Will It Ever End?
It happened again. I made a decision, it landed badly for some people, and criticism followed. And just like that, years of recovery felt like they evaporated. I was back in the old place—anxious, afraid, alone. My whole body went into revolt: sick, dizzy, crushed to the floor as if gravity had doubled, then doubled again. My head felt light and untethered, spinning in thin air. Like it has a hundred times.
Except today I know what it is. A trigger. Something pulls the past into the present and my body responds to a threat that’s wildly out of proportion to what’s actually happening. If I had no trauma history, the path would be simple: acknowledge the impact, take responsibility, learn, and do better. That’s all most people want. But the triggered brain doesn’t react to this moment. It reacts to the bigger danger it thinks it sees.
I’m starting to accept there may never be a time when my body doesn’t react under certain conditions. And maybe that isn’t terrible. Maybe it keeps me humble, attentive, better prepared, more tuned in to the people I care about. As long as I don’t chase some quixotic mission to prevent every future trigger, the rare times they happen can become a springboard instead of a sinkhole.
And maybe the bodily storm isn’t the enemy. I’ve lived through it hundreds of times, often in ways that wrecked relationships, jobs, opportunities. Today I don’t have to do that. Today a hard trigger can be a doorway to deeper healing—if I pause, get support, learn, integrate, and grow.
That’s what I want for anyone whose trauma still ripples into adult life: to experience triggers as real bodily sensations, a temporary period of hyper-vigilance that passes, especially with the help of a trusted friend, mental health provider, or solid community. Recovery doesn’t always mean no triggers. It means a bigger capacity to feel what’s happening in your body without treating it like a current fact.
Because once we cross that line—once we react as if the past is happening now—old trauma steals what we love most: relationships, careers, dreams. The consequences can be brutal.
I love training organizations on what it means to be truly trauma-informed. It’s not a buzzword. It’s an empowering, transparent environment rooted in fairness, kindness, and non-judgment. It’s leaders showing up as responsible and self-reflective, investing in people and building other leaders. I’ve gotten that wrong before. I’m learning.
But mostly, being trauma-informed means understanding what’s happening when someone is triggered. It’s not trivial. It’s a full-body threat response. People react to danger in proportion to the danger they perceive. Trauma makes the danger feel enormous, so the reaction looks enormous too. With support and a pause, we can return to regulation and move forward—especially when there’s a real path to repair anything we might have broken.
So maybe it never fully ends. But that also means recovery is richer and more surprising than I ever expected. The very experiences that once derailed me are now of real use to the people I serve.
That’s pretty cool.