Healing Isn’t What You Think It Is

There’s something often said in trauma-informed spaces that there comes a point where we are no longer trying to constantly heal, release, or process old wounds.

Trauma is not a project to finish. It is life with its webs and flows.

And at some point, the deepest healing is learning to be present now, so we are not later trying to process a life we never fully lived.

Lately, I’ve found myself in a season of doing less.

Not striving.
Not pushing.
Not needing to “fix.”
Just doing what I can, in work and life, and allowing the rest.

What I’ve come to realise is that when the body finally feels safe enough to rest and digest, it begins metabolising what it couldn’t before.

Unheard wounds. Unprocessed moments. Old survival imprints.

They rise not dramatically, but organically.

And what has fascinated me is this: they are surfacing without panic.

Not with a gasp.
Not with avoidance.
Not with “this is too uncomfortable.”

But with curiosity.

“Oh wow… that’s interesting.”
“I wonder where this will take me.”
“Can I sit with this?”

There is a misconception that we heal one big event or one core belief and that’s it done. I don’t believe that. Some experiences are simple in memory but complex in impact. They unravel in layers. Just when you think you’ve acknowledged or processed something, another thread reveals itself sometimes connected to something you never saw before.

That was me recently.

I experienced a rupture with someone I once felt safe with someone who had supported me in my journey. A misunderstanding. But more than that, I felt not allowed to have my feelings about something unrelated to them.

And you know how it can be sometimes we just need to get something off our chest. But when the person you feel safe sharing with criticises you or pulls away altogether, it lands deeply.

It’s even harder when that person holds the tools. When they speak the language of safety. When they say,

“all is welcome.”

Because from that moment, those words no longer felt safe.

They felt conditional.
They felt like a violation.

And I’ve seen this before in healing circles, in therapeutic spaces, how “all is welcome” can sometimes become bypassing. Yes, we want to build capacity to sit with discomfort. Yes, we want to welcome shame, guilt, anger but not to override them. Not to silence them. Not to control how they are expressed.

True safety builds capacity. It allows the survival response to surface, integrate, and transform.
And what comes through that is compassion and grace for the parts of us that were only ever trying to protect us.

I share this because even the person supporting you is still human. No one is beyond their own unprocessed emotions. Sometimes what we share touches their own survival traits even if they don’t realise it.

Have you ever been in a conversation even with someone you love, where something in what they say (not how they say it) creates a sensation in you? Agitation. Tightness. Withdrawal. Anger.

Often, what we perceive as “their behaviour” is a nervous system response, fight, flight, freeze meeting our own suppressed response.

Fight can look like blaming, judging, controlling, self-criticism.
Withdrawal can mask those same impulses, because somewhere we learned expressing them wasn’t safe.

Too often, we label it as identity.

“They are controlling.”
“They are avoidant.”
“They are reactive.”

Instead of asking:

Is this a safety response?
Is this a trait that once protected them?

And can I see beyond the reaction to the hurt underneath?

Through my own somatic enquiry, I sat with the discomfort from this rupture. I didn’t talk myself out of it. I didn’t justify it. I stayed.

At first there was betrayal.
Broken trust.
Tightness in my chest.
Anxiety when I thought of them.

As I stayed, it softened.

And underneath the hurt, I found fear.
Fear of being judged.
Fear of being misunderstood.

When I sat with that fear without pushing it away it mellowed.

Later, when I brought this person into my awareness again, there was no charge. No tightening. No anxious pull. Just neutrality.

Then my therapist gently asked me to bring in the words “all is welcome.”

This time, I didn’t resent them.
But I also didn’t cling to them.

I realised what hurt was not the words themselves it was what I had attached to them. I had given them substance. Meaning. Safety. Love.

Now, they are just words light, airy and no longer something I need to guard or protect.

And that, to me, is power.

This is why I speak about traits not as identities.

Survival traits will arise, they are intelligent and they protected us.

But they are not who we are.

When we build safety within, we can witness them without becoming them. We can feel without reacting. We can stay present instead of suppressing and later needing to process what we avoided.

For someone who has lived with PTSD, this feels liberating.

To be present to experience both beautiful and uncomfortable.
To notice survival responses arise and not let them hijack us.
To metabolise life as it happens.

This is the work.

Not constant fixing.
Not endless digging.
But cultivating the capacity to stay.

And that is part of why I do what I do.

If this resonated… if something in your body softened or stirred while reading this, I invite you to go deeper.

Perhaps you may wish to read another blog “when trauma-informed becomes a catch phrase” where I explore how language like trauma-informed can lose its meaning when it isn’t grounded in nervous system safety and lived experience, and how true support meets the whole person, not just the concept.

And if you’re feeling ready to not just understand your patterns but actually sit with them, metabolise them, and build safety within you’re welcome to book an initial session with us.

This is the work.
Not fixing who you are.
But uncovering who you’ve always been beneath the protection.