed somatic and EMDR compatible skills
• Confidence introducing movement in session
• Ways to work somatically in person or on telehealth

If you want clients to feel more regulated without leaving your clinical framework sign up today.

18 CEs included plus a live Q&A with Dr. Schwartz and a 6 week trauma informed yoga PDF

Learn more or register here
https://my.pesi.partners/5C5QMZJ/2QW1PCR/

10/27/2025

In the middle of chaos, even during drone attacks in Ukraine, people are using EMDR Bilateral Music on YouTube to feel calm again.

I created this channel to help soothe anxiety spikes, trauma triggers, and restless nights.

Listen here for FREE. Headphones needed for bilateral effect:

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