Frank Anderson, MD, 30 Domino Drive, Concord, MA (2025)

11/28/2025

Regaining connection to your own clarity is hardly ever talked about in trauma healing.

Many people lose access to instinct and intuitive knowing after trauma. Even as kids, we can feel when something isn’t right. But when those signals are ignored, dismissed, or gaslit, we learn to second-guess ourselves instead.

Over time, that sense of “something’s off” gets buried under fear, confusion, and everything it took to get through what happened.

If you’ve lived through trauma, especially the kind that made you doubt your own perception, it makes sense that self-trust feels far away. You might ignore your gut, question your needs, or assume others see things more clearly than you do.

Healing invites something different: slowly rebuilding your connection to your own inner signals, the ones that got disrupted in the process of surviving.

That clarity isn’t gone. It’s just been overshadowed by the protective habits that helped you cope.

So what helps? 👉 It often starts with noticing how protection shows up in your body compared to how clarity feels.

🔹Protective reactions tend to be fast, urgent, or all-or-nothing.

🔹Clarity usually feels quieter and more grounded. And when your system is stressed, it’s much harder to access.

As your nervous system feels safer, you regain access to the parts of the brain that support perspective, calm decision-making, and a more reliable sense of what feels right for you.

And we don’t do this alone. Self-trust is shaped both internally and through relationships. We heal by listening to our own signals and by being with people who are safe to lean on — people who help us name what we’re feeling, make space for our perspective, and never override or shame us in the process.

The goal isn’t to always trust your gut or never trust it. It’s learning to tell the difference between fear and genuine insight. That’s what real self-trust becomes over time — not certainty, but a clearer inner sense of “this feels right for me.”

11/27/2025

The holidays can make gratitude feel a lot more complicated than people admit. If you’re going through something hard, all the talk about joy and thankfulness can feel a little tone-deaf…almost like it highlights the gap between what you’re “supposed” to feel and what you actually feel.

And that’s completely understandable.
When your system is overwhelmed, your brain isn’t reaching for gratitude; it’s just trying to keep you safe.

There’s nothing wrong with you for not feeling what the season expects.

Gratitude can support healing, but only when it grows out of something that actually helps your body settle - feeling supported, feeling understood, or simply having a moment that isn’t as heavy.

Start there. Those moments matter, and they make space for gratitude to return in its own time.

11/26/2025

If you’ve ever heard yourself say something to your child and thought, “Oh God… that sounded just like my parent,” it hits like a punch to the gut.

Most people respond by beating themselves up: What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I stop? Why am I doing the very thing that hurt me?

But beating yourself up never creates change. It just pushes you deeper into the very patterns you’re trying to break.

And those patterns aren’t always about being “overwhelmed.” Sometimes you’re scared.
Sometimes you’re trying to protect your child the only way you were taught. Sometimes a small moment hits a deep, unhealed place.

And sometimes your body just defaults to the blueprint it was handed.

None of this excuses hurtful behavior.
But it does explain why “trying harder” hasn’t worked.

Real change starts with pausing long enough to understand what was actually happening inside you a not from shame, but from clarity.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself in the moment:

❓What was I trying to do just now—protect, control, prevent, avoid, or calm? (There’s always an intent behind the reaction, even if it came out harsh.)

❓What did that moment touch in me - fear, old helplessness, rejection, shame? (Your child activated a wound, not a flaw.)

❓What did I need growing up that I didn’t get here - reassurance, patience, softness, space? (Whatever you needed then is usually what your child needs now.)

❓What would help me respond from the adult me, not the protective, wounded me?

When you meet these moments with honesty and compassion instead of shame, your system actually starts to learn something new.

Breaking the cycle doesn’t start with never messing up.
It starts with noticing, repairing, and choosing again.

11/20/2025

Finding the right therapy can be a struggle for most people. You’re hurting, you know you need help, and yet you’re expected to somehow know which treatment model fits your history, your nervous system, and your goals.

Most people don’t. They pick someone kind, or available, or covered by insurance—and hope it works.

The truth is, different issues require different modalities.

Talk therapy can help you understand your story, but it may not reach what’s held in the body.

Somatic work can regulate your nervous system, but it might not help reorganize your narrative.

Coaching can support real-life change, but it won’t resolve stored trauma on its own.

⚠️No single approach fits every person or every wound.

This isn’t about finding a “perfect” therapist; it’s about finding an integrative approach that honors the complexity of what you’ve lived through.

So if you’ve felt stuck in therapy or wondered why your progress feels slow, it might not be a lack of effort. It might be that you’re using the right intention with the wrong tools.

Here are a few questions I encourage people to ask themselves:

✔️Is this therapist trained in trauma-specific modalities, or am I trying to heal trauma through methods that weren’t designed for it?
✔️Do I leave sessions feeling understood, supported, and safer in my system?
✔️Does this approach help me make changes in my day-to-day life, not just in the therapy room?

When your treatment matches the way your mind and body hold trauma, things finally start to shift in a meaningful way.

11/20/2025

Most people think storytelling is powerful because it lets you “express yourself.” But the impact goes far deeper than expression: your brain changes when your story is witnessed.

When someone is present with you—really present—your nervous system receives signals it never had during the original experience: You’re safe. You’re not alone. Someone sees what happened.

That shift matters, because the memory that once lived in isolation finally has a new context. That’s what rewires the brain.

And here’s the other half we rarely talk about: witnessing changes the listener too.

When someone hears your story with openness, their own system softens. They recognize parts of their pain in yours. Your honesty gives them language, permission, and a sense of safety they didn’t even know they were missing.

This is the science of why healing is relational.
We don’t just tell stories—we co-regulate, we make meaning, and we reorganize our internal worlds through connection.

11/18/2025

Sometimes what looks like “commitment issues” is really your nervous system doing its best to protect you.

When you stop judging the part of you that pulls back and start getting curious about it, everything begins to shift. Safety (not pressure) is what makes connection possible.

11/14/2025

We all have behaviors that protect us - some obvious, some hidden in plain sight.

Overworking. Numbing out. Staying busy. Getting defensive.

They’re not random. They’re adaptations your system learned to survive pain you weren’t ready to face.

Instead of suppressing them or judging them, try asking:

👉 What might this behavior be protecting me from feeling?
👉 And what might it need instead – understanding, rest, or connection?

That’s where real healing begins – not in fighting your behaviors, but listening to what they’re trying to show you.

11/14/2025

There’s a difference between acknowledging what hurt you and rehearsing it until it becomes who you are.

At first, reliving the story feels protective. Your mind thinks, If I can just understand it enough, I’ll finally feel safe. But the brain learns safety through experience, not rumination.

Each time you revisit the wound without resolution, your nervous system fires the same survival pathways - tightening the loop between what happened then and what you feel now.

Sometimes we replay the story because we still feel unseen. When justice never came, when no one protected you or believed you, retelling it can become the only way your pain feels real.

In that sense, holding on isn’t weakness - it’s belonging. It’s your system trying to say, This mattered. I mattered.

But over time, that survival loop can start to shape how you see yourself - organizing your life around the very wound that deserved care, not identity. You start anticipating rejection, mistaking vigilance for strength, confusing protection for personality.

The way out isn’t erasing the story - it’s helping your body learn that being seen now is possible. Every moment of calm, connection, or self-compassion teaches your system a new truth:

The danger is over.
You made it through.
You’re safe to be witnessed in the present, not just remembered in the past.

11/13/2025

I recently had the honor of sitting down with - an incredible organization in LA that provides hope, training, and community for people who were formerly gang-involved or previously incarcerated.

Homeboy is modeling what a trauma-informed community can look like - one that meets people with understanding instead of shame, and offers corrective experiences that rebuild trust, safety, and belonging.

Their work is rooted in kinship: the belief that every person is inherently good, and that what we do is not the same as who we are. That’s the foundation of trauma healing.

In our conversation, we explored the science and spirituality of trauma healing - how to release pain, rewire the brain, create healing through connection, and so much more.

📺 Link in bio to watch the full conversation on YouTube.

11/13/2025

Gaslighting messes with more than your mind. It gets inside your body.

You start second-guessing your memories, your feelings, even your instincts. And after a while, it’s not just about that person anymore. It’s about how unsafe it starts to feel to trust yourself.

That’s the part that hurts the most, losing confidence in your own inner compass.

But here’s the good news: the same brain that learned to survive confusion can learn safety again. Slowly, through validation, steady relationships, and moments when your body finally realizes, I’m not in danger anymore.

11/07/2025

When we talk about “the body,” we often mean physical sensation—a racing heart, tight chest, or heavy limbs.

But the body is more than muscles and movement. Trauma can live in any sensory channel — a flash of an image, a sound that startles, a phrase that still echoes inside.

If healing only focuses on physical release, we overlook the other ways the body remembers.

Integrative trauma therapy honors the whole body — the ways we feel, see, hear, and sense our past — so every part of our experience has a chance to heal.

11/07/2025

We all have behaviors we can’t stand but can’t seem to stop: numbing, overworking, controlling, people-pleasing, shutting down, lashing out.

The details differ, but the shame feels the same.
Most of us try to change by getting tougher: I hate this about me. I have to stop.

But here’s the paradox: hate and harsh judgment keep the pattern alive.

🧠 When you attack yourself, your nervous system registers threat.

🧠 Threat turns on the amygdala, narrows attention, and drives you back into the same automatic habits you’re trying to escape.

🧠 Shame floods the system with stress hormones and quiets the part of your brain that allows choice, flexibility, and self-control.

In short: you can’t rewire from a state of self-attack. Real change happens when the body feels safe enough to try something new.

💭Disliking a behavior and wanting to change it can be productive. It means you’re noticing what no longer serves you.

💔Hating the behavior - and by extension, yourself for having it - keeps your system on guard.

Guarded bodies don’t experiment; they defend.
So when you feel that familiar frustration rise, try curiosity instead of contempt.

👉 Ask, “What was this behavior trying to protect me from?”

That’s where real transformation begins. Because you can’t change behaviors you hate, but you can understand the ones that once kept you safe.

Frank Anderson, MD

11/28/2025

11/27/2025

11/26/2025

11/20/2025

11/20/2025

11/18/2025

11/14/2025

11/14/2025

11/13/2025

11/13/2025

11/07/2025

11/07/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category