A brief introduction to the selfEMDR tool:

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), there are 5 principal human emotions: fear, anger, hysteria, worries and sadness. Each of these emotions is related to one particular organ, one particular "element" and one particular colour. TCM also holds that for each of these 5 emotions there is one among the remaining 4 that can help control it. In the SelfEMDR tool you are free to choose the colour of the background and of the object that is moving over it, however, whenever you choose a new background colour the tool will automatically suggest a particular colour for the moving object that obeys to the following relations proposed by TCM teachings:

• Fear is black and it corresponds to water. It moves on a yellow background because earth (yellow) binds or controls water (black).
  Recommended: Sandy background and object.
• Anger is green and it corresponds to wood. It moves on a white background because metal (white) cuts or controls wood (green).
  Recommended: Snowy background and object.
• Fits of temper glow in red and they correspond to fire. They move over a black background because water (black) extinguishes or controls fire (red).
  Recommended: Night sky background and object.
• Worries are yellow and they correspond to earth. They move over a green background because tree roots (green) stabilize or control the earth (yellow).
  Recommended: Bamboo background and object.
• Sadness is white and it corresponds to metal. It moves on a red background because fire (red) melts or controls metal (white).
  Recommended: Sunset background and object.

The above relations are not made up, but they are the result of thousands of years of observation which taught the ancient Chinese that literally everything on Earth and beyond is subject to change, and that this change comes about much like the seasons on planet Earth follow one another as part of a neverending cycle.

It is with this observation in mind that the colours of the moving object and the background that it is moving over have been combined to help your mind better control troubling emotions through this simple eye exercise.

It is not fully understood why these simple eye movements can help us better manage troubling emotions but it seems to be related to how phases of rapidly moving eyes during our sleep are believed to help process all different kinds of information that our mind acquires during our waking hours.

Things that we learn, experiences that we make or stressful situations that we go through are often if not always accompanied by a related emotion. It seems that these rapid eye movements in our sleep bear witness of our mind processing, labelling and properly storing each one of the thousands of impressions that we receive from the outside world during the day together with their related emotions. This is why it is believed that EMDR can help to properly process in particular those experiences and emotions that in the moment of experiencing them were so overwhelming that they could not be processed properly.

EMDR is most effective when it is practiced in a therapeutic setting where a therapist will guide a client through a process of recognizing, assessing and sometimes re-processing troubling life events and emotions.

It is important to understand that practising EMDR with this tool can and should not replace a proper therapeutic treatment, especially if you have experienced severe trauma.

But if you use this tool as a way towards better understanding and managing your own response to certain emotional stimuli that are causing you trouble you will hopefully notice an improvement in how you handle them over time. If that happens it is very important that you don't attribute your progress to this software but rather to your own healing powers and to how you achieved to unlock them for your own good. This software is just a simple means to help you access some of the benevolent potential hidden among the mysteries of the human mind.

This tool is designed in such a way that it invites you to take a few minutes off whenever you feel like it, and rest your sight on one of the 5 pleasant photos of nature it provides as if it were a picture hanging on your living room walls. As said before, you are free to chose the background that most attracts you, but if you want to follow the recommendations made by TCM you might want to use the desert background for troubling feelings of FEAR, the snowy background for ANGER, the night sky for FITS OF TEMPER, the bamboo forest for WORRIES or the sunset if SADNESS is the emotion that troubles you most. As soon as you choose one of these backgrounds, the corresponding colour of the moving object should be pre-set and you can choose to work with this colour or you can choose any other.

Once you have settled and relaxed you can briefly associate the emotion that is troubling you with the black, green, red, yellow or white dot in the photo's centre. Then simply use the start button to make this dot move left and right and follow it with your eyes, i. e. without moving your head. That's all that this exercise requires.

It is important for this exercise to have the desired effect that your eye movements are as wide as possible. You can achieve that by using a bigger monitor, or by moving closer to it.

The creators of this software sincerely hope that you will find it useful and that it will help improve your emotional well-being.