Trauma is the most misunderstood word in the wellness world.
Trauma is not the event. It is what happened inside your nervous system as a result of the event. This is why two people can go through the same experience and one is traumatised and one is not — not because one is weaker or more sensitive, but because their nervous systems processed the experience differently.
And here's what happens when something comes in that you can't handle: you push it away. But energy doesn't stop. It has to go somewhere. And so it goes round and round like a Tesco trolley with a broken wheel. Not leaving. Not resolving. Just forever circling. And that becomes a pattern. A sensitivity. A trigger. The reason a perfectly ordinary Tuesday can feel like a full emotional emergency.
The present moment standing there going: 'Hello? This is just a slightly awkward email?' And 1994 going: 'I RECOGNISE THIS FEELING. CODE RED.'
The feeling itself moves through in ninety seconds if you let it. Nine years of running from ninety seconds of feeling is an extraordinary amount of cardio for something that takes a minute and a half.