It is the posture of my heart to extend generosity; I genuinely believe that most parents are doing the best they can with the emotional tools, resources, and capacities available to them. Unfortunately, sometimes this is simply not enough to support secure attachment in a child. Parenting is an extraordinary responsibility, and the demands of raising a child can exceed a parent's ability to consistently provide the emotional attunement that child needs. When this happens, an

The impact of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) on sexual development is significant and often overlooked. While many treatment models focus on symptom reduction—managing anxiety, depression, or dysregulation—it's just as important to address how trauma shapes an individual’s relationship to their body, intimacy, and sexuality. When therapy fails to address this domain, many people continue to struggle despite making meaningful therapeutic progress in other areas

A striking pattern shows up in families impacted by childhood trauma: the person who seeks therapy is often the only one who ever does. In many cases, it’s just one individual across multiple generations who chooses to examine what happened. That person is rarely “typical” within their family system. More often, they are wired differently—sensitive and emotional—and that difference is part of why they felt the impact of their environment so deeply in the first place.

The trauma repetition compulsion is the unconscious drive to recreate past painful experiences, often in relationships, behaviors, or emotional responses. The nervous system seeks familiarity - even when it’s harmful - because we conflate predictability with control and familiarity with safety. With awareness and identification of your patterns, there is a strategic way to stop these behaviors and make meaningful, adaptive change.

Trauma-informed care (TIC) is the cornerstone for individuals seeking a path to healing at Sensing the Self. This compassionate approach centers on creating an environment that prioritizes safety, trust, and validation. When dealing with challenging emotional experiences, understanding your trauma can become the first step toward profound mental health enhancement.

The subcortical brain and autonomic nervous system work in tandem to keep us safe in the face of threat, perceived or actual. With physical threat, we rely on the fight, flight, freeze response to activate and keep us physically safe (think of the proverbial lion creeping through the grass of the Serengeti about to attack a gazelle. In a split second, the gazelle activates to either fight back, run away, or freeze in the hope that the lion will lose interest in the attack).

Healing trauma requires that we approach our early childhood experiences with curiosity and compassion to contextualize our experience and work towards understanding and healing.