Trauma is any event or circumstance that results in physical, emotional, or life-threatening harm.
Emotional abuse is relational trauma.
Voice notes, emails, and text messages don’t leave purple marks that can be covered up with makeup or disguised with sunglasses. But when you are in a power-under relationship with a family member, friend, or co-worker, episodes of emotional violence can leave you trembling, hyper-vigilant, rattled, and afraid, just like a physical attack.
The damage may be hidden, but the trauma is real. There may not be eyewitnesses, video footage that would stand up in court, or a single, identifiable incident of acute threat, but ongoing psychological maltreatment is a legitimate cause of complex post-traumatic stress disorder that can leave deep scars.
Single-Incident/Acute Trauma:
Violent or sexual assault
Life-threatening illness or serious injury
The traumatic loss of a loved one or someone close to you
Witnessing violence
Crime or Accidents
Natural disasters
Childbirth
Suicide attempt
Complex/Recurring Trauma:
Childhood abuse
Domestic violence
Neglect
Abandonment/betrayal
Bullying/harassment
Emotional, physical, verbal, or sexual abuse
Overly strict upbringing
Generational trauma
Racism and discrimination
Ecological trauma
Did you know?… A threat to our sense of belonging lights up the same parts of our brain (secondary somatosensory cortex; dorsal posterior insula) as an experience of physical pain on a functional MRI scan.
The design of our brain’s survival mechanisms are based in our early evolution as a social species. We are designed to co-regulate, feel each other’s emotions, care for each other, and to be in relationship with other humans. This is why exile and isolation are the most severe forms of punishment we know, and why both relational trauma and physical injury are perceived by our nervous system as significant threats to our survival.
Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress: Complex Trauma
Complex trauma, or ongoing incidents of relational wounding can make a person feel very anxious, and it can be hard to regulate their emotions. They may struggle to maintain healthy relationships, or they may have a distorted sense of self. After a person experiences events that leave them repeatedly feeling unsafe, scared, or helpless, they may display some or all of the following symptoms of post-traumatic stress:
Flashbacks
Intrusive thoughts
Memory lapses/difficulty concentrating
Constantly being “on alert”
Dissociation/numbing/substance abuse
Mood swings/confusion
Anger
Anxiety and depression
Withdrawing or isolation
Trouble sleeping or having nightmares
Difficulty in interpersonal relationships
Low self-esteem
Fatigue
Negative self-perception
Headaches
Upset stomach
Chronic illness
Shame
Attachment wounds leave deep scars.
The lack of secure attachment in a child’s early years has been linked to a large number of mental illnesses, unhealthy coping strategies, and addictive behaviors. When children experience neglect, abandonment, or a primary caregiver who is chronically unavailable or dysregulated, this form of exile creates a core wound to our sense of belonging in the world. Even intra-uterine and generational trauma can stay with us into adulthood, causing us to experience chronic anxiety, depression, and a lack of connection.
When we bring care and attention to our childhood wounding, we can start to recognize the patterns and strategies that were once essential for getting our needs met, but are no longer serving us. With that information, we can start to offer ourselves the love and care we didn’t get to receive when we were young, and transform our relationship to belonging in the world.
Turning Poison into Medicine: My Journey through Relational Violence
There was a time when I felt like a volcano ready to erupt every day. After my divorce, I faced panic attacks, overwhelming chronic pain, and a simmering rage that threatened to consume me. The constant triggers, the toxicity around me, and the chaos of breaking free from narcissistic abuse left me emotionally drained and utterly exhausted.
Eventually, I hit a deep low—a dark night of the soul where I came face to face with my shadows, the tremors of ancestral rage, and the grief of a planet in crisis. Post-traumatic growth is real, and the darkest hour heralds the dawn. From the muck blossoms the lotus. Training in mindfulness and somatic psychotherapy helped me learn and apply practical skills for setting effective boundaries around my mental real estate, reclaiming my time, tending to my heart, and nurturing my creative spirit.
Through it all, I’ve meditated… Every… Single… Morning… as a non-negotiable and radical act of self care. I do this as an investment in my future self and in my entire family and community system. I sit so that I can be steady and grounded enough to be responsive and available when I am called to service. I spend time actively tending to my heart, so that I can connect deeply with my daughter and be the mother to her that (as an adoptee), I did not get to have. Along the way I gained a toolkit of skills that I have been fortunate to share with hundreds of educators, students, school leaders, and helping professionals and I have seen the ripple impact spread far and wide.
Helping Leaders and Survivors Turn Outrage Into Engaged, Mindful Action
One breath and one step at a time I learned trauma-sensitive practices that allowed me to honor my story and welcome my wounded parts back from exile. Now it is my privilege to guide the next generation of change makers, high-impacrt leaders, disruptors, climate activists, and creative healers toward collective wellbeing, engaged action, and our universal humanity.
It is time to apply these skills on a widespread level. In times like these we must refuse to perpetuate harmful cycles of abuse and we must believe that healing is possible. We must become radical and fierce in our commitment to systemic wellbeing, raise our voices, and speak it into truth.
Work with me: Start your Healing Journey
My mindfulness practice and somatic therapy training brought me home to myself, after years of alienation, betrayal, and emotional violence. Understanding how trauma is stored in the body and learning tools to regulate my nervous system offered me the opportunity to reclaim my mental real estate, stabilize my attention with anchors in the present moment, and tend to my wounded heart.
Gradually, one baby step at a time, I began to widen my window of tolerance, develop the capacity to ride the waves of emotion, and to learn how to disengage from the conflict in a non-violent way.
I am so grateful for the lessons that my experience taught me, and that now I have the opportunity to raise my daughter in a regulated and compassionate environment, and that I get to share these practices and teachings with other survivors of relational trauma who don’t know where to start.
There are a few different ways you can work with me to learn mindfulness, heal your relational wounds, and come home to yourself: