There’s a version of trauma work that asks us to step back into the moment it all began. To return to the small body, the frightened eyes, the silence we couldn’t break. The intention is good—go to the source and move it through—but too often it leaves the younger self alone again, while the adult-self slips away. That’s when the work stops feeling safe. That’s when we find ourselves surviving instead of healing.

But what if trauma work could feel different?

What if the first step wasn’t crawling back into the past, but staying here in the ground of now? From this place, the adult-self can reach back. Not to become the child again, but to gather them close. To bring them forward into the warmth of the fire.

The fire is where we come together. It’s where the adult-self sits steady, and the younger selves are invited in. The child who trembled. The teenager who hid. The protector who kept everything locked away. Each one has a place here. Each one is welcomed to lay something down. No one has to carry it alone anymore. At the fire, there is room to wail, to rage, to rest.

When we stay anchored in the present, the fire holds what once felt unbearable. The body remembers it is not alone. The nervous system softens into the warmth of belonging. What was once too much begins to loosen, not because it disappeared, but because it is finally being witnessed together.

This isn’t about forcing anything to move. It’s about permission. It’s about presence. It’s about letting the younger selves know: the adult-self has arrived, and the fire will not go out.

That’s when trauma work does what it’s meant to do. Not by dragging us back, but by gathering us in. Not by re-entering the moment of breaking, but by sitting long enough at the fire for something to shift.

For those who’ve felt like trauma work was too much, or like you failed because you couldn’t stay in the pain—you weren’t failing. Your system was wise. It was saying, “not alone, not yet.” That wisdom was never wrong.

And for therapists who have felt uneasy about asking clients to return to their hardest moments—there is another way. Healing doesn’t require regression. It requires relationship. It requires the fire—steady, present, alive enough to hold whatever comes.

This is the trauma work I believe in. The kind that trusts the adult-self to bring the younger ones in. The kind that makes room for grief and wailing without rushing past it. The kind that remembers: healing happens when we gather here, not when we go back there.

Because your trauma doesn’t need a sequel.

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

Copyright © 2025 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling