a conversation with trauma

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Trauma is not just what happens to us. It’s what happens inside of us as a result. It’s the lingering imprint of fear, pain, and disconnection that stays in the body and nervous system long after the actual event has passed. For many years, I carried those imprints quietly, believing that this was just the way life was and I had to just “get over it” and keep going. But trauma doesn’t work that way. It shows up in the body through illness and dis-ease, addiction, it shows up in the relationships with our loved ones, and the way we experience the world around us.

My journey through trauma has been layered and complex, shaped by emotional abuse, relational rupture, nervous system dysregulation, and the heavy weight of shame and unprocessed grief. Like many women do in our culture today, I learned to survive by disconnecting from my body and pushing through. But survival is not a sustainable practice and it sure as hell isn't the same as healing.  We all have limits and at some point, the body starts to revolt and shit hits the fan.

Seven years ago, my trauma took me to my knees and I had to take a hard and honest look at what was going on.  As I started scouring the internet for answers, the subject of trauma came forward and I immediately knew this was a calling.  I became a trauma researcher and wanted to know everything about it. I also began practicing radical self-care and implementing somatic movement and restorative yoga into my healing journey.  It wasn't until then that I started to feel the possibility of safety again.  Within myself, my body, my heart, and my life. These weren’t quick fixes. They were slow, consistent acts of compassion, attunement, and choices of both doing and undoing mindsets, habits and behaviors.  Over time, self-care became a radical act of reclaiming my health, my wellbeing and regulating my nervous system to a state of calm and ease.  The practice of Yoga became my prayers and a sacred tool for noticing, for grounding, for embodying and remembering who I was underneath it all.

This page is a space for understanding trauma not just clinically, but from the lense of an imperfect human. I share from the perspective of someone who has walked the long road of recovery and who continues to walk it with curiosity, grace, and the intention to help others do the same.

Please check back as I will be updating this page to include more information and resources to help you on your healing journey.

“The cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation.”
~ Terrence McKenna, philosopher and author

Most of us live in a constant state of exhaustion, chasing success, striving for meaning, and hoping happiness will find us along the way. And yet, when we pause to look around, we don’t see fulfillment. We see burnout. We see pain. We see people suffering in silence.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, philosopher, writer, teacher

We’ve been conditioned to believe in systems and institutions, governments, political ideologies, and secular religion as sources of truth, safety, and support. But many of these systems now offer censorship over transparency, control over autonomy, and shame over sovereignty. We’re told to trust the narrative, follow the rules, and not ask too many questions. If we speak out, we’re often labeled, shunned, or silenced.

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
~ Steve Biko, philosopher, human rights activist

In our healthcare system, the body is treated as a collection of parts rather than an integrated whole being. The innate wisdom and intelligence of the body and its ability to heal, regulate, and rebalance is ignored in favor of symptom suppression. Pharmaceuticals dominate, while prevention through lifestyle, nourishment, and community are dismissed.

“The body keeps the score: if the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera, in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations, then we must find ways to help people feel safe in their bodies.”
~ Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., trauma researcher

The mental health field often encourages us to numb pain rather than face it. But healing begins when we go toward the pain, not when we run from it. True health asks us to meet ourselves in the shadows and compassionately through love and acceptance, walk ourselves home.

“The attempt to escape from pain is what creates more pain.”
~ Gabor Maté, M.D., physician, trauma expert

We’ve become disconnected from each other, from nature, and from ourselves. Our addiction to technology, cell phones, screens, and social media has replaced meaningful connection with endless scrolling. This is not accidental. These tools are designed to manipulate our attention and isolate us from one another.

Our food supply is dominated by corporations who prioritize profit over health. We consume heavily processed, chemically-altered foods without knowing what we’re putting into our bodies. We fill our homes with synthetic cleaners and personal care products that harm more than help and still, we consume without question.

Even our vitamins and supplements are often synthetic and misleadingly labeled. We’ve been gaslit into trusting products that compromise our health. We must begin to look more closely and ask: What are we really consuming, and why?

We carry immense emotional pain, often without knowing it. Unresolved trauma lives in our nervous systems, our habits, our relationships. It shows up as self-doubt, addiction, people-pleasing, chronic illness and so much more. We suppress our emotions, apologize for our tears, and avoid the very feelings that could guide us toward healing.

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”
~ Peter Levine, Ph.D., trauma therapist

We’ve been taught to fear our emotions, but they are not the problem. Avoiding them is the problem. The more we suppress, the more we suffer in our minds, our bodies, and our relationships.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
~Rumi, poet, spiritual teacher

Our relationships are fractured, including the most important one: the one we have with ourselves. Our families are divided. Our communities are tense. We’re anxious, distracted, numbed out, and moments away from burnout or breakdown.

We are living in unprecedented times. Systems are crumbling. The veil is lifting. Truths are coming to light. And although this awakening can feel dark and overwhelming, it is also necessary. We are being invited to reclaim our power.

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
~ Maya Angelou, poet, civil rights activist

Long-term exposure to gaslighting, coercion, and psychological abuse changes the brain. It affects our ability to trust ourselves, make decisions, or feel safe. It creates cognitive dissonance, a deep confusion about what is real and what is not.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”
~ Carl Jung, M.D., Ph.D

But once we see the truth, truly see it, we cannot unsee it. That moment of awareness is the beginning of healing.

So how do we begin to rise from this fog and reclaim our lives?

We take accountability. We begin the journey inward, toward self-awareness, truth, reflection and healing. We question the programming. We pause and listen. We choose intentionally to reframe and then integrate.

When we become mindful, we begin to notice where we’ve abandoned ourselves. We see the fragmentation in our beliefs, habits, and self-worth. And when we meet that brokenness with compassion, we begin to remember who we truly are.

“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”
~ Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW

Healing is not a destination, it’s a courageous, ongoing process. It involves: Reconnecting with our bodies - Feeling what we’ve long avoided - Redefining our values - Setting new boundaries - Choosing nourishing food, movement, sleep, and connection - Creating meaning and purpose from within.

It’s not easy. But it’s worth it and it’s honorable. 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
~ Viktor Frankl, M.D., Ph.D

Transformation begins with individual responsibility, but healing spreads through community. Imagine a world where more and more people chose to wake up, to heal, to reconnect with themselves and each other. Imagine if we all held space for truth, compassion, and radical change.

“When we heal ourselves, we heal the world.”
~ Mark Nepo, poet, spiritual teacher

The power to heal ourselves is also the power to heal our world. That is the invitation. That is the revolution.

“Once you see the truth, there is no turning back.”

~ Susan Dongarra~

Let us begin.

"Trauma is a psychic wound, lodged in our nervous system, mind and body, lasting long past the originating incident(s), triggerable at any moment.  It is a constellation of hardships, composed of the wound itself and the residual burdens that our woundedness imposes on our bodies and souls; the unresolved emotions they visit upon us; the copying dynamics they dictate; the tragic or melodramatic or neurotic scripts we unwittengly but inexorably live out; and not least, the toll these take on our bodies."

~Gabor Mate, MD~

The Myth of Normal

"Trauma is about loss of connection - to ourselves, to our bodies, to our families, to others, and to the world around us."

~Peter A. Levine, PhD~

"Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions.  It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think."

~Bessel van der Kolk, MD~

The Body Keeps the Score