Gia Bagnoli-Brown, MSW, LSW
Counselor, Insight Clinical Counseling and Wellness, LLC

No matter what it is, childhood trauma, adulthood trauma, post or prenatal trauma, grief, and the list goes on, healing is hard. There is no “How to Heal from Trauma for Dummies” book. However; if there was, boy, would my job be easy.

Healing is also not linear. Think of it more as a roller coaster. The kind you’re a little nervous to get on, but really excited to push yourself to do anyway.

Life is all about choices. Whether we like it or not. Now that may sound harsh, but let me explain. You have the choice to do the work (hard work), or not. But when we choose to let the unhealed versions of us wreak havoc on our lives, we are ultimately choosing to stay stuck in that hurt. The reality is, no amount of healing will take the hurt away. But we will learn how to manage it better.

We can compare healing to the Japanese act of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the practice of using gold lacquer to fix and fill cracks in ceramics. Similarly the way we need to “fill” the cracks and broken spaces in our life, in our mind, and in our heart. It may not be the same once completed, but it’s definitely better than it was before.

Whether your trauma was caused by another, or self inflicted, we all deserve the opportunity and support to heal. Unfortunately those demons often make us believe otherwise. That we don’t deserve self love, that we made those choices so we don’t deserve a better life. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We all deserve the opportunity to live a happy life. Not perfect, but happy.

I challenge each of you reading this to make one conscious effort to move forward on your healing journey. Whether that’s having a hard conversation with a loved one, making an appointment to see a therapist, joining a sport or club, or anything that can help add a little light and support to your life.

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