A Little Background on Trauma
People throw around the term “trauma” pretty freely these days. So what actually is trauma and are all these things that people call “traumatic” actually trauma? It depends (of course).
Trauma is not just what happened to you. It’s also what happened inside you as a result.
Another way to think about it is that what happened was the spark. The trauma is what’s still burning inside.
And trauma can take all kinds of shapes and sizes. Yes, it can look like experiences with war, abuse, or natural disasters. Trauma can also look like being a kid who had to keep it together because no one else around you could. It can be the breakup that shattered your sense of identity. It can be the way your body still goes into fight-or-flight in meetings, relationships, or family dinners.
Trauma isn’t defined by the event—it’s defined by the impact. And the effect it has on us is going to be one of the main factors in determining how we heal from it. Healing is a process. A frustrating, nonlinear, sometimes-glacial, sometimes-miraculous process.
If you’re wondering what that process actually looks like in therapy, here’s a breakdown of how we approach trauma work at LightLine.
Phase One: The Work Before the Work
If you’re going to start talking about the hard stuff, you need to feel safe doing it. That doesn’t mean you spill your entire life story on day one. It means therapy starts by creating a space that feels real, not performative. One where you don’t feel judged, rushed, or like you’re supposed to have a tidy narrative about something that nearly broke you.
This phase is about building trust—not only with your therapist, but with yourself. Trauma messes with your sense of safety in the world, in relationships, even in your own body. So before any “deep work” happens, we slow down.
We listen to the nervous system. We notice what feels tolerable, what feels too much, and we work together to make the process manageable.
The goal here is to make sure your system doesn’t get re-traumatized in the name of healing.
Phase Two: Making Sense of What Never Made Sense Before
Trauma doesn’t live in your brain like a neatly labeled file folder. It’s stored in pieces—in images, sensations, reactions, even silence. Some people remember everything in vivid detail. Others remember almost nothing but still carry the weight of what happened every day. Both are valid.
Reprocessing means helping your brain and body digest what they couldn’t at the time. This might look like talking through memories, exploring stuck emotions, connecting old experiences to current patterns, or using methods like EMDR to process trauma nonverbally.
You don’t need a perfect memory to heal. You need a willingness to sit with the mess—with the grief, the confusion, the anger, the loss. And you need a therapist who can hold the weight with you, not just nod along.
The goal here is to reclaim the parts of you that got lost in the chaos.
Phase Three: Integration, Not Erasure
When trauma is unresolved, it hijacks your reactions, your relationships, your choices. You might say yes when you mean no. You might shut down or explode and you’re not really sure why. You might feel stuck in stories that no longer fit who you are—or who you want to be.
Integration is about updating those stories. It’s about weaving what happened into your narrative in a way that feels empowering. You don’t erase the past or forget what happened. You make peace with it. Sometimes that peace is loud and victorious. Sometimes it’s quiet and hard-won. Either way, it’s yours.
And part of that healing happens in connection—with friends, with chosen family, with community.
The goal here is to keep whatever happened to you and whatever feelings/responses you had as a result from running the show.
So…How Do You Know If You’ve “Healed” From Trauma?
Healing doesn’t mean you never get triggered again. It means when you do, you know what’s happening. You don’t spiral for days. You don’t question your entire existence. And you know how to come back to yourself.
You realize that you’re no longer running in survival mode, but there’s actual whole-hearted joy to be had. You can trust your gut again.
You can stop organizing your life around avoiding pain and start prioritizing what actually matters to you.
Trauma work isn’t about going back to who you were before. It’s about becoming someone who gets to feel safe, connected, and whole again—even if you never got to before.
If you’re ready to do the work, we’ll meet you there.
At LightLine Therapy, we help individuals who have worked their whole lives to succeed in spite of their trauma or pain that’s been waiting beneath the surface. We provide deep, insight-driven therapy that helps you move through what happened—and into who you’re becoming. Schedule a free consultation to get started.
FAQS
1. What kinds of experiences can leave emotional wounds?
Emotional wounds can come from obvious events—like abuse or loss—but also from more subtle but chronic stressors: growing up with emotionally unavailable parents, being in high-pressure environments, or constantly having to “hold it all together.” Learn more about how we help clients through life transitions that leave a deeper impact than expected.
2. Do I have to remember everything clearly for therapy to work?
Not at all. Painful experiences don’t always show up as clear memories—they live in your body, your reactions, and your relationships. Trauma therapy helps you process what was too overwhelming to make sense of at the time.
3. How is EMDR different from talk therapy?
EMDR helps you reprocess unhealed experiences without needing to recount every detail. It taps into how your brain and body store those experiences so you can move through them without getting stuck. Learn more about EMDR and other ways to heal from trauma here.
4. How do I know if therapy is actually helping me heal?
Progress doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s subtle—feeling more grounded in conflict, bouncing back quicker after a hard day, or noticing that old triggers don’t hit quite as hard.
P.S. Want a tool to start exploring what you’re feeling now?
Check out the Feelings Wheel. You can rotate it, download it, or bring it into session—especially if “fine” has been your default setting for years.
