Lived Experience Blog
The Body Remembers
Trauma has a way of embedding itself deep within us, not just in our minds but in our very cells. As Bessel van der Kolk so aptly explains in The Body Keeps the Score, the physical body carries the echoes of past experiences, even when the conscious mind cannot recall them. I understood this…
Understanding Behaviour: A Trauma-Informed Perspective
The Foundations Humans are biologically hardwired to receive care and attention from their caregivers to ensure survival. Like other mammals, human infants rely on their caregivers to meet basic needs such as nourishment, comfort, and safety. For example, when a baby cries, a responsive caregiver…
The Power of Alignment, Congruence and Introspection
The Power of Alignment - Learning to Trust Ourselves Through Self-Awareness, Congruence, and Introspection In a world that constantly pulls us in multiple directions, the concept of alignment has become more essential than ever. At its core, alignment is about living in accordance with our deepest…
The Chaos of Silence: Surviving Work Environments with No Direction
Navigating The Maze Imagine starting a new job full of hope, ready to contribute and grow, only to find yourself lost in a maze with no map, no guide, and no clear destination. No one explains the rules, yet you’re expected to know them. No one tells you how things are done, but you’re still held…
The Inconsistencies in What We Teach
The Inconsistencies in What We Teach - How Adult Behaviour Contradicts the Values We Impart to Children We tell children to “treat others as you want to be treated.” We emphasise the importance of respect, empathy, and kindness. Yet, when it comes to how adults treat children, our actions often…
The Most Important Question Never Asked: “Why?”
In schools across the country, a familiar pattern plays out daily. A student misbehaves — perhaps they lie, swear, have an “outburst,” or exhibit “bad behaviour.” The response? Punishment. Detention. Reprimands. These actions are justified as necessary for discipline and maintaining order.…
When Systems Fail Us…
When Systems Fail Us: The Cost of Exclusion in the Helping Professions When you’ve experienced trauma in your life — and by trauma, I simply mean a dysregulated nervous system — it’s all too easy to internalise the belief that “I’m not good enough.” These words don’t come from nowhere; they are…
Food for Thought
Conveying the experience of living through a dorsal vagus lens to someone who has never felt it is profoundly difficult. Having experienced life through both a dorsal and ventral lens, it's clear that the difficulty goes both ways. Just as it's nearly impossible to convey the weight of dorsal to…
From the Safety of Ventral
If you’ve been fortunate enough to spend most of your life in a ventral vagal nervous system state, you might not fully understand what it’s like to experience a dorsal state. You may not realize the toll it takes when an overactive inner critic constantly drives negative self-perception at every…
Imposter
What is Imposter Syndrome Really? Imposter Syndrome is often described as a persistent lack of self-belief — a chronic sense of self-doubt. At its core, self-doubt is a loss of trust, both in our own judgment and in the judgments of others. This loss of trust is, in many cases, a trauma response.…