There comes a moment when you realise that the trauma isn't just in what happened back then
It’s in what you’ve come to believe ever since.
About yourself.
About love.
About safety.
What helped me the most was understanding that I didn't have to relive my trauma to heal it. I was allowed to rewrite it. Not through techniques that overwhelmed me again, but through gentleness, through bodywork, through safety in my nervous system.
By finding my way back to myself.
In this blog, I will take you on a journey to discover what trauma really is and how it becomes embedded in your system. You will learn how to use compassion and awareness to let go of patterns that once served your survival but may now be holding you back.
What trauma really is and why it matters
The inner world of trauma nobody tells you about
The word trauma comes from the Greek word for “wound”. But trauma is not the wound on the outside. It is the imprint on the inside.
Trauma is not a fact, it is an experience. It is what happened inside you when something was too much, too fast, too overwhelming.
And your nervous system didn't have the capacity to handle it.
The event may be long gone, but the reaction lives on in your body, your emotions, your beliefs, your behaviour.
Trauma is what you had to push away.
Trauma is what couldn’t happen.
You couldn’t say no.
You couldn’t cry, rage, or ask.
You couldn’t be fully you, so you shut it down, just to survive.
Trauma doesn’t have to be ‘big’
Many people think of trauma as abuse, violence, or loss.
But trauma can also come from:
- Always having to swallow your emotions
- Growing up without secure attachment
- Walking on eggshells as a child
- Being taught that you were “too much”
Trauma is any moment when your nervous system became overwhelmed and no one helped you regulate it.
So you adapted.
You withdrew.
You became hyper-aware.
You learned to scan your environment.
You survived.
How your nervous system stores trauma
Your brain and body work together to keep you safe.
But when trauma happens, three key areas go out of balance:
- Amygdala (your alarm system): stays switched on, even when you’re no longer in danger
- Limbic system (emotional memory): stores pain and repeats familiar patterns automatically
- Prefrontal cortex (rational thinking): shuts down under stress — so your ‘logic’ doesn’t help you out
This explains why you can know something is unhealthy… and still end up in the same pattern again.
From trauma to behaviour: how patterns are formed
The way you once had to survive
shaped how you function today.
- People-pleasing? Maybe love had to be earned.
- Always alert? Maybe you had to read a parent to feel safe.
- Struggle with boundaries? Maybe yours were never respected.
- Drawn to toxic relationships? Maybe your system recognises that as ‘normal.’
You’re not doing this because you’re weak.
You’re doing this because your body still believes it needs to survive.
And here lies the key: If you don't consciously work on rewriting these patterns, your nervous system will keep attracting the same dynamics over and over again. Not because you want to, but because it feels “safe” for your system.
How true healing begins and why it needs to go deeper
Healing isn’t a mental exercise. It requires a holistic approach.
Not just insight, but integration. Not just understanding, but embodiment.
1. Awareness – see the pattern
Recognise your survival strategies
Identify your triggers
See without judgement how your story has shaped you
2. Involve the body – calm your system
Body-oriented exercises, breath-work, grounding
No longer dissociate, but learn to feel again
Build safety from within
3. Rewrite your beliefs
What did you learn as a child about love and your worth?
What beliefs do you still carry with you that are not yours?
How can you embody new truths?
Codependency and trauma. The hidden connection
Codependency is not a character trait, but an old survival strategy.
When love came with conditions,
you learned to adapt, to please, to disappear.
When your boundaries were ignored,
you learned that your ‘no’ didn’t matter.
The road back begins with the courage to feel what you have suppressed for so long. Your needs. Your pain. Your strength.
You don't have to understand it all at once.
You don't have to be strong to start.
All you need is the willingness to take a gentle look at what once protected you but is no longer necessary.
Perhaps you recognise yourself in these words. Perhaps you feel that the time has come.
Whatever step you take, it is a step towards yourself.
And that is always the right direction.
Would you like to discover where you stand?
Take the self-test and gain clarity about your patterns, your place on the codependency spectrum, and how your system may still be in survival mode.