We’re not more traumatized than our ancestors.  
We just don’t move through it the way we used to. 

That part got lost. 

Back then, something terrifying would happen.
You’d run. You’d survive. You’d shake. You’d cry. 
And someone would be there. 

Someone would feed you. 
Someone would keep the fire going. 
Someone would know you needed time—not because you were broken, but because your body had just been through something real. 

Now?
Now we go to work the next day. 
We apologize for being sensitive. 
We try to regulate. 
We pretend we’re fine. 

But what we’re really doing is interrupting something ancient. 
Something wise. 
Something built into us that knows how to move fear through the body and back out again. 

We don’t need more words for what we’re feeling. 
We need more space to feel it.
More room to fall apart without judgment. 
More presence that doesn’t rush to fix or explain. 

We’ve gotten really good at talking about trauma. 
But not so good at letting it finish. 

The shaking that wants to happen? We shut it down. 
The crying that starts to rise? We swallow it. 
The way our chest tightens or our jaw clenches or our legs get heavy—we name it, but we don’t let it move. 
We try to manage it like it’s a problem instead of listening like it’s a message. 

Back then, you didn’t need to understand it.
You just needed to be with it.
And you weren’t alone. 

Someone sat next to you while your body did what it needed to do.
Someone kept watch while you drifted between worlds. 
No one asked for a plan. No one gave you a strategy. 
They just stayed. 

We’ve lost that. 

We’ve traded it for independence. 
For expertise. 
For tools and techniques and a private place to cry if we absolutely must. 

But healing wasn’t meant to be private. 
It was meant to be witnessed. 

Not analyzed. 
Not measured. 
Witnessed. 

You weren’t meant to carry the hard thing alone. 
You were meant to shake beside the fire and know someone else was still breathing with you. 

That’s the part that matters. 
That’s the part we’re missing. 

So maybe it’s not that we’re more traumatized now. 
Maybe it’s just that no one ever lets us finish. 

And if we could remember that—if we could rebuild even a piece of that kind of holding—maybe we’d stop needing to heal so hard all the time. 
Maybe our bodies would remember what to do again. 

Not because we fixed anything. 
But because we finally stopped interrupting what’s already trying to move. 

So maybe we’re not carrying more than they did. 
Maybe we just stopped letting it move. 
Maybe the body still knows. 
Maybe we’re the ones who forgot. 

And maybe what we lost wasn’t healing. 
Just the space to fall apart without having to explain why. 

That might be enough. 
It used to be. 

Embracing Shadows, Illuminating Hope,
Chelsey Fjeldheim, LCSW
Empowering Souls on the Path of Healing

Copyright © 2025 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling