Articles on Trauma and Relationships
Complex Trauma and Emotional Safety
You long for connection but other people don't feel safe. Hypervigilance, push-pull, and the terror of intimacy aren't character flaws. They're signs of complex trauma.
How We Sabotage Relationships Without Knowing It
You were punished before you could understand why. Now you project that wrongness onto the people you love. Learn how childhood shame creates relational sabotage.
How to Create Secure Relationships (With Trauma in the Mix)
Trauma distorts how you attach. But attachment styles aren't fixed. Learn 10 ways to build security with your partner, even when your nervous system says closeness isn't safe.
Mapping Our Attachment Style
Attachment styles aren’t fixed personality traits. They’re nervous system patterns shaped by your earliest relationships. Learn the four styles and how trauma shifts them.
Escaping the Trap of Performativity
You learned what sexuality is "supposed to" look like from culture, media, and religion. But none of it is you. Learn how performativity replaces authentic intimacy after trauma.
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.
Trauma and Self-Loyalty
You betray your boundaries to keep the peace. You abandon your needs to feel loved. Self-loyalty means refusing to treat yourself the way others treated you. Here's how.
Thrive on Purpose
Numbness isn't aging. Boredom isn't maturity. The grey flatness of your life is unresolved trauma dimming the volume on everything. Here's what's waiting on the other side.
The Holidays Require Special Skills
Everyone else is celebrating. You feel emptiness, dread, and a loneliness you can't explain. That's not a character flaw. It's developmental trauma surfacing during the holidays.
How Trauma of Any Kind Shows Up During Intimacy (and What to Do)
The trauma doesn't have to be sexual for it to show up during intimacy. Any unresolved trauma in your nervous system can hijack arousal. Here's the neurobiology of why.
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.
Why Neuroception is a Trauma Healing Superpower
Your nervous system decides whether someone is safe or dangerous before you even think about it. When trauma distorts that signal, everything feels like a threat. Learn how neuroception works.
21 Signs of Unresolved Sexual Trauma (that You Can Heal)
You might not remember what happened. But your body does. Here are 21 signs that unresolved sexual trauma is still showing up in your life, and why every one of them can heal.
The Taboo of Healing with Pleasure
Culture says healing must hurt. Research says the opposite. Pleasure isn't a reward for healing — it's the mechanism. Learn why your nervous system heals through goodness, not suffering.
The Reality of Post-Traumatic Growth
Post-traumatic growth is real. Here are 12 signs that your nervous system is healing, from feeling safe in your body again to enjoying intimacy and knowing what you need.
The Sacred “No”
You were taught that your "no" was inconvenient. Now you freeze, fawn, or apologize when you should be holding your ground. Learn what was taken from you and how to get it back.
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.
The Two Types of Trauma (and Why to Know the Difference)
You thought trauma looked like a war movie. It doesn't. There are two types, and the one most people carry is invisible, even to themselves. Learn the difference.
The Mother Inside
"I don't want you to write." My mother said it once. The part of me that copied her has said it a thousand times since. Learn how to reshape the inner caregiver who's still running your life.