I wanted to share some thoughts around the experience of trauma, and hope they might be helpful in your own life journey.
When we hear the word trauma, we tend to think of car accidents, natural disasters, or big, dramatic life events. But according to renowned physician and trauma expert Dr Gabor Maté, trauma isn’t what happened to you—it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happened. That definition might just shift the way you think about your own life, in fact it is true to say that the ‘body expresses, what the mind suppresses’, and maybe your body is trying to tell you something.
Dr Maté has become one of my favourite authorities on trauma, and he reframes trauma not as the external event, but as the internal wound it leaves behind. It’s not the shouting match, the divorce, or the neglect in and of itself—it’s the sense of fear, abandonment, unworthiness, or shame that burrows in quietly and stays. Trauma, he says, is not the story of what happened to you, but the adaptation your nervous system made in order to survive it.
This means that two people could experience the same situation, and one may walk away relatively unscathed, while the other carries deep, unseen wounds. It isn’t about the event’s scale or even intention—it’s about the emotional impact and the story your body and mind told themselves in response.
And that’s why trauma isn’t always obvious. You might think, “But I had a good childhood,” or “Nothing that bad happened to me.” But trauma isn’t limited to catastrophic events. It can come from subtle, chronic disconnection—like never feeling seen or soothed, being told your emotions were “too much,” or always having to be the “strong one.” These experiences might seem ordinary, but they can quietly disrupt our sense of safety and self.
Trauma shapes how we see ourselves
Trauma shapes how we see ourselves, how we trust (or don’t), how we respond to stress, and how we form relationships. It lives in the nervous system, not just in memory. That means its effects can linger—showing up as anxiety, chronic tension, emotional reactivity, or a sense of disconnection.
The good news? Because trauma is an internal wound, it can also be healed. Dr Maté speaks often about the importance of compassion—especially self-compassion—in that healing process. We begin to recover when we stop blaming our adopted coping mechanisms and start understanding them. When we view our anxiety, our avoidance, or our people-pleasing not as flaws but as once-necessary survival strategies, something softens in us and we appreciate our own instincts to try and keep ourselves safe.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting or dismissing what happened. It means tending to the part of you that was hurt—not the child who wasn’t comforted, not the teenager who was silenced—but the adult now who can reach inward and say, “I see you. I get why you’re still hurting. And I’m here now.” We can also do some work on our inner child and in another of my articles I will address what this is and how we can work on bringing more compassion to our ‘younger self’ on this journey.
Trauma may not be your fault, but healing is your right. And it begins not by looking outward, but by gently turning in. By facing your fears, with support either of a loved one or a professional you can start to feel you are able to treat yourself with compassion. By giving yourself an opportunity to release yourself from your past pain, you can free up space to bring more joy into your life, and turn the corner on your journey of surviving, to having a life that is positively thriving.
Give yourself a hug, and a virtual one from me to you, and start today with your own reflection on those coping mechanisms that you may want to change.
