You don’t have to meditate for an hour or escape to the mountains to calm your nervous system.
Sometimes, it starts with sitting still.
Letting the earth hold you.
Noticing your breath.
Noticing that you are breathing.
For trauma survivors, slowing down can feel unfamiliar — even unsafe. But regulating your nervous system doesn’t mean forcing peace. It means offering it, gently. In tiny, doable moments.
You might be high-functioning on the outside but living in survival mode underneath. You’ve just been doing what it takes to survive each day.
And now, maybe, it’s time to feel safe enough to live. Just developing little micro moments of connection to nature can start to help your nervous system settle and begin to feel safer.
#nervoussystemregulation #nervoussystemhealing #nature #grounding #trauma
If you were the one your family relied on—emotionally, practically, or even physically—you may have been parentified.
That means you weren’t allowed the emotional safety or freedom of being a child. Instead, you took on roles that belonged to the adults in your life.
You were praised for being mature, helpful, or “wise beyond your years”—but inside, you were overwhelmed and alone.
Now, as an adult, you might feel like you have to be the strong one all the time. You struggle to ask for help. You over-function in relationships. You feel guilty when you’re not productive.
This is the legacy of parentification: high-functioning, hyper-independent, emotionally fatigued adults who learned to earn love by abandoning themselves.
But you can learn a new way.
You can stop parenting everyone else and start reparenting the one person who needed you most: you.
Trauma therapy can help show you another way. Because you deserve to heal.
#parenting #reparenting #innerchildwork #innerchild #attachment
As a Counselling Psychologist specialising in treating trauma survivors I have learnt so much about adversity and how it impacts individuals. Here are my top ten:
1. Trauma isn’t always about what happened to you.
Sometimes it’s about what didn’t happen - the love, safety, or attunement you never received.
2. Complex trauma is deeply misunderstood.
Many people are misdiagnosed with conditions like EUPD or bipolar, when what they’re really living with is unresolved, layered trauma.
3. Trauma isn’t about comparison, two people can go through the same event but experience it completely differently — trauma isn’t about impact and how the nervous system responds.
4. Trauma isn’t just flashbacks and nightmares. It hides in plain sight showing up as chronic pain, fatigue, inflammation, autoimmune issues, gut problems - even long after the traumatic event is “over.”
5. Avoidance never works. Whether through substances, overworking, or emotional shutdown - pushing it down keeps the trauma loop going.
6. High-functioning trauma is real. Some of the most successful, capable people I’ve worked with are deeply traumatised — they’ve just learned to survive by performing and pleasing.
7. You don’t have to remember everything to heal.
Healing is about regulation, safety, and connection - not perfect recall. You can process your past with limited memories.
8. There is never a perfect time to start therapy. Waiting for the most stable situation doesn’t always work because some people have never experienced stability and probably won’t until they’ve processed some of their past.
9. Trauma disconnects us from ourselves. Many survivors don’t even realise how much they’ve lost touch with their own needs, desires, or instincts.
10. Healing is different for everyone. Setbacks are part of the process. It’s not about being “fixed,” it’s about learning how to feel safe enough to live more fully. And it’s possible.
One of the most rewarding parts of my work is that people really can find hope and healing through trauma therapy.
Get in touch if you want to know more ❤️
#traumatherapy #traumahealing #traumarecovery #traumasurvivor #complextrauma
