When a Trauma Story Awakens: Like a Sick Child in the Night
What do you do when life takes an unexpected detour—when a trauma healing journey awakens like a sick child in the night?
When you long to return to the life you had before the disruption… before uncovering what you may have been running from for years, even decades—but you can’t?
This is the first stage in a trauma healing journey: the moment a trauma story surfaces and demands attention.
It’s the reckoning—the realization that what once worked is no longer sustainable. Your emotional capacity is exhausted. Something has to change.
“At the turn in one’s road where a person is miserable and ready for relief, he usually begins listening and looking for answers… which will help him ease and understand the pain he is experiencing.” (Truman, 1991)
A Trauma Story Awakening
Summer 2015. My husband’s dream was materializing: retirement into humanitarian work in East Africa. We’d left our jobs, were liquidating assets, and preparing to move.
While supporting him remained my priority, unrecognized feelings and trauma stirred beneath the surface.
Until one day, they erupted—disorienting, distressing, and undeniable.
We leaned on familiar strengths—prayer, faith, tenacity, planning, study—trusting we could push forward despite the disruption.
But this time was different.
What seemed manageable revealed itself as life-altering.
Over the next year, our world unraveled into grief and reckoning. The story I knew about my life shattered under traumatic new revelations.
Trauma Demands Attention
Like a sick child crying through the night, awakened trauma will not be ignored. We lie awake hoping the cries will quiet, the fever will abate, the pain will stop, that morning relief will come.
These early days hold struggle—suspended between “what was” and “what now is.
Yet this tension marks the beginning.
The sooner we face what demands attention, the sooner healing can unfold.
Beginning the Trauma Healing Journey
I couldn’t return to before. Forward was my only path. But how? What was the first step?
Two pillars guided me through those early days: Jim Wilder’s teaching that joy strength is essential for the recovery journey, and Brené Brown’s foundation for wholehearted living — courage, compassion, and connection. Could these be the guideposts I needed? Joy? Courage? Compassion? Connection?
I didn’t know for sure, but I knew they were worth pursuing. Wilder defines joy as “happy to be with you.” Healing requires a journeying partner — someone who can sit with us in pain, offer light in the darkness, and remind us that hope remains.
So I took the first step: I reached out intentionally to two trusted friends and began building regular connection with people who could share vulnerability with me in the healing process.
Foundations of Lasting Healing
My healing has been a long‑term, ongoing process—and as an educator, it’s grounded in over a decade of study in developmental science, interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, and polyvagal‑informed perspectives.
What I’ve come to again and again is this:
We are made for connection, and relational wounds can deeply disrupt that capacity—but with the right relational tools we can grow healthy attachment and strong relationships.
This blog will explore that central theme and the principles that undergird heart healing, capacity building, strong identity, personal growth, and healthy relationships.
I invite you to take the journey with me. Read more at [Personal Growth & Identity] or feel free to reach out to start a conversation.
Join the journey.