Finding Your Way Back to Your Home (Heart): A Survivor's Guide to Authentic Love
The first time I felt it—truly felt it—I was sitting in a sauna. As I left the space I noticed a book shelf and my fingers traced the spine of a book I wasn't looking for, one that had somehow found me instead. As I pulled it from the shelf, my body knew before my mind did. A cascade of goosebumps traveled up my arms, and for a brief moment, time seemed to fold in on itself.
The background chatter of the space, the soft light of the sunset—it all receded until there was just me and these words that somehow knew me better than I knew myself.
I didn't realize then that this moment—this seemingly ordinary moment—was the first step in reclaiming something I thought I'd lost forever: my ability to trust the wisdom of my own body.
When Your Body Becomes Foreign Territory
For those of us who have experienced and survived trauma (Big T and little t versions), emotional, physical and even sexual trauma, our bodies often become places we no longer wish to inhabit.
The nervous system that was once home becomes a landscape of tripwires and alarm bells. The very vessel meant to carry us through life becomes associated with violation, danger, and betrayal.
I remember the day my therapist placed The Body Keeps the Score in my hands. "Your body isn't punishing you," they said gently. "It's protecting you the only way it knows how."
That night, I read Bessel van der Kolk's words: "Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness." I felt something crack open inside me—not healing, not yet, but the possibility of it. The faintest whisper that perhaps my hypervigilance, my dissociation, my inability to feel safe in intimate relationships weren't signs of brokenness but of a body doing exactly what it was designed to do under conditions of threat.
Learning Your Body's Language Again
In the polyvagal theory, I found a map for a territory I'd been navigating blindly. Deb Dana's work helped me understand that my nervous system wasn't broken—it was speaking a language I'd forgotten how to translate.
One morning, sitting in a sunlit corner of my villa, I placed my hand over my heart and felt its rapid fluttering beneath my palm. Instead of immediately trying to calm it or distract myself, I simply whispered, "I feel you. I'm listening." It was the first real conversation I'd had with my body in years—not demanding it change, not abandoning it through dissociation, but meeting it with curiosity.
That simple practice became a daily ritual.
Sometimes my body spoke in tears, sometimes in tension, sometimes in that electric feeling of danger even in safe environments. I learned to ask, "What are you trying to tell me?" And slowly, so slowly, my body began to trust that I would listen.
From Survival to Connection
The journey from survival to connection isn't a straight line. It's more like learning to dance again after being told you never would.
I remember my first real connection after years of avoiding real intimacy. We sat next to each other in a sauna. My entire system went into alert—heart racing, breath shallow, the edges of my vision blurring slightly. Old patterns would have had me making an excuse and leaving, or dissociating until I felt nothing at all.
Instead, I remembered what I'd learned from Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment:
"Attachment styles are not personality flaws but adaptive strategies developed in response to our earliest relationships."
I took a breath. Placed my feet firmly on the floor. Felt the chair supporting me. And silently acknowledged: This is my attachment system activating. It's trying to protect me. That doesn't mean I'm in danger right now.
When they asked if I was okay, I did something I'd never done before. I told the truth. "I get a little nervous sometimes when I'm connecting with someone new. Give me a moment?"
Their response—warm, patient, undemanding—was the first indication that perhaps there were people in the world who could honor both my boundaries and my desire for connection.
Learning to Trust the Goosebumps Again
One of the cruelest effects of trauma is how it hijacks our intuition. The same bodily signals that once guided us toward joy and connection become confusingly tangled with signals of threat. How do we learn to differentiate between the goosebumps of genuine soul recognition and the similar physical sensation of fear?
Reading The Untethered Soul gave me a practice that changed everything. Michael Singer writes: "You are not the voice of the mind—you are the one who hears it."
When I began creating space between my thoughts and my awareness of them, I discovered something profound: Fear feels contracted, while intuition feels expansive—even when both create similar physical sensations.
I felt this distinction most clearly on a hike through the jungles of bali. Rounding a bend, I came face to face with a stranger on the otherwise empty trail. My body instantly responded—quickened pulse, heightened awareness, a tingling at the back of my neck. In the past, I would have immediately labeled this "danger" and either frozen or fled.
Instead, I paused and observed the sensation without labeling it. And in that pause, I noticed something subtle but crucial: despite the physical arousal, there was an openness rather than a contraction. This wasn't my trauma response—this was genuine intuition telling me something important.
The stranger smiled, and I felt something I hadn't experienced in years: the electric recognition of a meaningful connection waiting to unfold. We ended up walking together for an hour to a waterfall, discussing books and life philosophy, and later became friends who still are connected.
That day taught me that my intuition hadn't been destroyed—it had just been drowned out by the louder alarms of trauma.
Recoding Our Understanding of Energy and Connection
Both The Way of the Superior Man and The Queen's Code offered me perspectives that transcended gender, helping me see that we all contain both masculine and feminine energies regardless of our gender identity. What matters isn't whether these energies align with our physical form, but whether they're expressed in healthy or unhealthy ways.
As someone who had experienced betrayal and "trauma" with "little t" and "big T" versions, physical trauma, emotional trauma and mental manipulation trauma. I had unconsciously constructed a worldview where certain energies felt inherently threatening. These books challenged me to consider a radical possibility: that I was viewing all expressions of certain energies through the distorted lens of trauma.
I remember sitting in the kitchen as my partner made dinner for bot of us after I'd mentioned being overwhelmed with work. I had organized to make dinner for us. My immediate interpretation: They're controlling, taking away my agency and masculinity. But then I paused and wondered if this wasn't about control but about contribution. What if they were trying to ease a burden rather than impose their will?
When I gently asked about their intention later, their response was illuminating: "You seemed stressed about the decision, and I wanted to make it easier for you. Did I overstep?"
That conversation opened something between us—a practice of curiosity before interpretation that has served as the foundation for the deepest relationship I've ever known.
When Time Stands Still: Recognizing Real Connection
There's a particular quality to authentic connection that can't be manufactured or forced. It's that moment when time seems to lose its linear quality, when the background fades, and you're simply, fully present with another human being.
I experienced this during what should have been an ordinary moment—sitting beside a partner at the beach, watching waves crash on the beach. Neither of us spoke. We simply walked and sat together. And suddenly, I was aware of a profound sense of peace and rightness that I hadn't felt since childhood.
Susan Johnson writes in Hold Me Tight: "The most powerful message we can give another is: 'You are not alone, I am here with you, and I will respond to your needs.'" In that silent moment on the bench, without a word being spoken, that message was being transmitted between us at a level deeper than language.
I realized then that real love doesn't announce itself with drama or intensity. It reveals itself in these suspended moments of simple, undeniable presence.
Building a Secure Base with Yourself
Perhaps the most profound lesson from all fourteen books came not from their specific content but from their integration: The capacity to love and be loved begins with creating a secure attachment to yourself.
Every morning now, I sit in meditation as Singer suggests in The Untethered Soul. I watch my thoughts arise and pass without attaching to them. I feel emotions move through my body without resistance. And I practice living from my deepest purpose rather than reacting to circumstance.
I've learned that keeping my heart open isn't about forcing vulnerability or ignoring risk. It's about developing such a strong internal foundation that I can afford to be receptive—because I trust myself to respond to whatever arises.
A Practice for Fellow Travelers
If you're walking this path of reclaiming your capacity for love after trauma, I offer this simple practice that has been my daily anchor:
Each morning, place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Breathe deeply into both hands. Then ask yourself three questions:
- What am I feeling in my body right now? (Simply notice without judgment)
- What does this feeling need? (Listen for the answer that arises)
- How can I provide that for myself today? (One small, concrete action)
This practice has helped me distinguish between the caution born of wisdom and the fear born of trauma. It has helped me recognize when goosebumps signal recognition of something meaningful versus warning of potential harm. And most importantly, it has helped me trust that even after everything, my body and soul contain deep wisdom about what will bring me joy, connection, and fulfillment.
The Continuous Thread
The journey from trauma to trust isn't completed in a single moment of breakthrough. It's woven day by day, choice by choice, relationship by relationship. There are still days when fear speaks louder than intuition, when old patterns resurface in new situations.
But now I know something I didn't before: The capacity for deep connection doesn't need to be created—it needs to be uncovered. It has been within you all along, beneath the protective layers your system brilliantly constructed to keep you safe when safety wasn't possible.
Your body isn't your enemy. Your fear isn't a sign of weakness. Your cautious heart isn't broken. These are all aspects of your remarkable system doing exactly what it was designed to do. And with gentleness, curiosity, and time, this same system can guide you toward the connections that will help you thrive, not just survive.
Trust the goosebumps that feel like coming home. Follow the path that makes your breath deepen rather than shallow. Notice the people around whom time seems to both stand still and flow more richly.
These are the signposts guiding you back to yourself—and from that place of self-connection, toward the love your soul has always known is possible.