How to Feel Safe After Trauma When Your Body & Mind are the Triggers
If you’re struggling to tolerate things you used to enjoy and are finding yourself doing anything you can to avoid difficult emotions after trauma, please know: this is not a weakness or a character flaw. Avoidance is your body and mind’s way of saying:
“This feels too familiar. It’s too much too soon. I need to protect myself.”
Trauma responses are your nervous systems’ efforts to keep you safe. Yet when the reminders of trauma come not just from the outside world, but from your own thoughts, emotions, or body, the journey back to safety can feel overwhelming.
At Shared Stories Counseling, I specialize in working with adults who have experienced complex trauma, childhood trauma, attachment wounds, and sexual trauma. Many of my clients express:
• “I don’t feel safe in my body.”
• “Every time I notice this sensation or emotion, I’m reminded of my trauma.”
Understanding Trauma Triggers
It’s well known that trauma survivors often avoid external reminders:
• A veteran may feel activated by fireworks or cars backfiring.
• A survivor of medical trauma may feel anxious before a doctor’s appointment.
• Someone who lived through a natural disaster may panic during stormy weather.
When these reminders surface, the body may respond with anxiety, fear, irritability, nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation, or emotional numbness. Avoidance becomes a way to regain a sense of control and safety.
But what happens when the “trigger” isn’t outside of us—when it’s our own body, thoughts or feelings?
When Your Mind and Body Feel Unsafe
For many trauma survivors, internal experiences—like emotions, sensations, or thoughts—can become terrifying reminders of past harm. This often leads to coping strategies meant to escape or mute those inner triggers, such as:
Using alcohol or drugs to numb overwhelming emotions
Staying overly busy to avoid stillness or opportunities for self-reflection
Exercising excessively to outrun painful feelings
Constantly consuming content (podcasts, TV, social media) to avoid silence
Relying on dissociation to numb and block painful internal triggers
While these strategies may provide temporary relief, they often leave us feeling more disconnected from ourselves in the long run.
Safely Process & Offload What’s Keeping You Stuck
Healing after trauma is not about forcing yourself to “get over it” or suppressing your symptoms. It’s about slowly and compassionately rebuilding trust with yourself. EMDR & Somatic Therapy can help you safely let go of avoidance, off load distress that has been compounded over time and stuck in your body, and learn to feel safe again in your body.
This process often includes:
Learning grounding techniques that gently reconnect you with your body
Building tolerance for emotions in small, manageable steps
Exploring safe relationships where you can experience connection without fear
Practicing self-compassion rather than self-blame when triggers arise
Identifying present day problems and recent triggers you’d like to work on
Exploring negative beliefs stemming from trauma that are holding you back
Targeting and reprocessing past memories that have been keeping you stuck in survival mode
Using bilateral stimulation to make past memories feel more distant and less consuming
Identifying how you’d prefer to navigate future triggers
Building confidence that you can remain in control, feel safe in your body, and trust yourself to navigate daily stressors
If you feel unsafe in your body or mind after trauma, please know this is a common and VERY human response to overwhelming or threatening experiences. With the right support and opportunity to release trauma through EMDR or Somatic Therapy, feeling safe again is possible.
