Why Letting Go Feels Unsafe
People describe this to me in almost physical terms. I asked a woman once what would happen if she stopped checking her husband’s location, and she put her hand flat…
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When Control Starts Running Your Life
There’s a line somewhere, and almost nobody notices crossing it. On one side, you’re using control. You make lists, you plan ahead, you’re the one who remembers the field trip…
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Learning to Be Okay With Not Knowing What’s Next
Your brain would rather have a terrible answer than no answer. That’s not a flaw in you personally, that’s standard equipment. An open question sits in your system as an…
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Learning to Rest Without Withering
A dormant tree is not doing nothing. It’s converting starch to sugar so its cells don’t burst when the temperature drops, hardening off its tissue, and building next spring’s buds….
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The Fear That Comes With Release
There’s a thing that happens in therapy that used to catch me off guard when I was new. Somebody comes in month after month, working hard, doing the reading, sitting…
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Letting Go of What Once Sustained You
I want to start by defending the thing you’re about to let go of, because nobody else will. The people-pleasing kept you safe in a house where somebody’s mood determined…
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Fall Reminds Us That Change Can Be Beautiful
Here is a piece of grade school science that changed how I see the fall coming. Leaves do not turn colors. Not really. The yellows and the oranges were in…
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When the World Slows Down, So Can You
Here is a contradiction nobody names out loud, and once you see it you cannot unsee it. The natural world spends September downshifting. Days shorten, sap withdraws, animals slow down…
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Faith, Safety, and the Nervous System
Refuge. Fortress. Strong tower. Hiding place. Shelter under His wings. A very present help in trouble. Line those words up and notice what they have in common. When the writers…
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Co-Regulation: Healing Happens Around Safe People
Watch a mama with a crying baby and you will see the oldest medicine on earth. She does not explain to the baby that the situation is manageable. She picks…
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Learning to Feel Safe in Your Body Again
Every so often a client shows up ready to charge straight at the worst memory on the first visit. They come at it with machete out and a “let’s go”….
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How Trauma Survivors Can Strengthen Their Minds and Build Lasting Resilience
This is a guest post from a contributing writer. The words and views here are the author’s own. I read every guest submission before it runs. However, publishing is not…
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Freeze Mode: When Your Body Shuts Down
Remember the man from earlier in this series, the one who goes completely blank when his wife raises her voice? We owe him a whole post, because freeze is the…
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Flight Mode: When You Can’t Slow Down
She showed me her calendar like it was evidence, and honestly, it was. Three months, not one white square. Work, church committee, kids’ ball, the extra project she volunteered for,…
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Fight Mode: When Anger Is Armor
Everybody in his life calls him a hothead, and nobody says it to his face. His wife measures her words at supper. His kids read the sound of the truck…
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Sexual Trauma and the Long Road Back to Feeling Safe
I am going to write this one carefully. I will tell you up front what I tell clients: nothing here will be graphic. Some of you need this post. Then…
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Complex Trauma: When the Harm Never Let Up
When I ask some clients to tell me about the worst thing that ever happened to them, they go quiet, and not because the answer is too painful to say….
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Trauma Responses Are Survival Skills, Not Flaws
“What is wrong with me?” A grown man asked me that in my office, ashamed to his shoes, after describing how he goes completely blank when his wife raises her…
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Why Trauma Lives in the Body, Not Just the Mind
You are driving along fine until you pass a certain exit, and your chest tightens before you even register where you are. Or a stranger in the grocery store wears…
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Trauma Is Not What Happened, It Is What Happened Inside You
I have lost count of how many people have opened a first session with some version of the same sentence. “I don’t even know why I’m here. Nothing that bad…