Articles on Trauma and Relationships
Anxiety is a Messenger
CPTSD anxiety isn't regular anxiety. It's a messenger from unresolved trauma. Learn five ways it shows up and why befriending it works better than managing it.
The False Safety of Withdrawal
Withdrawal feels like protection but it sabotages the closeness you want. Learn why complex trauma makes distance feel safer than connection, and how to shift it.
Stop Shaking the Baby
High sensation seeking feels like aliveness, but it's often a sophisticated way to avoid healing. Learn why intensity keeps you stuck and how to find your way to calm.
The Strongest Nervous System Wins
In every room, the most settled nervous system sets the emotional tone. Learn how to become that person, whether you're leading a team or calming a fight with your partner.
The Intelligence of Flight
We're taught that standing your ground is strength. But the flight response is often smarter, saves more energy, and protects your relationships. Learn when leaving is the best move.
What to Do About Shutdown and Sexual Trauma
You've stopped wanting intimacy. Your body goes numb the moment it begins. That's not a choice — it's shutdown from sexual trauma. Learn what's happening and how to heal.
Why to Plan for Aggression (in Trauma Healing)
You're finally healing and then you snap at the people helping you. That's the kickback — aggression that surfaces as your nervous system moves out of shutdown. It's normal.
More is Not More
You think intensity means progress. It doesn't. The Window of Tolerance is where healing happens, and you keep blowing past it. Learn why slowing down is the only way forward.
Foundational Trauma Skills for the Body (Part 2)
Your body already knows how to heal trauma. Learn grounding, resourcing, and orienting — three somatic skills that help your nervous system find its way back to safety.
Foundational Trauma Skills for the Body (Part 1)
It sounds counterintuitive to go towards the trauma when your body, mind, and emotions are screaming at you to run away. But by learning to sit with what is already here, bit by bit, we gently befriend our responses and learn to tend attentively to our own needs. It’s an intrinsically healing process.
Why Stress Keeps Looping (and What to Do About It)
The stress won't stop because you haven't finished the cycle. Your nervous system is stuck in replay. Learn what completing a stress response actually looks like.