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Aristotle

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chele_yntema

Complex trauma & dissociation specialist | Trauma-focused, somatic, relational psychotherapy | Brisbane southside

This matters - by @healingwithchiron ⚠️ Trigger W

This matters - by @healingwithchiron

⚠️ Trigger Warning: Childhood abuse

This piece may be difficult to read. For some, it may feel triggering, bringing up memories, sensations, or emotions that are still tender. You don't need to read if this dysregulates you. Please take care of yourself as you read. Pause if you need to. Come back when you feel safe and only if you want to.

And for others, this may feel like clarity. Like finally having words for something you always felt but couldn’t explain. Like seeing something you were told was “normal”… in a completely different light. Both experiences are valid.

I used to recall a particular memory where I was beaten as a funny story to share at brown children round tables where we shared and laughed about our trauma stories.

We laughed about the most terrible things. "I was whipped", "Dude, I was belted." "I was beaten with a stick.", "For us, it was chappals and we would be dropped outside the car and abandoned for a bit before they came to bring us back."

Creators still make funny skits about it because for a lot of us comedy is the way we cope about the truly terrible things that have happened to us. If we don't laugh, we're forced to confront what really happened to us. Abuse. We don't know what to do with the feelings that arise with that realization. At the hands of the people we love the most, no less, and still love today. We used distancing language to describe our experiences as though it wasn't really us it was happening to but someone else.

Then a few years ago, I turned to hypnotherapy to combat stage fright. I was thrown into the same memory I used as comedy fodder for years. This time, I was back in my body as a 5-year-old, not outside observing it. Suddenly, it wasn't funny anymore. It was terrifying, overwhelming, all consuming.

I used that memory to write this because we forget that we were once children. Most of us don't remember our childhoods due to the same childhood trauma. I hope this piece changes the way we treat the most vulnerable. I hope that it helps us be the change we want to see in the world.

I resonate deeply with this sense… Poem by @poeti

I resonate deeply with this sense…

Poem by @poetic._whispers_

Still here, just... less of me.

#alone

Attachment language can become muddled. Developmen

Attachment language can become muddled. Developmental research, adult attachment research, relationship literature, and pop culture often use overlapping words in different ways. Over time, the categories can begin to sound more certain than they really are.

For me, attachment is far more alive than a label. It is a patterned and adaptive relational process through which we come to organise around connection, protection, autonomy, and belonging with communicative meaning-making. It shapes how we move toward proximity, how we respond to distress and delight, how we read cues of threat and availability, and how we come to expect the world to meet us.

This is part of why I return again and again to gentle, developmentally grounded language. The attachment tendencies can offer points of orientation, and they can help us notice recurring protective patterns and relational movements. They also live within context. They shift across relationships, across stress, and across time.

So when I speak of attachment, I am less interested in reducing a person to a category, and more interested in the relational logic of the pattern itself. How did this way of organising once serve connection, protection, autonomy, and belonging? How does it show itself now in moments of closeness, uncertainty, distance, or need? What begins to soften when there is enough safety, steadiness, and repair?

Attachment is deeply human. It lives within and between Self, Other(s), and the World.

If this speaks to something you’ve been noticing in yourself or in relationship, you may like to read the full article where I explore attachment in more depth. https://cheleyntema.com/attachment/

From @rickhansonphd Most of us are walking around

From @rickhansonphd

Most of us are walking around with a fundamental question running in the background: "Am I enough?"

We try to answer it by doing more, achieving more, and fixing more. But what if the answer isn't found in what you do, but in recognizing what's already true about you?

You're most likely already trying hard and already dealing with a lot. Already drawn to the good, wanting to help, wanting to grow. That's not something you need to earn. That's the ground you're standing on.

The question isn't whether you have worth. The question is: Can you learn to feel it? To take refuge in it? To let it steady you when everything else is uncertain?

That's what my Self-Worth Course is designed to help you do, not through positive thinking or affirmations, but through practical, neuroscience-backed practices that help you build lasting inner peace and unshakeable worth from the inside out.

I see the need to balance approach and avoid - to

I see the need to balance approach and avoid - to titrate the level of curiosity and exploration we engage at…

Wisdom by @silvykhoucasian

A safe relational container sometimes
push people towards patterns of
avoidance because they may not know how to manage or cope with the depth of mirroring and vulnerability that intimate relationships often come with.

People who have strong avoidant
tendencies often had to rely on and
soothe themselves rather than be able to reach out for others. Their emotions were often dismissed,
minimized, or rejected.

Reaching out and talking through a
relational experience with someone
may not FEEL safe even if the other
person IS safe.

So what can we do with this? We can try to empathize with this part of ourself, this part that is deeply afraid,
of trusting and of getting hurt as best
we can.

We can see relational avoidance as an
adaptation that was necessary for a
time in our life, and it helped us to
survive.

I can’t emphasize how absolutely
essential this part is.

Once we have spent a significant
amount of time sitting compassionately with ourselves, then we can take it a step further.

We can SLOWLY sit with and explore
our (impulse) to avoid certain situations or people that feel genuinely supportive/safe if we were to assess things objectively.

We can attempt this alone or work with a professional.

Are things starting to feel intimate with this person and perhaps bringing up some fears?

If I allow myself to sit with my feeling
and not act on it in this exact moment, would it allow me to feel differently about this situation or person in a few days?

Is it possible that I am focusing on the
flaws of this person to prevent myself
from feeling the closeness between us?

Is this situation triggering the grief of
(not) having someone be attentive to
my needs in the past?

I hope these questions can support you to gently explore the urges to run.

This is not easy to do, and never
applies to abusive situations.This applies to relational dynamics that
feel deeply nourishing and supportive, and where you still feel a strong desire to walk away.

Silvy Khoucasian

#avoid #approach #trauma #therapy #fear

Wisdom by @theeqschool It’s all about balance. I

Wisdom by @theeqschool

It’s all about balance.

I look around and see so many people who can’t make a decision if it isn’t driven by hard data.

They harden & cinch down if things aren’t being done perfectly by the book.

Well, you’re going to make a lot of decisions with undesirable & unpredictable outcomes in your life.
And that’s absolutely fine - if you’re present enough to learn from that experience.

Data has its place; research is important.

And much of it is also largely imperfect - depending on who’s funding what, and what variables are being focused on (like how women’s bodies were left out of so much medical research for a very, very long time, and still often are).

Your ability to step out into the world & trust that you’re going to be okay is also incredibly important.
To know that you WILL make mistakes and you will miss things the first around — and trust that that’s okay.

Sometimes you’ll lose out.
And sometimes you’ll end up in largely unexpected places, learning things you didn’t know were possible.

But you can’t always predict what will happen.

You can’t always know what the “right” move is without stepping in and seeing how YOUR body responds to that environment or decision.

And the way you get better at navigating life’s difficulties and ups & downs is not by checking ChatGPT every 5 minutes — it’s by staying present in your body and learning to listen to your own intuition.

You know more than you think you do.

You have a sense about people, environments, and decisions — and that’s where the most interesting & imperfect research is done.

What happens when you listen to this gut impulse?

What did you learn by following that thread?

What works for other people but doesn’t really work for you?

What would you do differently next time?

By all means, stay engaged with data and research out in the world, but if you’re doing it at the expense of your own intuition — you WILL struggle in bigger, deeper, & more profound ways.

I’m really valuing this wisdom by @thesecurerelati

I’m really valuing this wisdom by @thesecurerelationship

When your partner triggers you, I want you to come back to yourself first. Listen to your body, notice what’s rising up inside of you, and give yourself a moment of care before you speak. Let yourself feel what you feel, soften into it, and then see if you can make a little room for your partner’s experience too. From that softer, more grounded place, your words usually come with more clarity, more love, and more self-respect, and that’s where co-regulation begins. ❤

From @healyourinnerchild There is a particular ki

From @healyourinnerchild

There is a particular kind of tiredness that comes from growing up in an environment where things were not fair and nobody seemed to notice, or care.

Maybe it was a sibling who was treated differently and everyone acted like that was normal. Maybe you were bullied and the adults who were supposed to protect you looked the other way. Maybe the rules kept changing depending on who was in the room, and you were the only one who seemed bothered by that. Maybe you were told, over and over, that you were overreacting. Too sensitive. Too intense. Too much.

So you started to wonder if you were.

But here is what that experience may have done. It did not make you oversensitive. It may have helped you become more aware of what feels off, notice others’ emotions, and feel deeply when things are not right. These are not flaws. They are qualities formed under pressure.

The exhausting part is not your sensitivity. It is carrying that awareness without an outlet. When the anger at what was unfair has nowhere to go, it tends to turn inward as self-doubt, or sideways as frustration that may land in the wrong places. Over time, it can settle into a quiet cynicism, a kind of protective withdrawal from a world that has not always been safe to trust.

What looks like bitterness from the outside is often someone who simply needed someone to step in and say: you are right, this is not okay. And that never came.

The path forward is not about losing the anger or pretending the unfairness did not happen. It is about understanding where it started, what it cost you, and what strength quietly grew because of it. That clarity is where things begin to shift.

Your anger was valid. It still is.

Repost from @frank_andersonmd • Shame is one of th

Repost from @frank_andersonmd
•
Shame is one of the most painful things people carry after trauma. But there is something about it that doesn’t get talked about enough.

It’s not just the wound - the belief that you are bad, unworthy of love, or broken. It’s that over time, your mind can learn to keep that shaming going from the inside.

An internal voice that criticizes and pressures, because somewhere it learned that being hard on you was the safest option.

Healing means addressing both - the original wound and the voice that’s been trying to keep you safe by keeping you in line.

This is a pain many of us know… 🙏🏻 for these words

This is a pain many of us know… 🙏🏻 for these words @healing.the.mosaic

TW: mentions of Un aliving thoughts ⚠️

Have you ever had thoughts that scared you, but also felt like they made sense at the same time? 🤍

This is something that can be really hard to talk about, especially when people assume it only comes from “wanting the pain to stop.” For a lot of people, these thoughts are connected to things like trauma, feeling stuck, disconnection, or not feeling safe, not just one single reason.

For us, this is something we’ve had to understand over time. These thoughts didn’t come out of nowhere. They were shaped by what we had been through. We still have some parts that struggle with this now, but it’s not the same as it used to be. Things can shift, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

If any part of this resonated with you, you’re not alone in that experience 🤍

#misunderstood #cptsd

Wisdom after my own heart by @jakewhitehealing In

Wisdom after my own heart by @jakewhitehealing

In moments of anxiety, fear, and overwhelm we often devote energy toward fixing or trying to force ourselves to be different. This connects the nervous with feelings of weight, pressure, quickness, and shame.

We don’t always work on acceptance of our feelings. Being able to place a hand on our chest and say to ourselves, “ this moment feels so big and difficult. I don’t need to change, fix, or make anything better.”

I think the relief comes from touching in to a deeper more core part of ourselves. The part of ourselves that needs to belong and be held during difficult times. Instead of always needing to fix something or portray an image we can actually work on being with ourselves. We can notice our sensations and follow how the nervous system is processing the present moment. Noticing our posture, emotions, sensations, changes in heart rate, and the rhythm of our breathing pattern.

Often times through awareness and acceptance we start to slow down and we feel more grounded and connected.

Next time you feel overwhelmed try this little intervention. Notice what happens through acceptance and awareness.

Can’t help myself…. @calmlings Sending this to

Can’t help myself….

@calmlings

Sending this to everyone who needs it today! Save it for when things get loud. 🤍

Original audio: @ashh.blackwood 🌸

@calmlings 🩷 I just need someone to hold my hand,

@calmlings 🩷

I just need someone to hold my hand, look into my eyes and ask me…
.
.
.
.
.

how much money do you need. Tag someone who gets it.

#Calmlings #Relatable #help #Adulting

Original audio: @little.crown.story

Sometimes I think these forms of defence can be se

Sometimes I think these forms of defence can be seen even as a form of connive dissonance - the space where contradiction cannot be held and distance is needed to protect us.

From @thefeelingexpert

There are things your mind has decided you are not ready to know. And it is very, very good at keeping you from finding out. That is the system working exactly as designed in order to protect you.

We tend to think of defenses as negative things. Denial. Repression. Dissociation. Big psychological words for big psychological events. But most of the time, defense is so quiet you never even catch it.

It is not noticing something that is right in front of you. It is getting to the edge of a difficult thought and suddenly remembering something you need to do. It is being able to talk about painful things with complete calm and zero feeling, because understanding something in your head means you NEVER have to feel it in your body.
It is never quite letting yoourself put two and two together.

At some point in your life, not knowing something was genuinely safer than knowing it.

Maybe the truth about your family was too much to for you to hold. Maybe recognizing what was happening to you would have left you with nowhere to go. So your mind learned to look away and avoid it. To redirect. To stay just busy enough that the thing underneath never quite had room to surface or let you feel it.

That was how you survived.

The problem is that those same defenses do not turn off when the danger passes. They just keep on doing what they do. And unfortunately, they keep you at a distance from the very awareness that could actually change things.

Because you cannot heal what you cannot see.

This isn't about ripping away every protection your system has created. It is about deciding to start getting curious. To just become more aware and notice when you go blank in a conversation. To notice what you reach for when something uncomfortable starts to surface. To gently ask yourself what you might be working very hard not to know. That is how healing begins.

Wisdom by @theeqschool If you’re working on havin

Wisdom by @theeqschool

If you’re working on having better boundaries, this is an important and nuanced lesson:

Other people are allowed to be disappointed by your boundaries.

This doesn’t automatically mean that they’re trying to take advantage of you, that they don’t respect you, or that the relationship is over.

It means they’re having an emotional response to not getting what they want or expect.

And that’s okay. Especially if we’re renegotiating the terms of a relationship, which absolutely happens as we continue to grow and develop as individuals and participants in any relationship or community.

Sometimes we create boundaries where they didn’t used to exist and there is an uncomfortable transition period. That’s a normal aspect of growth.

What is okay is having and naming feelings. (“oof, I get it but I feel sad about it.”) What isn’t okay is pushing the boundary or degrading or attacking the person for having it.

If you come from a boundary-less or enmeshed background and you’re working on identifying and honoring your own boundaries more (and respecting other people’s), this will likely be something you bump up against.

And that’s okay.

People can love you and be disappointed by your choices sometimes — and they can still respect those choices. It is possible!

This is where self awareness and emotional self management come in - being present to your own narratives and feelings that pop up when someone is disappointed by a choice you’ve made.

Disappointment is a part of healthy relationships, too.
#boundaries #dissapointment #relationship

From @nadiaaddesi A lot of people think healing i

From @nadiaaddesi

A lot of people think healing is supposed to feel peaceful right away. Then anger shows up and they worry they are getting worse.

From a therapist perspective, anger often starts surfacing when a person is no longer using every bit of energy just to stay afloat. When survival has been running the show, people often disconnect from what they feel. They downplay what happened. They protect other people’s image. They turn the pain back on themselves. Later, when there is more safety and more distance, the body has more room to register the impact.

That is when anger can come forward.

It can come up when you start seeing things more clearly. When you realize something crossed a line. When you finally understand how much something cost you. When your system stops treating your pain like background noise and starts treating it like information.

Anger in healing does not automatically mean you are becoming bitter or reactive. A lot of the time it means your mind and body are no longer working as hard to keep the truth out of reach. It can be the emotion that says, with more honesty than you have had access to before, this mattered.

That does not mean every expression of anger is helpful. Anger that has nowhere to go can turn into shutdown. It can turn into self-attack. It can spill onto people who are not the source of the wound. The work is learning how to listen to it without letting it take over. What is it pointing to. What boundary is it trying to protect. What grief is sitting underneath it. What part of you is finally asking to be taken seriously.

So if anger is showing up in your healing, I would not rush to judge it.

I would get curious about what your system finally feels safe enough to feel.

Yes 🙌🏻 wisdom by @lexyflorentina I think we’re al

Yes 🙌🏻 wisdom by @lexyflorentina

I think we’re all tired of consuming more and more information without ever getting to land in the experience of being with our bodies.

And don’t get me wrong, iinformation is great and understanding yourself can be an empowering first step. But sometimes so much awareness doesn’t actually lead to change, it leads to more hypervigilance.

What’s that feeling? What’s this response? What does that mean? Where is this coming from? Tracking so much that it feels like scanning

And when this happens it’s exhausting.

From @embodiedwithmichelle One of the hardest thi

From @embodiedwithmichelle

One of the hardest things to accept is:

Someone can care about you deeply…

and still leave you feeling chronically alone.

Not because they are cruel
or they are trying to hurt you.

Because they only know how to show up
when they feel connected to you.

When things are light.
Easy.
Feel-good.

But the second there is tension…
feedback…
distance…
a hard conversation…

they disappear into themselves.

They promise to do better later.

And if you are the person on the other side of that,
you start living in this strange in-between:

You can feel that they love you.

But you cannot fully rest in it.

You start becoming “understanding” in places
where you are actually hurting.

You tell yourself:
“They are trying.”
“They've been through a lot.”
“They just need more time.”
“They do care… they just struggle.”

And sometimes that is true.

But eventually, you have to stop asking:

“Do they love me?”

And start asking:

“Can they love me in a way that feels safe, consistent, and sustainable?”

Because those are not the same question.

And if you stay in the wrong one too long,
you will slowly start calling your loneliness “patience.”

—

The next post is for the people
who are starting to wonder if they are “too much”…

when really, they have just been under-met for a very long time.

#trauma

Beautiful words - by @witchwayfamiliars ♥️I’m goi

Beautiful words - by @witchwayfamiliars

♥️I’m going to share a very personal story that relates to, and is one of the main reasons why, I started designing plushies for adults. 7 years ago now, I was in the worst relationship of my life. It altered my brain chemistry so much that to this day I have sleep anxiety and fear of the dark.

♥️When I decided to get back into creating artwork (and opening up WWFs), the goal was to be able to help as many people as I could through the process of sharing comfort items with the world.

♥️My plushies have been a HUGE tool I’ve been able to implement to recover from my own trauma. Being able to sleep next to something I know I can hold onto during what used to be the scariest moments of my day has provided me the ability to heal and move forward from what happened.

♥️Plushies that are specifically designed for adults has been something I’ve wanted to put out into the world for a long time now. And my hope is that with each one that is sent to each of my customers that they assist them in the ways they have helped me. By providing a night light in my darkest moments. And providing hope to those who need it most.

Repost from @drjuliacolangelo • post-traumatic fra

Repost from @drjuliacolangelo
•
post-traumatic fragmentation is what happened to me after the Maui fires 2.5 years ago when it felt like my pieces and parts didn’t match anymore. Lack of safety, lack of housing and no more belonging with displaced then in some cases dissolved community.

it is what comes after the collapse. the part that is harder to name and harder to navigate because it has no map.

you are not in crisis anymore.

but you are not okay either.

you are in between.

and your brain is not breaking during this.

it is reorganizing.

the neural pathways that held your old configuration together are releasing their grip to make space for new ones.

🧠❤️‍🩹✨this is neuroplasticity in real time.

it even has a clinical name: narrative identity disruption.
you feel unrecognizable to yourself.

you cannot access your usual ways of coping.

the things that used to work no longer do.

this is not failure.

this is the prerequisite for post-traumatic growth.

you cannot build a new configuration from an intact old one.

the disruption is not the problem.

it is the process.

you are not broken during fragmentation.

you are becoming someone who could not have existed before the collapse.

From @the_traumacoach You don’t survive this by

From @the_traumacoach

You don’t survive this by trying harder to make sense of them.

You survive this by slowly coming back home to yourself.

Wisdom from @awakenwithally Here’s what attuning

Wisdom from @awakenwithally

Here’s what attuning to my nervous system taught me:

1. Breakthroughs are overrated. Healing lives in subtle shifts.

Healing doesn’t come from big, dramatic moments. It shows up in small, almost quiet ways. An unexpected ease in the body. A softer response where there used to be reactivity. Feeling something you couldn’t feel before.

Your system learned to brace gradually. It makes sense that it softens the same way… bit by bit.

2. Nervous system work is not the same as healing trauma.

A car needs fuel to move. In the same way, a more regulated, attuned nervous system gives you the foundation for healing. But it doesn’t resolve trauma on its own. It is one of the conditions for integration.

3. Attuning to my nervous system did not make my problems disappear. It made them clearer.

Things didn’t go away. They became more visible. There was hope, because I could feel change was possible. And there was fear because I could no longer ignore what wasn’t working.

Clarity can feel disorienting at first. Because the old way no longer fits and the new way hasn’t fully formed yet.

And with that clarity comes something else, responsibility. To respond from truth.
To listen to what you need. To learn ways of relating that were never modeled.

4. Capacity for misattunement in relationship is not optional. It’s foundational.

Healing requires growing your capacity to be with:
• moments of misattunement, from yourself and others
• disappointment
• being misunderstood
• being unseen

Because if your system cannot tolerate even small moments of being misattuned by others without collapsing, it cannot relax.

It needs to know that something can feel off in a relationship and you're still you.

4. Healing is not about forcing ourselves to sit with pain.

Healing is not about enduring suffering and overwhelming ourselves in the name of healing. It is about creating the internal capacity where it can finally be felt and held in safety.

Love,
Ally,

From @cptsdfoundation When you grow up in an envi

From @cptsdfoundation

When you grow up in an environment where other people's emotions determined your safety, your body learns a very specific rule:

"If they're not okay, I'm not safe."

That's why disappointment can feel so activating, even when it has nothing to do with you.

For some trauma survivors, this trigger creates panic and urgency:
→ "Fix it now."
→ "Make it better."
→ "Don't let anything fall apart."
This is the nervous system trying to prevent abandonment before it happens.

For others, the same trigger creates resentment and exhaustion:
→ "Why is it always on me?"
→ "Why do I have to hold everyone together?"
This is the nervous system saying, "I'm tired of carrying emotional responsibility that was never mine."

Different reactions.
Same wound.

Because when your worth was tied to keeping the peace, your body learned to make other people's emotions your job, even at the expense of your own needs, boundaries, and voice.

Healing this pattern is not about shutting down your empathy. It's about learning how to stay connected without self-abandonment and without absorbing what was never yours to manage. – Amy Fiedler

This feels like good for thought… From @MercedesC

This feels like good for thought…

From @MercedesCoffmantherapy

Self-awareness and being emotionally insightful are indeed attractive qualities. When we meet people who are easy to emotionally connect with, we naturally let down our guard, and become more open to exploring and establishing a relationship with them.

It is important however to understand that emotional capacity, emotional maturity, and emotional availability are three very different things, and confusing them is one of the main reasons people stay in connections that are incapable of stability and growth.

Understanding the difference helps not only refrain from internalizing the limitations of others as a flaw within yourself, but it also helps to refrain from over investing into a relationship that does not have the bandwidth, capacity or willingness to sustain a connection.
•
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From @lexyflorentina Your body, your anxiety, you

From @lexyflorentina

Your body, your anxiety, your tension, your emotions are always asking to be heard, to be seen and to be found.

I often use this lost child analogy to remember that more often than not, the feelings and responses we often struggle to understand are the ones that are most needing to be attuned to like a small child.

They get loud because they have to, not because they are wanting to fight you.

They need attunement, not criticism.

Instagram post 17891942436440862

Instagram post 17891942436440862

Repost from @warpaintjournal • There is a particul

Repost from @warpaintjournal
•
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being told, in subtle and direct ways, that who you are needs editing. Not correction in the sense of growth, but reduction in the sense of comfort for others. Over time, these labels begin to sound like instructions. Be less intense. Feel less deeply. Ask fewer questions. Need less. Expect less. Speak less. Become smaller in ways that are easier to hold, easier to predict, easier to manage.
But there is something deeply misleading about this pressure. It assumes that your nature is excessive rather than precise. It frames awareness as a flaw instead of a skill earned through experience. It treats discernment as resistance, and depth as inconvenience. What gets overlooked is the cost at which these qualities were formed. You do not arrive at this level of perception by accident. You arrive here by paying attention when it would have been easier not to, by remembering when forgetting would have been more comfortable, by learning patterns the hard way.
The real shift happens when you stop interpreting these labels as feedback and start recognizing them as reflections of mismatch. Not every space is built to hold honesty. Not every person is equipped to meet clarity. And not every connection is meant to survive your growth. When you begin to see this, something changes internally. You stop negotiating your nature for temporary acceptance.
You start choosing alignment over approval.
That choice is not loud or immediate. It shows up in smaller decisions. In what you tolerate, in what you question, in what you walk away from even when it would be easier to stay. It shows up in the refusal to explain yourself into being understood by those who have already decided not to understand.
There is a difference between being too much and being in the wrong place. One asks you to shrink. The other asks you to move.
And once you understand that, you stop trying to become easier. You start becoming more accurate.

For thise of us who know the pain of being scapego

For thise of us who know the pain of being scapegoated 😔

From @theeqschool

Scapegoating. It’s when one person bears the brunt of unresolved feelings, tension, and conflict within a system.

It’s what happens when there isn’t enough safety, maturity, or shared responsibility in uncomfortable moments to process conflict or difference.

It’s when we’re not able to hold space for nuance, difference, or tension without collapsing or reacting, so we put the blame on someone else.

Have you ever been in a group where everyone dislikes one person and you aren’t really sure why?
Well, it’s because it’s easier to push those feelings of discomfort onto this one person instead of addressing the real issue, wherever it really originated.

Scapegoating is like a release valve for those feelings of discomfort for everyone else,
and it’s incredibly painful and unfair to the recipient.
It tends to happen to either the more vulnerable folks in a system —
the sensitive ones, the ones with less power, or the ones with weaker boundaries —
or the ones who speak out or aren’t willing to go along with the group norms.

And it actively makes the group less safe for everyone —
it makes other people afraid of being in the scapegoat’s place, so they can become less likely to speak up, differentiate, or listen to their own intuition. The connections feel more fragile, and group membership feels tenuous.

How do we fix this? Through embracing differentiation, learning how to engage in conflict in safer ways, through encouraging boundaries, and getting to know yourself and your values, so that you can take responsibility for your part in conflicts — because conflict and discomfort is a normal part of human relationship!

Wisdom by @theempoweredtherapist Our interpretati

Wisdom by @theempoweredtherapist

Our interpretation of a moment is heavily influenced by the state of our nervous system.

When the body is under stress or in activation, the brain prioritizes quick conclusions over nuanced understanding. Ambiguity becomes uncomfortable, so the mind fills in gaps with interpretations that feel most protective in the moment.

In those states, neutral behaviors can start to carry meaning they weren’t intended to hold. A pause, a short reply, or a shift in tone can begin to feel like commentary on the relationship or on you.

As the nervous system settles, perspective usually widens again. Context becomes easier to access, and situations that once felt charged often reveal themselves as more ordinary than they initially appeared.

Part of regulation is not just calming the body, but regaining access to that broader range of interpretation.

To those of you learning how to be with your body, in all of it's various states, I see you.

#trauma #therapy #perception #stress

From @kayatoastforthesoul.sg I see you there, shr

From @kayatoastforthesoul.sg

I see you there, shrinking yourself to fit in.

Yet feeling so alone and isolated.

Because you've hidden your real self away from everyone.

People around you happy, soothed, you've done well to keep the peace.

But yet, life feels so painful.

Because you're living a life unseen.

But maybe you and I, us staying small wasn't something we did out of choice.

Maybe it was how we stayed safe.

How we learned how to read the room.

How to not be “too much.”

How to keep the peace, even if it meant losing parts of yourself.

And it worked.

It kept you from conflict.

From rejection.

From being seen in ways that once didn’t feel safe.

---

But then again... safe… isn’t the same as living.

Thriving.

Because when your life becomes about not disappointing others,

We slowly start disappearing from our own story.

We hold back our voice.

Our needs.

Our truth.

And the question becomes —

is that really a life you want to live?

--

Because the truth is, if you start showing up as yourself,

Some people will be disappointed.

There will be naysayers.

There will be people who preferred the quieter, smaller version of you.

But maybe the real cost isn’t disappointing them.

Maybe the real cost is spending your whole life
rejecting yourself.

And never allowing your real self to exist, to succeed.

--

So slowly, gently — find the courage.

To speak, even if your voice shakes.

To take up space, even if it feels unfamiliar.

To choose yourself, even when it feels wrong at first.

Rejection might come.

Discomfort will come.

But so will something else.

A life that actually feels like yours.

People who meet the real you.

Moments where you don’t have to shrink to belong.

I hope you give yourself that chance.

--

I hope you outgrow the spaces that asked you to stay small.

I hope you find people who don’t need you to be less to be loved.

I hope, one day, choosing yourself feels natural instead of scary.

And until then —
I hope you keep going.

Take care,
Hernping

💙

P. S. For my client A, who finally found his voice and bravely spoke it again.

#letskeepgoing

For you today if you are feeling the blah of the w

For you today if you are feeling the blah of the week just been...

There are younger parts within us that still long for simpler things. A sway in the body. A giggle. A spark of curiosity. A reaching toward delight.

These moments are often quiet at first, especially where life has asked us to become careful. When spontaneity has needed to soften itself for the sake of belonging, joy can begin to feel distant, even forgotten.

Yet delight still lives within our inner world, waiting gently for the moments in which it can be welcomed with the tenderness, patience, and care that let it begin to stir again.

Perhaps a younger part of you longs for simpler things, too. Save this for the moments your inner world needs enough tenderness for delight to return.

I also provide therapeutic support for people accessing Redress, Blue Knot, and Victims Assist Queensland.

From @embodiedwithmichelle The hardest part isn’t

From @embodiedwithmichelle

The hardest part isn’t always the conflict.

It’s what happens in between, on the ordinary days.

When you try to reach them… and they’re not there.

Not fully.
Not in a way that meets you.

Now you’re sitting there, deciding what version of yourself to be.

Do you tell the truth, or stay quiet to avoid creating distance?

Do you try again, or pull back because you already know how it ends?

Over time, something subtle happens.

You start choosing ease over honesty.

Not because you’re fake... because you’re tired.

Tired of it turning into tension.
Tired of it going nowhere.
Tired of feeling alone in something that’s supposed to be shared.

So you adjust.

You bring up less.
You soften what you really mean.
You learn how to stay connected... without being fully there.

And it works.

Until it doesn’t.

Because your body knows.

And every time you do that, you leave yourself a little more.

That’s the part people don’t say out loud.

You don’t lose feelings out of nowhere.

You lose them when you stop feeling met.
When you stop feeling held in the places that matter.

This isn’t here to tell you what to do.

Just to let you feel what’s possible.

Because once your body recognizes the difference…

it’s ready to learn how to move, speak, and relate in ways that invite real capacity
and make room for nothing less.

#relationship #hope #relationshipadvice #trauma #therapy

From @frank_andersonmd Some people become fixers

From @frank_andersonmd

Some people become fixers in close relationships because they care deeply.

And some become fixers because, somewhere along the way, being needed started to feel safer than risking distance, disappointment, or abandonment.

If closeness once felt more secure when you were useful, calming, or emotionally responsible, that pattern can quietly follow you into adult relationships.

So you try to keep everything steady. You rush to fix tension before it turns into distance. You feel responsible for the other person’s mood, reactions, or pain. You start carrying more and more of the relationship so it does not fall apart.

From the outside, that can look like love, loyalty, or just being the strong one. But underneath, something else is often happening.

It can feel easier to manage the relationship than to face what comes up in you when things feel uncertain, strained, or out of your control.

Because for many fixers, the role is not just about helping - it’s about preventing disconnection.

That’s why this pattern can be so hard to loosen.
You’re not only putting down a role, you’re letting go of the idea that love depends on how much you hold together.

Sometimes the deeper work is realizing that being close to someone should not require managing them.

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Chele Yntema is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Trauma Specialist.

In the spirit of reconciliation I acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. I pay my respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. I am committed to inclusion across race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexuality, religion, and ability. I recognise that people from diverse communities face systemic barriers and seek to challenge the current system and strive for change that makes mental health and wellbeing accessible to and inclusive for all.

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