We need to talk about trauma.

When most people hear that word, they think of an event. A big, scary, obvious moment that takes us off guard and leaves us feeling unsafe. And yes, an event can certainly be traumatic.

But it’s my mission for you to understand this: the event comes and goes. It ends.

The trauma is what happens after. It’s the unhealed wound. It's the way your nervous system adjusts and adapts, the way that experience continues to influence how you navigate life, see yourself, and interact with others in a negative or self-limiting way.

If a horrible childhood experience from 30 years ago is still influencing how you relate to your family today, that’s the trauma. We can’t change the past experience, but we can absolutely heal the wound.

The Myth of "Big T" vs. "Little t" Trauma

People like to categorize trauma into "big T" and "little t." I understand why, but it's not how I see it. I see every experience as being impactful. I've worked with countless clients who were influenced in the exact same ways, whether their traumatic experience was overt and obvious or something much harder to see.

This is where the idea of a "paper cut laceration" comes in.

Think about the big, overt experiences—surviving a natural disaster, witnessing a significant crime, physical or sexual assault. Anyone looking at that would say, "Wow, that's traumatic." It’s a gaping wound that everyone can see.

But what about what I call the "mist of dysfunction"? This is the constant, chronic, pervasive stress that leaves you feeling unseen, unheard, unimportant, and unsafe. It isn't a single event; it's the air you breathed. It’s covert.

In this case, you don’t have a gaping wound. You have a paper cut.

Ninety percent of the time, I don’t even know I have a paper cut until I’m cooking and some lemon juice or salt gets into it. Then I look down and say, “Oh my gosh, look at that.” And it hurts. It hurts a lot.

Some of my clients are walking around with hundreds of these internal paper cuts on their soul, on their heart space. These are things that wounded them at their core, but nobody can see them. Often, this "mist of dysfunction" was the norm in their family, community, or culture, so no one ever saw it as impactful.

These wounds may be small and invisible on the surface, but they are equally profound.

If my writing on healing resonates with you, I invite you to join me on Instagram for more support. There, I share daily insights and tools to help you heal anxiety from within, drawing from my work as a Trauma Care Specialist. Let's connect!

Join me on Instagram: @staceyuhrig

Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Can't Name

So how does this show up? It’s not always a clear story. This is the difference between explicit and implicit memory.

* Explicit memory is what you can recall with language. It's the story of an event that you can relay back to me.

* Implicit memory is a sensation, a feeling, a memory held in the body. You don't have language for it.

It’s that feeling when you walk into a room and a pit forms in your stomach. It’s the tingling in your chest or the hairs on your arms standing up, but you don't know why. Your body is remembering something your conscious mind can't articulate.

This is why many people don’t connect their current struggles to past experiences. I have a list of 27 common trauma responses that people don't realize are connected to unresolved wounds. They include things like:

* Brain fog

* Anxiety

* Chronic fatigue or illness

* Chronic inflammation

* Breaking out in hives

* OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

* Suicidality

These aren’t random symptoms. They are often the language of an unhealed wound that doesn't have words.

You Were Your First Gaslighter

The first step to healing is awareness—understanding how our lived experiences have impacted us in ways we never realized. But often, the biggest barrier to this awareness is ourselves.

In many ways, we are our own first gaslighters.

If you grew up being told to "fluff it off" or "just let it go" when an experience impacted you, you learned to do that to yourself. You started saying things like:

* "It wasn't that big of a deal, so it shouldn't be bothering me."

* "I had clothes on my back and food on my table. What do I have to complain about?"

We diminish our own experiences. Then, decades later, we don't understand why we're stuck.

My mission—through my Instagram, my podcast, and my work—is to generate awareness on a massive scale. I want more people to have the understanding that their lived experiences were exactly as impactful as their nervous system is telling them they are.

Your feelings are valid. That wound is real. And it can be healed.

If this resonates with you and you're ready to explore healing in a safe container, I invite you to join the waitlist for The Calm Code. This is where we do this work together.

You can click here to learn more and sign up: flipyourmindset.com/thecalmcode

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