Childhood & Developmental Trauma

When the past is still living in your nervous system

You may not always think of your experiences as “trauma,” yet you feel the impact in how you relate to yourself, your emotions, and other people.

Childhood and developmental trauma often comes from what was missing — consistent attunement, emotional safety, protection, or the space to be fully yourself — as much as from what happened.

These early experiences shape your nervous system, your sense of worth, and the roles you learned to take on in order to stay connected and safe.

This is not something you chose.
It is something your system adapted to.

You might relate if:

  • You are hard on yourself no matter how much you do

  • You feel a persistent sense of “not enough” or “too much”

  • You have difficulty identifying or trusting your own needs and feelings

  • You feel emotionally young in certain situations

  • You become overwhelmed by conflict or shut down quickly

  • You take care of others while minimizing your own experience

  • You struggle with shame, even when you know it doesn’t make logical sense

  • You long for deeper connection but also protect yourself from being fully seen

How developmental trauma shows up in adult life

Early relational experiences continue to shape:

  • your inner dialogue

  • your capacity to regulate emotions

  • your relationship with rest and productivity

  • your attachment patterns

  • how safe it feels to be fully yourself

You may have insight into your past and still notice that your body and emotions respond automatically in the present.

This is because developmental trauma lives in the nervous system — not just in memory.

Early relational experiences continue to shape:

  • your inner dialogue

  • your capacity to regulate emotions

  • your relationship with rest and productivity

  • your attachment patterns

  • how safe it feels to be fully yourself

You may have insight into your past and still notice that your body and emotions respond automatically in the present.

This is because developmental trauma lives in the nervous system — not just in memory.

How we work with this

This work is gentle, collaborative, and paced with care.

Using a depth-oriented, trauma-informed, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach, we:

  • connect with the younger parts of you that had to adapt early

  • help you separate your present-day self from old survival states

  • build your capacity to stay grounded in moments that once felt overwhelming

  • transform the shame and self-criticism into compassion and understanding

Rather than only talking about what happened, we focus on healing the impact it is still having — so your present life can feel more spacious, regulated, and fully yours.

The goal of this work

To experience:

  • a more stable and compassionate sense of self

  • access to your full emotional range

  • the ability to stay present during stress or conflict

  • connection that feels safe rather than activating

  • a life that is not organized around old survival roles

So you are no longer living from the adaptations you had to make as a child —
but from who you are now.