Dispatches from the front lines of trauma healing.
I’ve been writing about trauma healing, PTSD, CPTSD, and wellbeing for almost 15 years, exploring what it means to be a high-performer making impact in the world — without sacrificing health or happiness.
The 7 Steps of Relationship Repair
Knowing how to do relationship repair neutralizes perfectionism. We aim for our best behavior — and when we miss the mark, our ability to quickly and easily repair the rupture creates emotional safety.
When Close Isn't Safe
It's easy to label someone “rude,” “needy,” or “frustrating,” without understanding that they’re behaving this way because closeness doesn't feel safe.
How We Retraumatize Ourselves (and What to Do About It)
Much of what passes for "healing" or "personal development" can cross into risky territory for those of us with complex trauma.
Stop Shaking the Baby
It took me decades to realize that my high sensation seeking wasn't healing, but a sophisticated form of avoidance.
The Entity Will See You Now
We have a right to our own mind and cognition – to our cognitive boundaries of selfhood. We can’t prevent ourselves being manipulated by AI systems that are smarter than us.
When Tolerance is a Bad Thing
I would've said that I was mostly fine. But underneath that “fine” was hopelessness and exhaustion that I’d learned to tolerate because I couldn’t find the way out.
Not Alone in the Dark
It was many decades into my trauma healing journey that I gave up my fear in the dark — the flashbacks of childhood terror that awakening in the middle of the night would inevitably summon.
Why It's Hard to Savor the Good Stuff (in Trauma Healing)
Most of us who carry unresolved trauma find it easier to go towards the pain and the struggle. We often balk at the invitation to explore pleasure, dismissing it as frivolous or out of touch with reality.
The Mask of High-Performance
It’s a trap to focus on high performance as a way to gain love, safety, and belonging. There's always another task to excel at or a new level of high-performance to attain.
Transforming Touch in Trauma Healing
Our nervous systems are wired to relax into profound states of healing and restoration when we receive safe touch from people we care about.
The Disloyalty of Healing
Healing means betraying the values and beliefs of our families and venturing into new territories, uncertain yet determined to create our own cultures of care.
The 3 Foundations of Intimacy (and Relationship Repair)
All relationships experience inevitable shifts from harmony into disharmony. With skill, we can reliably shift into repair and reconnection.
You Are Not Food: Breaking Free from Non-Reciprocal Relationships
One of the harmful impacts of growing up in homes with entitled or grandiose caregivers is an ongoing vulnerability to non-reciprocal relationships.
Perfect is the Enemy of Safe
Many of us who grew up with complex trauma (CPTSD) in our families learned, from an early age, that getting it "right" is a precondition for attention and love.
Cultural Complicity and Complex Trauma
Society teaches us to dismiss and minimize the impacts of complex trauma, insisting we “Grow up and get over it,” instead of turning towards it with understanding so it heals.
False Empowerment and Trauma Healing: 5 Patterns to Watch Out For
Here are five common ways that false empowerment shows up in the trauma healing journey — and what to do about them.
Managing CPTSD During Holiday Family Gatherings: 5 Essential Skills
As adults, it's our responsibility to calm ourselves, when our nervous systems are activated. When we change how we respond, we have a better chance of connecting to the people we love from a place of curiosity and care.
From Shame to Strength: Understanding Boundary Collapse in Relationships
Certain people strategically respond to boundary-setting as if we’re causing them harm. This catalyzes a boundary collapse pattern that is a hallmark of CPTSD.
Why We Freeze During Intimacy (And How to Feel Safe Again)
Freezing during sexual intimacy is a common but rarely discussed impact of sexual trauma. To heal, we need to focus not on the mind, but on the nervous system.
How to Feel Deeply Heard (When Trauma Makes it Hard)
Until we learn new relational skills, our communication styles are often at odds with our desires for relationships. These trauma patterns aren't our fault, but they are our responsibility to change.