This is a personal theory supported by trauma research…

Mindfulness, meditation and stillness practices are widely recommended for emotional well-being, anxiety, stress and mental health. They are used in therapy rooms, schools, GP practices, yoga studios and community programmes. And for many people, these practices are genuinely supportive.

However, it has been my experience—both personally and in my work with clients who have Post-Traumatic Stress and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress—that mindfulness is not always safe to introduce. In some cases, it can be deeply triggering and even retraumatising.

This has led me to a theory, which I offer gently and with curiosity:

For people who have experienced trauma, the act of being still, silent, and inwardly focused can resemble the physiology of the freeze response that occurred during the trauma itself.

And if the environment of the original trauma involved silence, immobility, helplessness, dissociation, or being unable to speak or move (which is extremely common), then mindfulness may unintentionally pull a person back into the bodily memory of terror.

During a traumatic event, especially one the nervous system could not escape:

  • The breath becomes shallow or holds.
  • The muscles become still.
  • Awareness narrows inward.
  • Speech disconnects.
  • The body freezes while waiting for danger to pass.

These are the same conditions often encouraged in mindfulness:

  • “Sit still”
  • “Notice your inner world”
  • “Be quiet and present”
  • “Let go of thought”
  • “Don’t move”

So instead of peace, the survivor’s nervous system may experience:

  • Flashbacks
  • Panic
  • Emotional flooding
  • Dissociation
  • A sense of being trapped inside their own body

Not because they are “doing mindfulness wrong.”

But because their nervous system is doing what it learned to do to stay alive.

There Is Evidence to Support This!

Although this is my lived observation and practice-based theory, it is also aligned with established trauma science:

  • Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges) explains that the body returns to states it associates with survival when certain conditions are recreated.
  • The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk) demonstrates how trauma is stored somatically, not cognitively.
  • Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness (David Treleaven) documents how meditation can retraumatise survivors if used before safety is established.
  • Ruth Lanius, MD has shown in neuroimaging studies that stillness and internal focus can activate traumatic memory networks.

So while mindfulness can be extremely beneficial after regulation skills are developed, introducing it too early can be harmful.

Over time, I have learned that I can often understand the level of unresolved trauma in a client by noticing:

How long they are able to sit still, quietly, with themselves—without anxiety, panic, dissociation, or emotional overwhelm.

This is not a test.

It is not a judgment.

It is simply information.

Stillness tolerance is a nervous system indicator.

Clients who have lived in prolonged survival states are often:

  • Restless
  • Activated
  • Unable to tolerate silence
  • Uncomfortable turning inward
  • In motion even when seated (foot tapping, shifting, avoiding eye contact)

This is not resistance.

This is their body protecting them.

Because for them, stillness once meant danger.

I noticed this very clearly when I used to meet clients at a local Priory.

We would begin in the coffee shop — a comfortable, neutral space where quiet conversation could happen naturally. There was movement, background noise, warmth, and the simple safety of being around others without being exposed.

But when I gently invited clients to walk through the Priory afterwards, a pattern emerged.

Almost every time, within a few minutes of stepping into the vast quiet stillness of the Priory, I would see the same responses:

  • a leg beginning to shake rapidly
  • fingers, nails or skin — biting or picking without awareness
  • twirling or pulling at hair
  • breathing becoming shallow, held, or heavy
  • eyes scanning corners, shadows, exits
  • tears rising suddenly
  • or an urgent need to leave the building

Their bodies were not responding to the Priory itself.

Their bodies were responding to what the stillness represented.

In many traumatic experiences, survival involves:

  • holding breath
  • holding still
  • going quiet
  • freezing and waiting

So when the nervous system encounters stillness, silence, or spacious quiet, it can interpret it as:

“This feels like then.”

“We are not safe.”

This is not avoidance, lack of motivation, or “not being ready.”

It is cortisol and adrenaline flooding the system — the body protecting itself the way it once had to.

So we learned to walk instead.

Movement helped regulate what silence activated.

Safety came through rhythm, pacing, and presence — not stillness.

What looked like “fidgeting” was actually:

The body remembering.

The body protecting.

The body surviving.

And it made complete sense.

There are times when stillness isn’t just uncomfortable — it’s unbearable. For some of us, the nervous system needs movement in order to settle at all.
I learned this in my own healing. I used to cycle through town at a speed that, looking back, could probably have earned me a medal or two if I’d cared to train for it. But I wasn’t cycling for fitness or achievement — I was cycling to survive. The movement burned through the adrenaline, cortisol, and fear that my body had never been able to release. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was instinctively doing exactly what my nervous system needed.

So when I began to notice the same patterns in clients — the restlessness, the panic, the inability to sit still in silence — I started offering bikes. Not as exercise, but as regulation. Cycling in nature gives the body somewhere to put the energy that stillness activates. The rhythm of pedalling, breath, air, ground, landscape — it allows the survival energy to move through instead of stay trapped.

We still offer bikes to clients who want them — and it continues to have remarkable success.

Because for many, healing begins with movement, not stillness.

When we stay truly present with someone — actively paying attention, remaining curious, and holding space rather than becoming afraid of their emotional expression and closing them down — the nervous system receives a very different message. It says:

“You are allowed to exist here. Your feelings make sense. You are not too much.”

It is not the technique that heals, but the quality of presence in the moment of activation.

So When Does Mindfulness Become Safe?

After:

  • Education about trauma and the nervous system
  • Building emotional literacy
  • Creating relational safety
  • Practicing grounding with movement, sound, pacing, and breath
  • Developing the ability to return to safety after activation

Then — mindfulness becomes something different:

Not re-entry into fear,

but a return to self.

Not freeze,

but presence.

If This Resonates With You

Please know:

➤ You are not failing.

➤ You are not broken.

➤ You are not “bad at mindfulness.”

➤ Your body is protecting you the best way it knows how.

There is nothing wrong with you.

There is something right with your system — it learned how to survive.

Mindfulness may still become a helpful resource for you.

But not by forcing stillness.

Only after safety is reclaimed.

And safety is built, not instructed.

The following works have contributed to the evidence, understanding, and clinical grounding that support this perspective:

 

Bessel van der Kolk (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

Viking.

— Demonstrates that trauma is stored somatically and can be retriggered when internal states resemble past threat.

Stephen W. Porges (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation.

Norton.

— Explains how the nervous system automatically shifts into survival states based on perceived threat, including freeze.

David A. Treleaven (2018). Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing.

Norton.

— Provides evidence that traditional mindfulness can retraumatise survivors if introduced before regulation capacity is established.

Ruth A. Lanius, Eric Vermetten & Clare Pain (Eds.) (2010). The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic.

Cambridge University Press.

— Neuroimaging evidence showing how stillness and inward attention can activate traumatic memory networks.

Peter A. Levine (1997/2015). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.

North Atlantic Books.

— Details how freeze and immobilization are survival-based states stored in the body, not psychological weakness.

Pat Ogden & Janina Fisher (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment.

Norton.

— Explains why internal awareness practices must be paced slowly for trauma survivors, to avoid somatic overwhelm.

Benjamin Fry (2018). The Invisible Lion.

Harper Thorsons.

— Metaphor of the invisible lion to describe ongoing nervous system threat perception when no danger is physically present.

Janina Fisher (2021). Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: A Workbook for Survivors and Therapists.

PESI Publishing.

— Shows how trauma-based shame becomes an internal identity, reinforcing survival responses.

Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy.

Norton.

— Demonstrates how internal focus can trigger stored somatic memories if not supported by grounding and attunement.

Lanius, R., Frewen, P., Vermetten, E., & Yehuda, R. (2010). Fear Conditioning and Early Life Trauma.

Oxford University Press.

— Explores how the nervous system learns to associate internal states with threat.

Additional Research on Difficult or Adverse Responses to Mindfulness

Willoughby Britton et al. (2019). Can Mindfulness Be Too Much of a Good Thing?

Brown University / Cheetah House Research.

— Examines dissociation, panic, and trauma resurfacing during meditation.

Lindahl, J.R., Fisher, N.E., Cooper, D.J. et al. (2017).

The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges.

PLoS One, 12(5).

— Documents that meditation can activate traumatic memory and emotional overwhelm.