What Repair Actually Requires

During my teenage years, I was sent away and lived in group homes, where I experienced physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse.

My mind survived by finding meaning. My body survived by learning that people were dangerous. It learned to stay alert, harden quickly, and never fully rest in another person’s presence.

For years I tried to change that through psychology, meditation, spirituality, altered states, and insight. I understood more and more about my past, but understanding did not stop my body from preparing for it to happen again.

That is the problem many of your clients are living with.

They know their partner is safe, but their chest tightens when they get close. They want support, but pull away when it shows up. They understand their attachment pattern, yet their body keeps repeating it.

You cannot think a body out of a pattern it learned through relationship. You have to help it experience something different inside one.

My mom and I sat across from each other holding two different memories of the same years. We stopped arguing over the story and paid attention to what was happening between us. The fear of not being understood. The grief of what we had lost. The love still holding the relationship together.

That is where repair began.

It also changed the way we worked with clients. We could see when a lifted chin was hiding fear, when a frozen breath meant the body had reached its limit, and when pushing for insight would only make the protection stronger.

The most important part of building a more effective practice is helping clients get to the breakthroughs that talk alone cannot reach.

You can watch the full conversation between my Mother, Kate, and I here.