How can I heal Childhood Trauma as an Adult?
Please note that this blog post reflects the author’s perspective is not a substitute for individual therapy or support. If you need immediate support, please connect with your local crisis support (such as calling or texting 9-8-8 within Canada) or emergency services (such as 9-1-1).
As a registered social worker and therapist who works with people pleasing, anxiety, and trauma, I often hear questions like, “How do I heal childhood trauma as an adult?” This question comes with layers of emotions and complexities. You may feel uncertain about what constitutes trauma or why certain patterns persist despite your efforts to change them. Let’s explore this together with warmth, curiosity, and an invitation to deeper understanding.
What is Trauma?
There are things that can be informally described as “big T” trauma. These are effects that linger from experiences that involve a large degree of actual, threatened, or perceived physical or mental harm to us or those around us.
There are also things that are informally termed as resulting in “little t trauma,” where the situation or event was not endangering us or others but still overwhelmed our nervous system’s capacity to cope.
Trauma can occur in the form of a single experience, or in the context of a long-term exposure to a traumatic environment such as one where our needs were repeatedly not met or where we were experiencing ongoing criticism. It can occur when our caregivers were frightened and/or frightening.
Regardless of the type, in the context of healing, we can understand trauma not as the event itself but how our nervous system adapted to cope with an overwhelming experience.
Did I Experience Trauma?
Sometimes, it may be very clear to us that we have experienced trauma, and this clarity can be helpful in our goal of wanting to heal.
Other times, it may not be as clear, and trying to classify if we have or haven’t experienced trauma can bring up feelings like anxiety, shame or guilt. In my experience as a registered social worker and psychotherapist, it can be helpful to not get to stuck in needing to classify if we did or did not experience trauma if this delineation is something that causes us distress.
If you’re stuck in questions like, “Was my experience actually traumatic?” it might help to shift focus. Instead of trying to label your past, consider how your present patterns reflect attempts by your nervous system to try and protect you.
Patterns of Coping: Looking at the Here-and-Now
Our nervous systems are really smart and are always trying to move toward a feeling of safety and regulation. When safety and regulation haven’t been present for us, our nervous systems develop patterns to try and cope that can show up as familiar sensations, behaviours, feelings, or thoughts.
Two common patterns shaped by unresolved trauma that I often support people with are people-pleasing and anxiety. Let’s look at examples of these with compassion.
People Pleasing: Imagine growing up in an environment where love or safety felt conditional—based on how agreeable, helpful, or accommodating you were. Over time, people-pleasing may have become an often unconscious strategy to avoid conflict, gain approval, or ensure connection. While it might have served you in childhood, it can feel exhausting and inauthentic in adulthood, leaving little room for your own needs.
Anxiety: Anxiety often emerges as our nervous system’s way of staying hyper-alert to danger. If you experienced unpredictability or emotional turmoil as a child, overthinking and hypervigilance might have been protective—ways to anticipate and prevent harm. Yet now, they might keep you stuck in cycles of worry or self-doubt.
While these are two examples, there can be many different ways that people pleasing and anxiety developed as efforts by the nervous system to protect or cope.
Why Is It Hard to Change These Patterns?
It’s tempting to try to change behaviours like people pleasing or overthinking by sheer willpower: “I’ll just stop saying yes to everything!” or “I’ll stop worrying so much.” But more often than not, these efforts lead to frustration. Why? Because these patterns aren’t merely habits—they’re survival strategies wired into your nervous system.
As Bessel van der Kolk’s work in The Body Keeps the Score shows, trauma is stored not just in our memories but in our bodies. When your nervous system senses a threat (real or perceived), it overrides your rational mind. This is why stopping a behavior can feel impossible—it’s a deeply ingrained response to keep you safe. These behaviours can become parts of our everyday lives as conditioned or automatic habits or responses.
Healing from Childhood Trauma
Healing from childhood trauma doesn’t mean erasing your past but transforming your relationship with it in the present. Once you are in an environment that is no longer dangerous, here are some paths forward -
Strengthen your Emotional Muscles: Learning and practicing different unblending, grounding exercises, or somatic practices can help you widen your Window of Tolerance or climb up the Polyvagal Ladder. What this means, practically, is to build habits of regulating your nervous system that are aligned with the type of person you want to be or your goals, rather than automatic coping patterns that feel unhelpful in your current life.
Notice Patterns with Curiosity: Begin by observing your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours with curiosity rather than judgment. What would it be like to practice noticing the thought, feeling, or behaviour, rather than automatically believing it or acting on it?
Getting Curious about Parts or your Nervous System: Using mindfulness-based approaches, such as parts work, we can become curious about the younger parts of you that developed these coping strategies. Perhaps a “pleaser” part learned to avoid conflict, or an “overthinker” part felt responsible for keeping you safe. This does not mean that we need to dive into reliving memories. Instead, recognizing how these parts show up in your present helps us unblend from them and be able to move forward without these younger patterns driving our decisions or actions.
When you notice yourself people-pleasing or spiraling into anxiety, ask, “What is this part of me worried about? What job is it trying to do, or how is it trying to help?”
Explore Your Values: Healing often involves being curious about or reconnecting with what truly matters to you. What would it mean to live a life aligned with your values? For example, setting boundaries might feel scary, but it aligns with valuing authenticity and self-respect. Often times, we may not have had a space that feels safe to explore what truly matters to us - and so, it's important to take this at a pace that feels okay to all parts of you.
Seek Support: Trauma healing is not a journey you have to take alone. A trained trauma therapist can provide a compassionate space to process your experiences, practice new skills, and create meaningful change.
A Gentle Invitation
Healing childhood trauma as an adult is about honoring the resilience that brought you here while gently being curious about the patterns that no longer serve you in order to build a life that is meaningful to you in the present. If this resonates with you, consider reaching out for support. Together, we can navigate your path toward a life that feels authentic, grounded, and aligned with your deepest values.
Remember, healing is a journey—one that unfolds moment by moment, step by step. And you don’t have to walk it alone.
About the author
Sabrina Sibbald (MSW, RSW) is a Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist. She supports adults in Burlington, Toronto, and across Ontario to overcome anxiety, people pleasing, and trauma so they can move forward in a way that feels true to who they are.
References
Harris, R. (2021). ACT Made Simple 2nd Edition: An Easy-to-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
Fisher, J. (2017). Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation. Routledge.
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change. Guilford Press.
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. W.W. Norton & Company.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
