How to Heal Trauma and Transform Your Life
- Feb 13
- 9 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Alessandra Mantovanelli is a Sound Therapist and Integrative Coach, offering energy and somatic healing, mindful eating coaching, and Psych-K facilitation. She founded Waves for Thriving to help you shift from surviving to thriving by cultivating a heart-centered connection and coherence between your mind, body, and soul.
Deeply traumatised people see the world through distorted lenses, which bias their thinking, feelings, and actions in the present. A profound shift in our identity, life, authenticity, and connection occurs when we release trauma from our bodies. What unfolds is our pure, untouched soul essence, which was never wounded. As we become whole, a sense of light joy emerges, along with an awe for life’s simple wonders.
What is trauma?
Trauma is any perceived threatening experience (conscious or unconscious) that overwhelms the body-mind’s ability to cope and renders us helpless.[1][11] During traumatic events, we are unable to self-regulate and may lack a compassionate witness for comfort. There is not enough time, space, resources, or permission to adapt, respond, or heal.
Young children are more easily overwhelmed by emotionally painful or distressing events because their brains and nervous systems are still developing, and they are not able to stand up to adults or speak for themselves. Early childhood trauma often results in adverse effects on cognitive and emotional development, increased inflammation, and a less diverse gut microbiome. It may also lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, dissociation, depression, and other health issues later in life. [2][3][4][5][6]
Types of trauma
A single unbearable event can result in acute trauma, such as a serious accident or injury, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse; witnessing violence or death; or sudden parental separation (“too much, too soon”). Complex trauma develops when people experience ongoing abuse, bullying, neglect, abandonment, chronic illness, domestic violence, living near or participating in war (“too much for too long”), as well as housing instability, unsafe environments, starvation, discrimination, and financial struggle (“there is not enough for too long”).
An experience can become traumatic when it feels unsafe, overwhelming, and dysregulating. Some examples include birth stress, being left alone, floods and other natural disasters, losing a pet or loved one, romantic breakup, moving to another city or school, illness, and invasive medical procedures, especially if experienced early in life or in the absence of support.[1][7]
Firefighters, therapists, and family members of trauma survivors can experience secondary (or vicarious) trauma and develop symptoms similar to those of direct trauma. Collective and historical trauma, such as genocide or systemic oppression experienced by a community, can affect future generations and shape cultural identity.
How does trauma affect our body, perception, and connection to the world?
When we feel threatened, our autonomic nervous system activates survival responses such as fight, flight, freeze, appease, or dissociation. Our thinking brain (the prefrontal cortex) goes offline, while the fear and emotional centres (the amygdala and limbic system) take over, flooding us with intense emotions and visceral sensations such as a racing heart, sweating, shaking, and shallow breathing [8,9,10]. As a result, we lose the ability to regulate emotions, leading to extreme panic, confusion, total dissociation, or freezing.[1][8]
Traumatic experiences may cause parts of us to feel persistently unsafe, always on the go, angry, hypervigilant, distrustful, powerless, or helpless, undermining our sense of control, dignity, connection, belonging, and meaning.[1][11] Trauma can also trap people in shame, eroding self-esteem and confidence, increasing defensiveness and self-protection behaviours, and consequently undermining their relationships with others.[1]
Severe trauma can lead to long-term symptoms of PTSD, such as intrusive thoughts, phobias, hyperarousal, startle responses, mood swings, nightmares, irritability, poor sleep, and difficulty with memory, concentration, and logical thinking. Trauma can also show up in repeated patterns, such as self-harm, addictive behaviours, recurring accidents, or re-enactments in relationships.[8][12][13]
These outcomes can result from chronic dysregulation of the nervous system and sensory processing, as well as changes in brain function and neural circuitry, reduced communication between the two brain hemispheres, and heightened survival responses to subsequent distress.[10][13][14][15][16][17] It’s important to note that these symptoms may have other causes, and not everyone experiencing one or more of them has been traumatized.[1]
The body imprint
Traumatic experiences leave an imprint on the mind, brain, and body, with ongoing consequences for how we survive in the present and alter our perception of reality: “It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think”.[8]
Trauma memories can persist as fragmented survival patterns in the body, even when the conscious mind cannot recall the original event.[1][8][18] These implicit bodily memories may resurface as sudden fear, emotional flooding, reliving, or a sense that “something is off,” often triggered by a scent, sound, person, time of day, or place, even when we are safe in the present. Manifestations of unresolved trauma can be ever-present or hidden for decades, may grow more complex over time, and sometimes appear seemingly disconnected from the original event.[1]
After trauma, we can lose a sense of a coherent self and become fragmented into different parts as a way to stay safe and survive. The wounded, traumatized part is often disowned to suppress painful feelings. Meanwhile, another part continues with day-to-day life.[18] It is important to know that you are not crazy or weak. The range of feelings, sensations, and beliefs that arise from trauma is the body crying for help and the disconnected parts yearning to come back home.
Therapeutic approaches for healing
Somatic approaches invite us to bring mindful attention to our bodily sensations, posture, and movement. Somatic practices can uncover unconscious patterns, help the body complete unfinished stress responses interrupted by trauma, release stuck energy, and make us feel safe in our bodies. Over time, they can improve nervous system regulation, resilience, posture, and breathing, and these embodied experiences can be integrated into daily life, restoring our connection to ourselves and others. In particular, the Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach focuses on building a compassionate connection between our fragmented parts and the ‘Self,’ a higher, whole part of us that cannot be damaged and inherently knows how to heal.
EMDR uses eye movement desensitization and bilateral stimulation to reprocess traumatic memories and convert emotionally charged, implicit trauma memories into integrated, explicit memories, reducing automatic stress responses.[8][19][20] Neurofeedback provides real-time feedback of brain activity and can help regulate neural oscillations associated with calmer nervous system states. It has been shown to reduce PTSD severity by improving cognitive control, emotional regulation, and dissociative symptoms.[21][22]
Equine-assisted therapy can help individuals with severe childhood trauma and attachment disruptions who do not feel safe with humans. Play therapies, including sensory and movement-based games, help children process trauma, organize sensory input, and foster affective connections.[14] Cultivating self-compassion, along with co-regulation with individuals who can hold a warm and calming presence, can enhance the sense of safety and connection in relationships. Other healing activities that can help regulate the nervous system and engage the different parts of the brain include expressive arts, drawing, music, dance, qigong, trauma-informed yoga, healing touch, breathwork, singing, humming, and sound therapy.
Overcoming trauma
As Dr. Peter Levine says: “Trauma is about loss of connection to ourselves, our bodies, families, others, and the world around us; as we limit our choices by avoiding feelings, people, situations, and places, we gradually constrict our freedom, lose vitality, and the potential to fulfill our dreams”.[1] Healing trauma involves restoring coherence to all fragmented aspects of the self: cognitive, emotional, bodily, mental, and relational, including our relationship with different parts of ourselves and with others.
Another important aspect of healing is improving the connection and communication between both brain hemispheres, helping to place traumatic experiences and emotions in the past rather than allowing them to hijack the present. By understanding that cellular and nervous system survival patterns exist to keep us safe, and by expanding our window of tolerance for distress and our ability to self-regulate, we open the pathway to greater resilience.
We can overcome trauma because our body and mind have an innate ability to heal, and our higher, wiser selves offer us infinite support, possibilities, and wisdom. Instead of feeling victimized and stuck in the past, we face our wounds with compassion, embrace change, reclaim ownership of our bodies and lives, and trust that a new path will unfold. Healing from trauma is one of the most important steps we can take to change our lives, creating a ripple effect that benefits society as a whole.
Read more from Alessandra Mantovanelli
Alessandra Mantovanelli, Sound Therapy and Integrative Coaching
Alessandra uses a unique integrative approach to help people move from survival to thriving, integrating and harmonizing their body, mind, and soul in a freeing dance. She holds a Master’s in Sound Therapy along with certifications as a Mind-Body Eating Coach, Somatic Trauma Healing and Reiki Practitioner, and Psych-K® facilitator. By combining her knowledge of physics and wave frequencies with biofield and energy balance therapies, she bridges ancient healing techniques with modern science. As the founder of Waves for Thriving, Alessandra is dedicated to helping individuals embrace their healthiest, happiest, and most conscious selves, unlocking their highest potential.
References:
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[3] Fan, L. and Hu, T. (2025) ‘Early childhood trauma and its long-term impact on cognitive and emotional development: a systematic review and meta-analysis’, Annals of Medicine, 57(1), p. 2536199. doi:10.1080/07853890.2025.2536199.
[4] Borrego-Ruiz, A. and Borrego, J.J. (2025) ‘Early-life gut microbiome development and its potential long-term impact on health outcomes’, Microbiome Research Reports, 4, p. 20. doi:10.20517/mrr.2024.78.
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[8] Van der Kolk, B. (2014) The body keeps the score: brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Viking Press.
[9] Arnsten, A.F.T. (2009) ‘Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function’, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, pp. 410-422. doi:10.1038/nrn2648.
[10] Lee, S.W., Gerdes, L., Tegeler, C.L., Shaltout, H.A. and Tegeler, C.H. (2014) ‘A bihemispheric autonomic model for traumatic stress effects on health and behavior’, Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 843. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00843.
[11] Herman, J.L. (2015) Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books.
[12] Ho, J.M.C., Chan, A.S.W., Luk, C.Y. and Tang, P.M.K. (2021) ‘Book review: The body keeps the score: brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma’, Frontiers in Psychology, 12, p. 704974. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704974.
[13] Bremner, J.D. (2006) ‘Traumatic stress: effects on the brain’, Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(4), pp. 445-461.
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[15] Blithikioti, C., Nuño, L., Guell, X., Pascual-Diaz, S., Gual, A., Balcells-Olivero, M. and Miquel, L. (2022) ‘The cerebellum and psychological trauma: a systematic review of neuroimaging studies’, Neurobiology of Stress, 17, p. 100429. doi: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2022.100429.
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