04/15/2026
What Hides in the Body After Trauma
When I recently shared a graphic in a blog post listing different types of trauma, one category stopped me cold: "Animal Attack."
We tend to associate trauma with childhood wounds or intergenerational pain. But trauma has a much wider reach than most of us realize — and some of its most impactful forms go completely unnoticed.
Last year, I was attacked by a dog.
I've lived in a dog-friendly apartment complex for six years. In all that time, I never had a single difficult encounter with a dog. I've had cats hiss at me — but you know cats. They can be persnickity but they come around eventually.
It was April. I was heading out for an art opening, bouncing out my front door in good spirits. A woman stood in the distance, leash in hand, her dog relieving himself further beyond her. I registered the scene and kept moving.
Then I saw movement.
The dog was running — toward her, then past her — and in one giant leap, landed on my left shoulder. Its mouth closed around my left forearm. I was nearly knocked off my feet but somehow stayed upright, wobbling.
I looked at my arm. Deep indentations from teeth. No blood.
OK. No blood. I'm OK.
I was reeling — dizzy, seeing spots, feeling strangely displaced from my own body. I looked over at the woman.
She said, "What happened?"
I said, "Your dog attacked me."
"Oh, he never does anything like that," she said, and walked away.
I sat in my car and thought about calling the police. But having been a police officer, I knew what a Friday night looked like at the station. I knew it meant animal control. After-hours complications. No blood — they might defer the whole thing to Monday. And her dog could be taken. In my foggy state, I convinced myself it wasn't that bad.
I looked down at my arm. It was swelling and bruising rapidly.
I had promised my friend I'd attend his daughter's art gallery opening. So I went.
(Can you feel me abandoning myself?)
When I arrived, two friends walked up with looks of horror on their faces. "What happened?" They inspected my arm — one ran for ice, another found Advil, a third offered to drive me home. I refused. I was already there. It would be fine.
I stayed. I saw the art. I spoke to the artist and her family. Then I went home.
The next morning I had a pre-scheduled massage. Good timing, I thought.
My massage therapist took one look at me and said, "What happened?”
I shrugged (with great pain).
“Here,” he said, touching my left shoulder.
I told him. He hugged me and I was shocked when I broke down, surprised at the depth of emotion that poured out.
He worked the area carefully. As I was leaving, he said one word: "Chiropractor."
Monday morning, at the chiropractor, I walked into her office and she gasped. "What happened?"
Everyone around me was noticing what I was only catching up to. Impact. Damage. Denial.
After all, I help other people heal. I don’t need it myself!
X-rays revealed whiplash. I had always associated whiplash with rear-end car accidents. She explained it differently.
"It happened sideways. Your right side was bracing to stay upright — instinct. Your left took the impact, and your neck went two different directions at once."
I am grateful my injuries were visible to the trained eyes around me. Not everyone is so lucky.
What followed was months of chiropractic adjustments, cold laser therapy, and massage to bring my body out of pain.
But that physical healing was only part of it, and this I was aware of.
I still had the energy of that animal inside me.
As an empath, I could feel it — the residual fear, the uncertainty about whether the pain would return, and beneath it all, the absolute fury of that animal, still living in my Energy Field.
Trauma shows up in the body as unwanted, uncomfortable, or even painful sensations. A Soul Awareness Healing session goes into those areas to resolve what the trauma left behind — blocks, scars, numbness, a need to avoid certain feelings, or fears that seem to have no logical source.
And in my case? There was also the embarrassment of having ignored every sign my body was sending me because I’m focused on helping others.
Big joke on me.
Of course, I got the energy healing I needed. The fears subsided. I can pet dogs again. I also reported the incident to my apartment manager. The woman denied everything — but the complex had cameras. It turned out there had been a prior incident with the same dog. She was evicted.
But the real lesson wasn't about the dog or the woman.
It was this: we are remarkably skilled at denying, ignoring, rationalizing, and diminishing what lives in our bodies. Some of us do it for decades. We retreat into our heads, live from the neck up, and resist the body's quiet — and not so quiet — complaints.
The body, however, does not forget.
It doesn't forget unless it is gently, intentionally coaxed to release the trauma at its deepest root — in the Energy Body, where it first took hold.
If you are carrying something — an old wound, an unresolved fear, a discomfort you've learned to live around — please don't wait. The body will keep asking. And if left unaddressed, it will eventually ask louder.
Learn more about Soul Awareness Healing: thesoulheals.com/soul-awareness-healinr
