Therapy for Overcoming Trauma
You know that you have stuff to unpack, stuff that you’ve pushed down, denied, ignored, told yourself didn’t matter. You know that it impacts the way you see yourself and the world, you know the ways that it limits you, keeps you feeling stuck living a life you’re only half satisfied with. You’ve lived with it lurking in your life for so long and you can’t imagine a life without it, but oh how you’d like to. You’re ready to start facing the past, because you recognize it’s standing in the way of your future.
Understanding the past
We are shaped by all the experiences we have, good or bad. These experiences influence how we interact with others, how we show up in the world, what we believe ourselves capable of, and our general outlook on life.
The likelihood is that if you’re reading this and you’re nodding along, you’ve been through some stuff that’s been pretty heavy, that’s had an outsized impact on your life, and you probably have been dealing with it all alone.
Traumatic experiences or adversity leave us feeling disconnected from the world and ourselves. We can feel hijacked from the past and out of control in the present. We cope as best we can, but our in the moment coping—scrolling, spending, substances, spacing out—often leave us feeling worse in the long run.
You often feel empty and you know why, but you aren’t sure how to start feeling differently.
Healing begins with understanding the past, the impacts of trauma, and learning new ways of coping that don’t make life harder on yourself. Once you begin to understand your emotions and reactions and begin to care for yourself with compassion, we can turn towards unpacking and making peace with the past, so that you can move forward to a brighter, more connected future.
Unpacking and healing from the past: Trauma Focused therapy
Likely you’ve carried the past with you for so long that life without it seems impossible. Imagine though that you can live a life where the past happened, but it does not dictate the present or influence the future—a life where you are fully present, where you can notice and allow all feelings, a life where you let others really see you and where you can show up fully human, a life where you feel whole and capable.
In our work together, we’ll help you build that kind of life. We’d do that by giving you the tools to face the past, make peace with it, learn any lessons you might need from it, and then allow it to simply be one part of your story.
One way I'll help you face the past and make peace with it is through exploring the negative beliefs you hold about yourself because of the past through EMDR therapy, a somatic, nervous-system focused treatment that helps you connect to your inner wisdom and see the past not as you were then, but from what you know now.
An example of Kintsugi, a Japanese tradition where broken pottery is repaired with gold.
““The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
moving towards a brighter future: Building a life after Trauma
Making peace with your past allows you to fully imagine—and live—the life you’ve always longed for, the life you survived for.
We’ll help you break out of the ways that you’ve been living small, staying too far into your comfort zone, and help you build a life that lights you up.
What could your life look like, if you were no longer weighed down with the past? Reach out today to begin to let go of the weight of the past and step more fully and confidently into your life.