Love is often described as healing, safe, and comforting — yet for many trauma survivors, love can feel like danger.

In this episode of Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast, host Olga Costa explores why intimacy can activate fear, tension, and emotional withdrawal in those living with PTSD and complex trauma.

Drawing from neuroscience, attachment theory, and lived experience, this episode examines:

• Why the body remembers love as threat
• How attachment and survival systems collide
• Why calm can feel unfamiliar — or even unsafe
• Gentle tools for relearning safety in connection
• How love can become a slow, nervous-system repair

This is a soft, reflective episode for anyone who longs for closeness but feels overwhelmed when it arrives.

🎧 New episodes every Friday at 3:00 PM.

Grief is not an obstacle to healing — it is the healing. In this deeply compassionate episode of Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast, Olga Costa explores how grief becomes the body’s native language for love, loss, and transformation.

Through science, poetry, and lived experience, Olga guides listeners to see grief not as something to escape, but as something sacred — the body’s way of translating pain into meaning. This episode touches on the physiology of sorrow, the unspoken grief of trauma survivors, and how to give yourself permission to mourn what the world cannot see.

Gentle reflection, grounding tools, and a trauma-informed SWOT analysis help you navigate the waves of sorrow with compassion and awareness. Because when you allow yourself to grieve, you’re not falling apart — you’re learning to speak the language of your own soul.

🕊️ New episodes every Friday at 3:00 PM.

🎧 Stay safe, stay soft, and stay curious.

We’re often told to “move on.” To let go, to get over it, to stop looking back. But for survivors of trauma, that phrase can feel like erasure — a demand to abandon the very parts of us that still ache for understanding.

In this reflective episode of Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast, Olga Costa explores the quiet truth behind healing: that it’s not about erasing the past, but learning to move with it. Through lived experience, science, and embodied compassion, she invites listeners to rediscover integration — the process of turning pain into wisdom, and memory into meaning.

You’ll learn why “moving on” can backfire, how the nervous system stores trauma, and how to practice gentler, trauma-informed rituals of remembrance. With a soft tone and deep emotional intelligence, this episode reminds us that healing is not linear — it’s a spiral that keeps leading us home.

🕊️ New episodes every Friday at 3:00 PM.

🎧 Stay safe, stay soft, and stay curious.

For many trauma survivors, receiving — love, care, rest, or even compliments — can feel harder than giving. In this reflective and deeply human episode, Olga Costa explores why openness can feel unsafe, and how our nervous system learns to associate generosity with danger.

Through neuroscience, embodied awareness, and lived experience, Olga gently unpacks the subtle art of learning to receive — from allowing help to flow in, to accepting kindness without guilt. She guides you through small, practical ways to retrain the body and mind to recognize safety, transforming vulnerability into connection.

If you’ve ever struggled to feel worthy of good things, this episode offers a soft and grounded invitation: to rest, to accept, and to believe that you deserve to receive.

🕊️ New episodes every Friday at 3:00 PM. 🎧 Stay safe, stay soft, and stay curious.

After years of surviving chaos, peace can feel heavy. In this episode of Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast, host Olga Costa explores the paradox of calm — why stillness can feel unsafe for trauma survivors, and how the body learns to trust peace again.

Through science, lived experience, and reflection, Olga gently unpacks post-survival dissonance — the restlessness that appears when life becomes quiet. She offers trauma-informed tools to help you redefine calm as safety, not emptiness, and guides you through a mindful reflection to reconnect with your body’s natural rhythm.

Whether you’re healing from trauma, burnout, or emotional exhaustion, this episode invites you to embrace peace without fear, one breath at a time.

🕊️ New episodes every Friday at 3:00 PM.

🎧 Stay safe, stay soft, and stay curious.

In “The Silence After Survival,” host Olga Costa opens Season 3 with a profound exploration of what comes after trauma—the stillness that survivors often meet once the chaos fades. This reflective episode dives into the emotional landscape of post-survival silence, where the body may still whisper danger even as life feels calm.

Olga gently bridges neuroscience, psychology, and lived experience, revealing how silence can hold both safety and fear. Listeners will discover trauma-informed tools for grounding, regulating the nervous system, and learning to rest in peace after prolonged alertness.

Whether you are healing from PTSD, emotional numbness, or chronic stress, this episode offers compassionate insight, practical calm, and space to breathe.

Trust is one of the deepest wounds of trauma—and one of the hardest things to rebuild. In this episode of Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast, Olga Costa gently explores how trauma reshapes our ability to feel safe in connection—with ourselves, our bodies, and others. Through metaphors, lived experiences, and trauma-informed psychology, we unpack why the nervous system flinches even in moments of safety, why closeness can feel like danger, and why betrayal can turn love into fear.

You’ll hear stories of mistrust, reflections on grief hidden beneath connection, and an honest look at what it means to repair—not perfect—our relationships. With reflective questions and gentle, practical tools, Olga offers ways to slowly rebuild bridges of trust: from keeping small promises to yourself, to practicing safe touch, to learning the power of repair in human connection.

This episode is for anyone who feels fragile, wary, or undeserving of love. You are not broken. You are worthy of safe words, safe presence, and safe connection.

Loneliness after trauma isn’t just about being alone—it’s about being unseen. It’s sitting at the dinner table surrounded by voices, yet feeling oceans away. It’s scrolling through social media, longing for connection but fearing it at the same time. In this episode of Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast, host Olga Costa explores the quiet ache of loneliness that often follows trauma.

We’ll talk about how trauma teaches the body to build walls of protection that keep out both danger and love, and why the nervous system struggles to trust connection again. Through stories, metaphors, and gentle tools, this episode offers a path toward understanding loneliness not as weakness, but as a scar of survival.

You’ll discover practices to name and soften loneliness, explore safe micro-connections, and slowly reopen the windows of your heart—one latch at a time.

Because you deserve more than silence. You deserve to be seen.

Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD PodcastEvery Friday at 3:00 PM · Hosted by Olga Costa

In this powerful continuation of When the Body Says No, host Olga Costa explores how trauma survivors often silence their own needs until the body speaks through illness, exhaustion, or collapse. This episode dives deep into the relationship between trauma, boundaries, and the nervous system, offering both reflection and practical tools for reclaiming your embodied “no.”

🌿 In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How the body acts as our first boundary and what happens when it’s ignored
• The hidden cost of overriding the body’s “no” — from burnout to dissociation
• Practical steps to relearn boundaries without guilt or fear
• Somatic grounding practices for safety and healing
• Real survivor stories of courage, freedom, and reclaiming authenticity

This is an episode for anyone living with PTSD, Complex PTSD (CPTSD), or the silent weight of self-abandonment. It’s an invitation to listen to your body’s wisdom, rebuild trust, and take the first steps toward boundaries that honor your truth.

🎧 Tune in to Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast every Friday at 3:00 PM for gentle, trauma-informed reflections on healing, grief, shame, trust, and resilience.

What happens when every yes you give is really a no your body swallowed? Trauma often teaches us that saying “no” is dangerous—that pleasing others keeps us safe. But over time, the body rebels. Emotional exhaustion, chronic stress, even illness become the whispers of a self that can no longer be silenced.

In this episode of Numbness Paralysis – The PTSD Podcast, Olga Costa explores the hidden cost of people-pleasing, the science behind the fawn response, and how trauma reshapes our relationship with boundaries. Through stories, metaphors, and gentle tools, listeners are invited to begin practicing small, sacred “no’s” that protect their energy and honor their worth.

This episode is a reminder that boundaries are not rejection—they are clarity. And learning to set them is not selfish; it is survival.