Making Space to See What Has Been There All Along

Relaxing into the new year has given me something I didn’t realise I needed quite so deeply space.

Space to slow.
Space to notice.
Space for awareness around what has been living just beneath the surface.

With that softening, things have begun to rise. Not all at once, but steadily. Experiences. Memories. Sensations. Parts of me that had been quietly waiting while I stayed functional and capable.

I recently tried to explain this to Matt using an analogy that surprised even me. When we think about God, truly contemplate Him there is a kind of awe that causes the mind to fold in on itself. We reach the edges of comprehension and can go no further.

That’s what this has felt like.

As I’ve relaxed, unprocessed trauma and life experiences the parts that still require support and integration — have begun to present themselves in such vast number that I’ve wondered:

will I fold in on them? Will it be too much? Like opening a floodgate?

And yet, alongside that fear, there is a quieter knowing.

I am not broken.
I suffered.

That distinction matters deeply.

Suffering is not failure. It is the body and nervous system responding protectively to what it could not yet process. By naming suffering, we are not indulging in self-pity, we are recognising experience. We are allowing it to be heard. Witnessed. Held.

I know now that I am not shattered beyond repair. Many of these parts formed because they had to. They helped me survive.

There are parts that learned to stay quiet to protect others.

Parts that stayed alert.
Parts that carried fear so others didn’t have to.
Parts that never got to rest.

When people talk about trauma, we often imagine a plate breaking loud, unmistakable, dramatic. A few large pieces. Visible to all. These are the traumas that show themselves clearly in behaviours, reactions, and symptoms that can’t be ignored.

But that has never felt like my story.

My experience is more like a crystal glass.

Crystal doesn’t shatter loudly. It fractures in fine, delicate shards. Hairline cracks. Damage that is easy to miss even by the one holding it. For a long time, before embodied processing and root cause work, I didn’t even realise I was living with complex trauma.

Because complex trauma is cumulative.

When there are so many small fractures, it’s hard to point to the moment.

The nervous system doesn’t remember in neat timelines, it remembers sensation, pattern, and vigilance.

For years, I believed my obsessive fear of death began when my father suffered a heart attack while I was sitting on his lap at six years old. And that moment mattered deeply. But through root cause work, I discovered something I had never consciously connected.

The year before, my cousin Heidi drowned.

With an undeveloped nervous system and no capacity to process or grieve, that loss had nowhere to go. I carried it silently. I didn’t know how much it had shaped me until, years later, my body finally allowed me to feel it. I remember crying and crying, releasing something I didn’t even know I was holding.

Sometimes healing has no single origin story.
Sometimes it lives in the body far longer than the mind can understand.

From the outside, some see a person who is driven, outgoing, direct.

I stayed functional. I became capable. I kept moving.

But all the while, my body remained hypervigilant, waiting.

Which brings me to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repair.

Kintsugi is not about fixing something to make it useful again. It is about honouring where the vessel was placed under strain. The gold does not erase the break it acknowledges it.

Healing does not return us to who we were before.

It allows us to become integrated.

This is why I love the work I do. And why I feel deeply blessed that in supporting others, I am continually supported in my own journey.

Healing is not about removing parts of ourselves, it is about bringing them back into relationship.

It is about allowing the nervous system to learn that it no longer has to fragment to survive.

As a Christian, I see this as the very heart of our calling to cast our burdens upon Him. Not through striving or bypassing, but through surrender. Through allowing grace and compassion to meet us where we are.

I am not “finished.” Life is a journey. And the more I relax, the more comes into view. But now, there is space. Space to look with curiosity instead of fear. Space to meet old experiences with compassion. Space to offer kindness where it was never available before.

I am not broken.
I suffered.
And healing, for me, looks like learning how to hold all of it gently.

If this resonates with you and you want to explore your own healing through somatic practices, or simply want to talk through your experiences, you’re welcome to book a discovery call and take the first step in holding your parts with care.