Why talking isn't always enough

The core

Understanding and doing don't live on the same layer

You probably know your pattern better than anyone. You can sketch it out: this is the situation, this is what happens inside me, and this is what I do next. You may have read about it, talked about it, even helped others with it. And still — when you are in that situation, exactly the same thing happens again.

That is one of the strangest experiences there is. You know it, and you do it anyway. It quickly feels like failure, or like a lack of willpower. But it is neither. It happens because understanding and doing do not live on the same layer.

What you know and what you do do not live on the same layer.

Those curious about what that feels like from the inside will find a calm description of a session on how a session feels.

Two layers

The thinking layer and the layer beneath

Imagine two layers. On top lies the thinking layer. That is where you make meaning, analyse, tell your story and draw conclusions. This is where you feel most like yourself: you describe your life in words, you weigh things up, you understand. Conversations, books and most advice work on this layer.

Beneath it lies another layer — call it the layer below, the layer of your automatic responses. That is where a particular look from someone puts you on edge before you have even thought about it. Where ‘just one more thing to finish’ happens by itself, without you choosing it. Where the tension is already there before you know where it has come from.

Those two layers do not work the same way. What you know on the thinking layer does not seep down automatically into the layer below. That is not a matter of not trying hard enough — it is simply how things are built. Patterns are formed through repetition, not through insight. So they do not shift through insight either. They shift through something that works on their own layer.

The turning point

Why talking stops helping at a certain point

At the start, talking helps enormously. You gain overview, you find words, you see connections you hadn’t seen before. But for those who have already thought, read and talked a great deal, a moment comes when the conversation starts repeating itself. Your story runs smoothly. You can predict what you are going to say, and what response will follow.

At that point, more explaining is no longer progress. Your analysis becomes sharper, your story tighter — and the pattern stays exactly where it was. The difficulty is that it feels from the inside like moving forward, while in fact it is standing still on a different layer. Many people stay here for years without recognising it as being stuck.

You may recognise this from the thought “I have explained this so many times” — your story is complete, but the charge beneath it is still there. That moment is described in more detail in the blog what is IEMT and when does it work?

That you have arrived here does not mean you have thought too little. Your thinking layer works fine. It has simply, on this one theme, exhausted its possibilities.

Where IEMT can help

Working on the layer that insight cannot reach

IEMT — in full, Integral Eye Movement Technique — works deliberately on that lower layer. Not through conversation, not through analysis, not through ‘what do you think was happening there’. Instead, through a calm combination of attention and guided eye movements that gives access to the place where the response itself sits.

In practice, that means: we identify together a specific response or a feeling that keeps coming up — without you needing to tell the whole story around it. Then you direct your attention to that response and follow a few calm movements with your eyes while I guide you. That takes a few minutes. Afterwards we look at what has shifted.

You don’t need to share or relive your story — we work with how it arises now, not with the details of what happened then.

What surprises many people is that the shift often does not announce itself as a big ‘aha’ but as an absence: the trigger you would normally pick up on, you pick up on less. The thought is still there, but the charge around it is lighter. Often you only notice it days later, when a situation you were dreading turns out to go differently.

Honest

It doesn't always sit on this layer

Sometimes a question turns out to sit somewhere other than that lower layer — and then IEMT is not the right way in. That is not a failure; it is information. In those cases I am happy to think with you about what might fit better, and if that falls outside coaching, I will refer you on.

I would rather be honest about what a method cannot do than sell it as a universal answer. If you want to see whether your question belongs on this layer, an introductory call is exactly what that is for. Unsure whether your situation fits here? Reading what IEMT can help with can also help you recognise what is going on.