Hanna Hanna

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Because of the emotional neglect, the body doesn't have a felt (embodied) experience/memory of being emotionally safe, nurtured, held, seen, contained and regulated. There’s no resonance or memory to remind your body, “Oh, I felt this before. I know I can always come back to this.”

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How neglect shows up in the body:

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- an emptiness, a void, a lifelessness or an abyss that feels frightening, like pulling you into a black hole

- a visceral fear that you experience of your body or being in the body

-difficulty in making sense of what's happening in the body, especially emotionally.

- an emotional unresponsiveness or delay

- an outside focus and expectation for others to meet your needs or validate your experience

- instead of feeling emotions in a nuanced way, you might feel what I call "default" emotions: anxiety, anger, sadness. When the opportunity to feel emotions is present, the system blocks it and instead responds with anxiety, anger or sadness. So, instead of feeling shame, you feel angry. Instead of feeling discomfort, you feel anxiety.

- not knowing how to hold yourself within your own boundaries; often experiencing life through extremes.

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Healing neglect precedes healing of any other trauma as any other trauma healing requires the capacity to hold, contain and regulate ourselves emotionally.

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Healing neglect is about awakening the neurobiological and emotional pathways that perhaps have never been alive, stimulated and embodied.

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For more resources, insights and frameworks on healing emotional trauma and its impact on the nervous system, you can check the book Embodied Healing via the link in bio.

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Love,

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1. SAFETY means that the nervous system feels secure, protected, resourced and able to regulate the intensity of emotional, physiological, psychological and relational responses. Safety is about having a stable somatic foundation from which to engage with the world.

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When this need is not sufficiently met (embodied), the nervous system adapts through survival strategies/roles to substitute for the lack of safety. Survival means seeking safety in adaptive ways.

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When this dynamic becomes ongoing, we experience an internal conflict between 2 opposing needs: the need for safety (still unmet) and the momentum to seek safety in survival ways because that's what the system did for so long.

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2. CONNECTION: Humans are social beings, and our nervous system has a profound need for connection. This goes beyond human connection; The nervous system is an interconnected system. It needs to feel itself as part of Nature.

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When this need is not met or insufficiently met, the nervous system will perceive the relational field (internal, external) as unsafe and adapt through isolation from Nature or codependency, for example.

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3. ACTIVATION (To Be Safely Mobilized). Mobilization of energy, stimulation, excitement, curiosity, play.

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4. REST (To Be Safely Deactivated). Relaxation, rejuvenation, rest, sleep, integration

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Activation/Deactivation is the core cycle through which our nervous system regulates our inner life. When this cycle is disrupted, the nervous system engages more energy in self-protection.

Healing means the path of restoring and embodying these 4 core needs.

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Inside the book Embodied Healing, I offer many trauma and nervous system-informed frameworks and insights to address these 4 needs and build a sustainable healing momentum. Link in bio to get your copy.

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Love,