A personal reflection on trauma, abandonment, and somatic healing, when the body remembers what the mind couldn’t hold.

And somewhere along the way, we reinvented the meaning of suffering and joy in ways that have deeply shaped not only our spiritual lives, but our emotional, mental, and even physical ones.

I’ve known for a long time that the relationship wasn’t built on love, not in the fairytale sense and not in the warm, connected, nurturing sense either. There wasn’t hatred, but there also wasn’t emotional safety, affection, or genuine care. We said we loved one another because that’s what families are supposed to do.

And we tell ourselves, “I am doing the right things. I am being diligent.” But are we present, embodied, and in relationship with God in the ordinary rhythms of our nervous system?

We can fill our minds to capacity but remain disconnected from our hearts, from our sensations, from the very God who dwells within us.

how often do we as Christians jump straight to prayer?

“I’ll pray for you.”
“Let’s pray!”
“We’ll keep you in our prayers.”

Beautiful intentions… but sometimes those words become a bypass. Not just bypassing their discomfort , but bypassing our own.

Prayer can unintentionally become a way to skip the messy, painful, uncomfortable parts of someone’s humanity.

But here’s the truth I had to face:

Even after healing much of what lived inside me… I still didn’t know how to parent differently. Because when you’ve spent years or a lifetime parenting from a reactive trauma state…

I’ve felt the pull to lean in even more, to explore the power of belief work. To truly see how identifying and understanding our limiting beliefs can become a doorway to discernment, freedom, and deeper intimacy with Christ.

A quote often used in our work by Carl Jung beautifully mirrors what Scripture has proclaimed all along:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

In biblical terms, this is repentance and revelation, a divine awakening where what is hidden in darkness is brought into the light of truth, allowing wholeness and transformation through Christ.

I believe this is the missing piece for so many of us. We often try to will ourselves into change looking outward for answers or relying solely on our thoughts. Yet true transformation begins by turning inward, into the soma, the body where Christ Himself dwells. Scripture invites us to embody Christ, to let His presence live through us.

It’s about learning, healing, and growing in the here and now. It’s finally having the tools to work through moments as they happen, instead of revisiting them later and letting them shape or define us unnecessarily.

At times, labels can hold us back , placing something living, breathing, and evolving into a narrow frame that doesn’t reflect the whole story.

When we name every felt experience as a disorder, we risk disconnecting from the wisdom within the experience itself.

How can we experience this indwelling presence if we don’t know how to feel it or observe it in our bodies?

“Indwelling Presence is not something we summon, it’s something we remember.”

I used to say, “Oh, I got it from my dad, he had anger issues.” I carried that belief as part of my identity.

I thought anger was me. It became my armour, a shield against shame, guilt, and the fear of being hurt again

When someone has lived with pain, limitation, or suffering for a long time, it becomes familiar.

The mind and body adapt to that state and being made well can actually feel unsafe or unknown.

without exploring what lies beneath, without seeing the whole picture,

we risk carrying misunderstood emotions that can shape our lives and even ripple across generations.

Now, imagine having Aphantasia and “reading” another person’s subconscious emotions before they’re even aware of their own.

When a child has experienced lack of nurture or childhood adversity, these tendencies intensify. We instinctively switch into overdrive doing, providing, and being everything for them, sometimes overcompensating for what we didn’t receive.

I was told I was “too sensitive,” “overreactive,” or “paranoid.”

But what no one could see was that my body was doing exactly what it was designed to do keeping me safe.

But how does that critic truly express itself? For many of us, that voice inside often masquerades as something divine, the “voice of God” judging or punishing us or the “devil” tempting and condemning. Yet I believe it is neither.

There are seasons in life when all we can do is be with what is before us.

The ache, the confusion, the waiting all the uncomfortable places we’d rather move past. And yet, this is often where the deepest healing begins.

It was as if its very presence was holding me together, providing the safety and support I lacked. Fear and vulnerability sat together in the same space.