14/01/2026
I’ve been feeling increasingly annoyed at what trauma work has become. 😕
Not the work itself.
But the way it’s often been packaged, cleaned up, and controlled.
Somewhere along the way, healing stopped being relational and started becoming about managing ourselves instead of meeting ourselves.
I notice it in how fluently we speak now.
About nervous systems.
About attachment.
About boundaries and regulation.
We’ve learned the language faster than we’ve learned what it’s teaching us.🙃
The nuance of our body’s wisdom.
So much of what gets called “regulation” ends up being control.
Control of feeling.
Control of expression.
Control of discomfort. Ours and everyone else’s.
And my body responds to this immediately.
I feel clenching in my jaw, tightening between my shoulder blades, when calm is treated as morally superior.
When activation is framed as a problem.
When discomfort gets labelled as “dysregulation” instead of information.
That doesn’t feel like healing to me.
It feels like obedience.
I also want to name this honestly. I’m not immune.
I often use the language of the nervous system as a buffer.
Explaining and rationalising instead of feeling.
“Regulating” myself as a way of avoiding something that wanted my attention.
What I’m longing for is a return to relationship.
Relationship with sensation.
Relationship with emotion.
Relationship with the parts of us that aren’t tidy or easy.
For me, healing can be activating, unsettling, and sometimes feel like too much.
And the work isn’t to justify or manage that away.
It’s to tend to what’s moving and notice the patterns we’re being invited to rewrite.
⚠️Trauma work doesn’t need more language.⚠️
It needs more honesty.
More relationship.
More willingness to feel without managing everything away.
Im looking forward to unpacking this more with you over my next few posts... and i am curious what this brings up for you.
You’re welcome to share here or come sit with me in DM 💛