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Journey to Healing:
Trauma • People-Pleasing • Relationships • Dissociation
Healing from trauma isn’t easy—but you don’t have to figure it out alone. This blog is a safe place to explore what it really means to recover from childhood wounds, break free from people-pleasing, and navigate the ups and downs of relationships after trauma.
As a trauma therapist serving women in North Dakota and Minnesota, I share insights, tools, and real-talk guidance about topics like:
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Understanding the effects of trauma on the nervous system and relationships
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Finding freedom from anxiety, guilt, and shame
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Supporting healing if you live with dissociation or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
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Practical strategies to set boundaries, care for yourself, and move forward
Whether you’re searching for hope, wanting to understand yourself better, or curious about therapy, you’re in the right place. Healing is possible—let’s take this journey together.
Breaking the Cycle—How to Stop Putting Everyone Else First
For many, putting others first felt like the only safe option. Maybe advocating for yourself led to rejection, conflict, or guilt. But constantly putting yourself last can lead to chronic stress, resentment, and emotional fatigue.
Jul 4, 20251 min read
Understanding & Managing Flashbacks
Flashbacks are involuntary, intrusive experiences where past trauma resurfaces in a way that feels like it's happening all over again. For some, it's visual—seeing scenes from a traumatic event. For others, it's more emotional or sensory—smelling something familiar, feeling panic without explanation, or noticing your body stiffen or freeze.
Jul 1, 20252 min read
People-Pleasing vs. Healthy Compassion—What’s the Difference?
Many people confuse people-pleasing with compassion. They believe if they’re compassionate, they must say yes, avoid conflict, and always put others first. But healthy compassion looks very different.
Jun 27, 20252 min read
Parenting After Trauma: Breaking Cycles and Building Connection
If you’re a trauma survivor raising children, you may feel the weight of wanting to do things differently—wanting to break generational cycles, show up with more patience, and build a safe and nurturing environment for your child. And yet, old wounds can sneak in. Your nervous system may feel constantly on high alert. You may second-guess yourself often. You may feel overwhelmed by your child’s emotions—especially if you were never taught how to handle your own.
Jun 24, 20252 min read
How to Start Setting Boundaries Without Feeling Like a Bad Person
People-pleasing is often a survival strategy—especially for those who grew up in chaotic, unpredictable, or emotionally unsafe environments. You learned that being agreeable and accommodating kept the peace. You learned that saying yes meant staying connected.
Jun 20, 20253 min read
Trauma and Spirituality: How Faith and Spiritual Practices Can Support Healing
Trauma can challenge core beliefs about safety, trust, and the world’s fairness. It may leave survivors feeling lost, abandoned, or disconnected—not only from themselves and others but also from their spiritual beliefs. Some may question their faith or feel anger toward a higher power. Others might find new or renewed spiritual meaning that helps them rebuild and find peace.
Jun 17, 20252 min read
The Cost of Always being the One Who Says Yes
People-pleasing might feel like the “right” thing to do—until it starts to chip away at your sense of self.
You might feel anxious all the time, constantly worried about what others think of you. You might carry guilt for things that aren’t even yours to hold. You might feel resentful toward others—even though you’re the one who agreed to help.
Jun 13, 20252 min read
Navigating Grief After Trauma: Exploring the Complexities and Finding Healing
Trauma survivors often experience grief not only for what was lost but also for the ways trauma has changed their lives, relationships, and sense of self.
Understanding these complexities is an important step toward healing and reclaiming hope.
Jun 10, 20252 min read
You’re Not Broken—You’re Conditioned: Rewriting the People-Pleasing Narrative
People-pleasing isn’t a character flaw. It’s a survival strategy—one your nervous system learned to rely on when you were younger, often in response to trauma, emotional neglect, or unsafe relationships. When being yourself didn’t feel safe, you learned to be who others needed you to be. When setting boundaries led to rejection or punishment, you learned to stay quiet and go along to get along.
You adapted in the best ways you could, not to manipulate or seek attention—but t
Jun 6, 20252 min read
Understanding the Different Types of Dissociation: It’s More Than Just Spacing Out
Dissociation is a way your mind disconnects from reality to protect you from intense distress. It can involve feeling detached from your thoughts, body, emotions, or surroundings. While mild dissociation, like drifting off during a boring meeting, happens to most people occasionally, chronic or severe dissociation is often rooted in trauma.
Jun 3, 20252 min read
How Dissociation Can Affect Your Daily Life Without You Realizing It
Dissociation is a natural defense mechanism that allows your mind to disconnect from overwhelming thoughts, feelings, or experiences. It’s often linked to trauma, but it can also occur in response to stress, anxiety, or even boredom. While dissociation serves as a protective response, it can interfere with your ability to fully engage in life and cause disruptions in your emotional and physical well-being.
May 30, 20254 min read
How EMDR Helps with Complex Trauma: What to Expect in a Session
EMDR is a therapeutic approach developed to help individuals process traumatic memories by using bilateral stimulation. The goal of EMDR is to desensitize the emotional charge attached to these memories, allowing them to be processed and integrated in a healthier way.
While it was initially developed for PTSD, EMDR has proven effective for many types of trauma, including complex trauma. By reprocessing distressing memories, EMDR helps individuals reduce the emotional intensit
May 27, 20254 min read
How People-Pleasing Shows Up in Relationships
People-pleasing isn’t about being nice—it’s about survival. Many of us learned to prioritize others’ emotions as a way to feel safe, accepted, or loved. But when that pattern becomes automatic, it can lead to resentment, burnout, and a loss of connection with your own needs.
May 25, 20252 min read
What ‘Feeling Numb’ Really Means: A Look at Emotional Dissociation
Emotional dissociation is a psychological phenomenon where a person feels disconnected or detached from their emotions, thoughts, or even their sense of identity. It’s as if your mind and body are no longer on the same page, causing you to feel like you're outside of yourself. This disconnection can manifest in a variety of ways, from feeling numb to having difficulty experiencing joy or sadness, or even forgetting certain events or aspects of your life.
May 23, 20254 min read
What CPT Therapy Is and How It Helps with Trauma Recovery
At the core of CPT is the idea that trauma can distort our thinking patterns, leading to negative beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. These distorted thoughts, also known as "stuck points," can prevent healing and cause individuals to feel trapped in the trauma’s grip. Through CPT, clients work to identify these stuck points, challenge them, and replace them with healthier, more balanced perspectives.
May 20, 20254 min read
5 Subtle Signs You Might Be a People-Pleaser
These patterns were likely learned, not chosen—and that means they can be unlearned too. Healing from people-pleasing isn’t about becoming selfish or cold—it’s about coming back to yourself with love, boundaries, and a voice that’s finally heard.
May 18, 20253 min read
The Connection Between Childhood Trauma and Dissociation in Adulthood
At its core, dissociation is a protective response. It’s the mind’s way of disconnecting from something too painful, overwhelming, or threatening to fully process at the time. Dissociation can show up in many different ways, such as:
Feeling numb or emotionally "shut off"
Losing chunks of time (memory gaps)
Feeling like you’re outside of your body
Detaching from your surroundings (feeling like the world isn’t real)
Zoning out during stressful situations
May 16, 20252 min read
IFS Therapy Explained: How Getting to Know Your Parts Can Help You Heal
In IFS, "parts" are inner voices or subpersonalities that each carry their own perspective and role. You might recognize some of your parts without even realizing it—like the part of you that gets super anxious before a big event, the part that criticizes you when you make a mistake, or the part that pushes you to achieve and succeed.
May 13, 20253 min read
Why People-Pleasing Isn’t Just ‘Being Nice’—It’s a Trauma Response
One of the most important truths I want you to hear is this: You are not broken. Your people-pleasing isn’t a flaw—it’s a brilliant protective strategy that helped you survive. But patterns that kept us safe in the past can hold us back in the present.
Healing begins when we can approach these parts of ourselves with compassion. We can start learning that our needs matter too. That saying “no” doesn’t make us selfish. That we are allowed to take up space, have boundaries, & p
May 11, 20252 min read
Grounding Techniques That Actually Work When You're Dissociating
When you're caught in dissociation, it can feel like there’s no easy way back to the here and now. The good news is: it is possible to ground yourself again—and you don’t have to figure it out alone. Let's talk about some grounding techniques that actually work when you're dissociating.
May 9, 20253 min read
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