How to Actually Heal Trauma, Not Just Understand It 🧠
A Neuroscience-Backed Guide to Updating Your Nervous System (10min Read)
TL;DR Summary
“Baggage” is not a vibe, it’s unprocessed data from your past that your nervous system still believes is happening.
Trauma doesn’t live in your mind; it lives in your body, brain, and behavioral loops.
Triggers, patterns, and inner voices are indicators of where that unprocessed material still lives.
Healing happens when your nervous system experiences safety in real time, not when you intellectually understand your trauma.
The process: Awareness → Regulation → Opposite Action → Dialogue → Safety → Integration.
I’m So Over the Internet’s Version of “Healing”
If I hear one more person say “you just need to heal your baggage before you date again,” I might actually scream.
Because… what baggage? Where exactly is it? And what does “healing it” even mean?
No one ever tells you that part.
“Baggage” has become this vague, overused buzzword, like “boundaries” or “trauma responses.”
People throw it around on TikTok like glitter, but almost no one explains what it actually is.
Lucky for you, dear reader, I’m here to fix that.
Here’s the truth: you have baggage because you have a brain.
You have trauma because you have a nervous system that stores unfinished experiences.
It’s not pathology, it’s biology.
“Baggage” is just unprocessed data from your past.
Information your body never got the chance to integrate.
Memories, sensations, emotions, and stories that got stuck mid-download when something overwhelming happened.
And that “something” doesn’t have to be catastrophic.
It could’ve been chronic emotional neglect, unpredictable love, or years of walking on eggshells.
When your system doesn’t get to complete a safety loop.
When you never get to exhale and feel safe again.
That’s where baggage forms, and today, I will show you EXACTLY how to heal it, not just understand it better.
Let’s dive in.
The Science of Baggage
Let’s get nerdy for a second.
When something threatens your sense of safety — emotional or physical — your amygdala fires an alarm.
Your nervous system mobilizes energy to protect you.
And your hippocampus, the part of your brain that helps you organize time and context, often goes offline.
The event ends, but your body doesn’t always get the memo.
That energy, those sensations, the emotional charge, they stay frozen in something called implicit memory.
This is the kind of memory you don’t consciously recall but still act from.
For example, I’m typing on my keyboard right now, but I don’t have to consciously think: “Okay, where’s the T… now the H… now the E…”
My fingers just know how to type the word “THE”.
It’s the same with riding a bike, brushing your teeth, or tying your shoes, you learned those things once, repeated them enough times, and now your brain just runs the program automatically.
Implicit memory is what allows you to move through the world efficiently. It’s how your brain says, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this one.”
Now, here’s the part most people miss: trauma uses that same system.
It’s the same kind of memory… just encoded with survival data instead of skill data.
So instead of “how to ride a bike,” it’s “how to protect myself from being left.”
Instead of “how to type an email,” it’s “how to keep people happy so I don’t lose them.”
Your brain learned those, too, just under different circumstances.
And once those trauma-based implicit memories are stored, they run automatically, the same way your fingers move on a keyboard.
You don’t think your way into them. You behave your way into them.
That’s why you can be completely aware of your patterns and still repeat them.
You’re not choosing to do it. Your nervous system just hit “play.”
For example…
You start over-apologizing the second someone sounds annoyed, your system remembers what happened last time someone was mad.
You pull away the moment you start to like someone, your system remembers that closeness used to equal pain.
You immediately volunteer to help at work, even when you’re drowning, your system remembers that earning approval used to keep you safe.
You feel a rush of panic when someone texts, “We need to talk.” Your system remembers the chaos that used to follow that sentence.
You shut down during conflict, your system remembers that expressing yourself once got you punished.
This isn’t about being “traumatized” in some dramatic way. It’s about how human wiring works.
Trauma, big or little T, just hijacks the same learning pathways that help you tie your shoes or drive a car.
Except now, instead of making your life easier, they keep you stuck in emotional autopilot.
And because these implicit memories run beneath conscious awareness, you don’t notice them as “trauma responses.”
You just think, “This is who I am.”
And it’s why, no matter how much therapy you’ve done, you can still hear that inner voice whisper, “You’re too much.”
But it’s not who you are. It’s who you became to survive.
That’s not a weakness. That’s wiring.
And the good news?
If your brain learned those patterns once, it can learn new ones, too.
How Baggage Shows Up (and Why You Keep Dragging It Everywhere)
Let’s be honest, baggage isn’t something you leave at home. It travels.
It shows up in every argument, every new relationship, every opportunity you almost say yes to but don’t.
You don’t even realize you’re dragging it with you until your life starts to feel like a rerun.
And because it’s implicit, unconscious, it feels invisible.
You tell yourself, “I just have a type.”
Or, “I’m just bad at boundaries.”
Or, “I guess I’m just anxious like that.”
No. You’re just running an old safety program your brain wrote before you even knew how to spell “boundaries.”
Different faces, same feelings. Different jobs, same anxiety. Different relationships, same ache.
Ever notice that?
That’s because trauma isn’t stored in the past, it’s stored in your present nervous system responses.
When it’s unhealed, it doesn’t stay confined to “emotional stuff.”
It leaks.
Into your relationships, through hypervigilance, avoidance, or people-pleasing.
Into your health, through chronic stress, gut issues, fatigue, or weight issues.
Into your career, through burnout, overachievement, or fear of failure.
Your unprocessed past becomes your operating system until you update it.
Why though? Why do our brains do this?
Great question.
It’s Not Fate… It’s Familiarity
Your brain keeps recreating what it already knows how to survive, not because it’s trying to torture you, but because it equates predictable pain with safety.
Until you intervene, you’ll keep replaying it.
That’s how we get stuck in the same loops for years.
And it shows up everywhere, because your nervous system doesn’t compartmentalize the way you think it does.
It runs one rule across all contexts: “This is how we stay safe.”
And that’s why healing your trauma isn’t about insight; it’s about updating your safety settings.
Because baggage doesn’t disappear when you understand it.
It releases when your body, brain, and behavior start experiencing something new: safety.
Baggage Leaves Clues
Lucky for you, if you pay attention, baggage leaves clues.
The tricky thing is, those clues don’t announce themselves as “Hey! Here’s your unresolved trauma!”
They show up as ordinary moments, the text you can’t stop overanalyzing, the fight you start because closeness feels unbearable, the spiral you fall into after someone cancels plans.
Those moments are signals, breadcrumbs your nervous system drops, saying, “Something old just got touched.”
That’s how you start to spot your unique “baggage.”
Not by diagnosing yourself, but by decoding the patterns that keep pulling you back into the same emotional landscape, no matter how much insight you’ve gained.
So let’s look at the three biggest indicators your unprocessed past keeps showing up in your present:
Triggers. Patterns. And Voices.
Each one tells a different story about what your system is still holding onto.
The 3 Indicators of Deeper Trauma
These are the entry points. The clues. The breadcrumbs.
They’re not the root, they’re the indicators showing you where the deeper wound still lives.
1. Triggers: Your Body Remembering What Your Mind Forgot
When someone cancels plans, your chest tightens. When a tone shifts, your stomach drops. When someone pulls away, you start overanalyzing your every word.
Sound familiar?
Those are not overreactions, they’re body memories.
Your nervous system is remembering a moment where disconnection meant danger.
Think of it like your body hitting “play” on a scene your conscious mind forgot to delete.
The amygdala can’t tell the difference between a breakup in 2021 and a parent’s cold shoulder in 1999.
It just feels threat → reacts.
So what looks like “overreacting” is actually unresolved emotion in the body.
2. Patterns: Your Brain’s Safety Loops
You say you want stability, but keep choosing chaos. You crave closeness but run the second someone gets too close. You get bored when it’s healthy.
Why? Again, you’ve gotta remember, your brain is wired for familiarity, not happiness.
What feels familiar feels safe, even if it hurts.
So you unconsciously recreate the same dynamics that match your nervous system’s expectation of love.
It’s not that you’re broken; your brain is just trying to predict the world using old data.
Patterns are protection, not pathology.
3. Voices: The Stories You Still Tell
“I always get left.” “I’m too much.” “I need to earn love.”
These voices aren’t random. They’re inner parts running old scripts to protect you from future pain.
They whisper warnings: “Don’t need too much,” “Don’t get too close,” “Don’t be seen.”
And they mean well. But they’re still operating with outdated information.
Healing means updating the story:
“That might’ve been true back then, but it’s not true now.”
Ok, Cody, thank you for these indicators, but what do I do about them?
Come on, you know I got you!
The 3 Tools That Actually Heal (Not Just Help You Cope)
Okay, so you’ve built awareness, amazing. But awareness isn’t integration.
As I’ve mentioned, you don’t heal baggage by thinking harder about it.
So, what do you do then?
You heal by giving your body and brain new experiences of safety that prove: “It’s different now.”
Here’s a tool for each of the 3 indicators we’ve covered today!
Tool 0: Track Before You Transform
Before you can regulate, interrupt, or dialogue with anything, you have to catch it in the wild.
Most people skip this step. They jump straight into “healing” without ever slowing down enough to notice what’s actually happening.
Think of your nervous system like complex software; it’s running old scripts from past experiences.
Your first job isn’t to debug it, it’s to identify the faulty code.
How to do it:
Open a note in your phone titled Catch the Code.
When something hits you, a trigger, a spiral, a sudden shutdown, jot down the raw data. Don’t overthink it. Just record it like you’re an anthropologist studying your own species.
“He didn’t text back… Instant chest tightness, spiral thoughts.”
“Coworker criticized me, felt heat in face, urge to over-explain.”
“Partner got quiet, felt panic, said something sarcastic to get attention.”
“Heard the voice: ‘Don’t need too much.’”
That’s it. You’re not analyzing yet — you’re collecting data.
You’ll start noticing patterns:
The same sensations showing up in your body.
The same people or situations that seem to “activate” you.
The same voices whispering familiar lines.
That’s your code.
Once you can see your system clearly, you stop being inside it.
You move from reacting to witnessing.
And that single shift, from identification to observation, is the beginning of regulation.
You can’t regulate what you can’t recognize.
So before you try to change the story, start catching the code that’s been running it.
Then you’ll be ready for the next 3 tools!
Tool 1. Regulation Before Reflection (for Triggers)
When you get triggered, don’t rush to ‘figure it out.’
Regulate.
Your nervous system doesn’t speak English; it speaks sensation.
Pause for 90 seconds. Breathe. Name what’s happening.
“My chest feels tight.” “My throat has a lump in it.”
Say it out loud.
This tells your brain, “We’re safe enough to stay with this.”
This regulates your nervous system, LIVE baby!
And it’s you teaching your mind, brain, and body: ‘I’m safe now.’”
Tool 2. Pattern Interrupts (for Cycles That Won’t Quit)
Awareness without new behavior is just observation.
So, pick one small, opposite action, just one, that contradicts your old pattern.
If you usually chase when someone pulls away, pause.
If you usually shrink when someone gets close, stay present.
If you usually over-explain, go silent.
These micro-opposite actions create prediction errors in your brain, the signal that says, “Something new is happening.”
And your brain changes when experience contradicts expectation.
Tiny contradictions like these are the fastest way to rewire these old patterns.
Tool 3. Dialogue, Don’t Disown (for Inner Voices)
When that inner voice pipes up, “I’m too much,” “They’ll leave”, don’t fight it.
That part’s been protecting you for a long time.
Get curious with it.
Ask, “When did you first learn that?” “What are you afraid would happen if you didn’t say these things?” “If you knew I was safe now, what would you rather do or say, instead?”
Let it speak.
This is straight outta IFS, and it’s how to reparent these voices in real time!
That’s how you move from insight to integration.
You stop being at war with your own mind, and start being in relationship with it.
Integration: What Healing Actually Looks Like
Ok, I’ve got the tools, now what?
This is the part no one tells you: healing isn’t some euphoric “aha” moment.
It’s hundreds of small moments where you choose safety over self-abandonment.
It’s your nervous system learning, over time, “I can feel this and still be safe.”
You do that by using the tools above, over and over again.
You didn’t learn how to walk in one try, so don’t expect these triggers, patterns or voices to change in one try either!
Awareness.
Regulation.
Opposite action.
Dialogue.
Repeat.
That’s the real process.
You’re Not Broken, You’re Updating
Healing doesn’t happen in one big breakthrough.
It happens in a thousand quiet micro-moments where you meet your pain differently.
Every breath you take when your body says “run.”
Every pause you hold when your mind says “fix.”
Every tender word you whisper to the parts that still believe love is unsafe.
That’s healing.
And it doesn’t mean your past disappears. It means your present no longer lives in its shadow.
Because your trauma was never the end of your story, it was just the first draft your nervous system wrote to keep you alive.
Now you get to write the next version, the one where safety is the plotline.
So no, you’re not broken. You’re becoming.
And if you keep practicing safety, one breath, one pattern, one dialogue at a time...
You’ll wake up one day realizing you’re no longer trying to “heal.”
You’re simply free.
You’ve got this.
And, as always, until next time… Live Heroically 🧠
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