How do you define Trauma through the lens of the Nervous System? 

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Most people think trauma therapy means talking about painful memories.
But the truth is, trauma doesn’t live only in our thoughts. It lives in the nervous system. It’s the part of you that still startles easily, that tightens before you even know why, or that keeps scanning the world for what might go wrong next.

In other words, trauma isn’t just something that happened.
It’s something the body still believes is happening.

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The Nervous System’s Job: To Keep You Alive

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Your nervous system’s first priority is survival. When something frightening or overwhelming happens, it automatically decides what to do: fight, flight, or freeze. These instincts are ancient, fast, and wise. They’re the reason you made it this far in your life.

But if the body never had the chance to complete its responses...to fight, run, shake, cry, or settle...that survival energy can stay trapped inside the body.
And even long after the event has passed, the nervous system can remain stuck “on” (aka hypervigilance, anxiety, etc.) or “off” (aka numbness, exhaustion, etc.).

This is where trauma therapy comes in.

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Trauma Therapy Is Not about Re-experiencing. It’s about completing how you wanted to react in past moments. 

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Through the lens of the nervous system, trauma therapy is about helping the body remember how to come back to safety.
Instead of diving straight into memories, we start by noticing what’s happening right now with your therapist during the session.

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How does your body tell you it’s safe?
How does it tell you it’s not?

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As you begin to notice these patterns, like the subtle tightening of muscles, the sudden holding of the breath, the tiny moments of relaxation, the body starts to pay attention to what it has been holding.

You don’t have to force it. You can give it as long as it needs.

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A Different Kind of Healing

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People often say, “I thought I had to be strong,” or “I thought I was fine.”
But the nervous system doesn’t “move on” simply because we tell it to. It opens up when it feels safe enough to do so.

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In trauma therapy, we create that safety together, moment by moment.
We help the body finish what it once couldn’t, so that you can finally feel the calm that was waiting underneath the chaos all along.

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When Healing Begins to Happen

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There’s a quiet turning point in this work. It’s not dramatic. It might just be the first deep breath that comes naturally, or a sense of warmth returning to your chest.

Maybe your shoulders drop without you realizing it.
Maybe, for the first time in a long time, you feel present.​​​

That’s the body remembering it’s safe enough to live again.

Trauma therapy isn’t about fixing what’s broken.
It’s about helping you come home to the body that protected you, and teaching it that the danger has passed, and it is okay to relax and rest.

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