Unresolved Childhood Experiences

As children, we don’t have the tools, language, or brain development to deal with scary and overwhelming stuff. Our nervous system is still learning how to handle stress, so when something big happens, we shut it down and bury it to survive.

And, by now, I think we all have realized that just because it’s buried or shut down doesn’t mean it’s gone.

These emotions and experiences often stay stored in our body and subconscious. Like shoving a monster in a box, throwing it into a closet, and locking the door. Throughout our lives, more gets piled on… beliefs, defenses, habits, coping mechanisms. And without realizing it, we start to treat that original experience like it’s too big, too dangerous, too much to touch. Ultimately untouchable, unmanageable…yet still very present.

Now in adulthood, we easily become triggered. It can be as simple as tone of voice, a rejection or being seen, a silhouette, a loss. Suddenly, you’re overwhelmed, anxious, angry, or shut down, and you might not even know why. Your system kicks right in to protect you, reacting like it did ‘back then’, and you didn’t even have to ask it to.

Our bodies are wired with automatic defenses, tension, numbness, disconnection (or fight, flight, freeze) that try to stop us from revisiting painful memories. These defenses were helpful once, but now they can make healing feel harder than it needs to be.

It’s kind of like your inner child standing in front of that closet, convinced there’s still a monster inside.

But now you have an adult self—wiser, stronger version of you who can say, “We’re safe now.” And when you do, you might find that what’s in the closet isn’t nearly as terrifying as you imagined. Facing these old wounds doesn’t always feel as intense or dramatic as we expect.

Our adult self can meet these old pains that linger in the body, grounded and much more secure than once before. We are much more available to hold ourselves with courageous intent. We are able to offer a hand to our heart and ask our tears what they have to say.

In my Somatic training, I was so relieved that the therapy objective was ‘meeting the nervous system as it is…right here, right now.’ I would have done everything not to have to relive what was.

We’re not trying to fix the past. We’re not even necessarily trying to remember it. We’re meeting the present-day imprint of what the nervous system held onto from back then.

The body doesn’t operate in past or future, it responds to what feels true now. I remember feeling so relieved when I learned this. What feels true for me now is I am safe, and that is where I can do my healing from…the now, my present time. Thank goodness we don’t have to drag ourselves through old stories, we get to listen to the nervous system in real-time…right now, in the safe containers we feel most held in.

The version we’re experiencing now is happening in a body that’s better equipped to handle it. It’s not the full-body terror of a scared child—it’s a memory, a feeling, a symbolic echo. Still important but no longer overwhelming.

When we start to work with the body, calming the nervous system, softening those defenses…it gets easier. The emotional weight spreads out, becomes more manageable, and starts to move through. The story becomes something we can hold with compassion instead of fear.

Somatic Meditations

When I work with my somatic therapist or work-in somatic tools throughout my day, more often than not, I’m left thinking, “Wow... that was it?” I am able to meet my body and all it’s stored from a place of presence, willingness and strength, and that has changed everything.

My high love,

Tiffany

I AM Here.