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What Is Trauma? There is an old Chinese saying: “Once bitten by a snake, afraid of ropes for ten years.” Nothing captures the impact of trauma more vividly than this. What we call trauma , in my understanding, is an experience that exceeded a person’s maximum capacity to cope at that moment. Two Characteristics of Trauma Each person’s capacity is different. Whether something becomes “trauma” is highly subjective. Just as Person A is not sensitive to cold while Person B is ver

You may understand your story. You may know why you react the way you do. And yet your body still tightens. Your heart still races. You still feel pulled back into something that is supposed to be “over.” This is not weakness. It is an unprocessed nervous system response. Some experiences do not heal through insight alone. They live in the body. EMDR therapy was developed for exactly this. When the Past Doesn’t Stay in the Past Trauma does not always look dramatic. Sometimes

In August 2018, I founded my private counseling practice in Seattle and named it BRAVING Counseling . The name came to me one afternoon in early June, during a brief pause from writing my thesis. Graduation was only a month and a half away. The finish line looked close, yet felt impossibly distant. I was exhausted — physically and emotionally — and the final six weeks tested every ounce of my endurance and determination. During that time, the word BRAVING became a source of