Trauma makes you feel afraid when you’re safe. It tells you everything is fine when you should be running away. It is exhausting not knowing when you are safe and when you are not.
The purpose of trauma therapy is to help your body authentically know when you should rest and when you should act. Are you reliving something that your mind knows is over? That’s the trauma talking.
Good trauma therapy approaches the healing of trauma much like one would rescue someone from a well. One does not rescue a person in a well by jumping headfirst into a well—Ouch! Good trauma therapy gets a rope and ties it to a tree first. What makes you feel safe? What feels good? How do you know when you are actually safe?
We will go into the well of your trauma when we know we can come out. We will only go as deep as we need to go to help you feel better right now. You’ve already been through something hard; “going there” and getting help does not mean reliving the worst moments of your life. Let’s respect the ways you protected yourself in your past while helping you prepare for what you want for yourself now. Sometimes, creating change includes saying goodbye to patterns we no longer need, and goodbyes are hard but fruitful.