Mindful Moves: Trauma-Informed Insights

    When Love Hurts the Nervous System: Narcissistic Abuse Through a Trauma-Informed Lens For World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day – June 1st We often hear that love is patient, kind, and safe. But for many, love has also been confusing, consuming, and deeply unsafe. On World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day , we pause to honour those whose lives have been silently shaped by the invisible bruises of emotional manipulation and chronic control. This kind of abuse doesn't always leave visible scars. But it leaves deep, neurological imprints , especially on the nervous system. What Is Narcissistic Abuse? Narcissistic abuse isn’t simply about being with someone who’s self-absorbed or vain. It's a form of emotional and psychological abuse inflicted by someone exhibiting narcissistic personality traits or full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). At its core, narcissistic abuse is about control, exploitation, and eroding your sense of self , often so subtly that you begi...

Why People with Complex PTSD Often Sleep a Lot (And Why That’s Not Laziness) You might have heard it or said it yourself. "I’m just tired all the time." "Even after 10 hours, I still wake up exhausted." "Sometimes I feel like all I do is sleep—and I still can't catch up." For many people living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), this is more than occasional burnout. It’s a pattern. A fog. A cycle that doesn’t seem to make sense from the outside, but makes perfect sense once you understand what CPTSD does to the body and brain. So, why do people with CPTSD sleep a lot? And why is it not laziness, weakness, or avoidance? Let’s break it down. 1. The Body Is Always Bracing for Impact When you live through repeated trauma, especially in childhood or over a prolonged period, your nervous system adapts to survive. Hypervigilance, muscle tension, and an always-on stress response become your “normal”. Even at rest, your body...

  Unspoken Agreements: The Power of Psychological Contracts in Organisational Change When organisations shift, be it through restructuring, role changes, or cultural transformation, the focus is often on the visible: job titles, processes, and policies. But beneath all that, something more subtle but just as critical is taking shape (or falling apart): the psychological contract . It’s not written down. You won’t find it in your induction pack. But it’s there, shaping how we show up, how safe we feel, and how we relate to those we work with. As someone who has led and worked alongside frontline staff, carers, nurses, and managers for over three decades, I’ve learnt this: when psychological contracts are not acknowledged and nurtured, working relationships can quietly unravel—and during change, the damage compounds. Let’s explore this through a trauma-informed lens. What is a Psychological Contract? Simply put, a psychological contract is the unspoken agreement between p...

  When They Walk In Like They Know Better: Surviving the Subtle Sabotage of a Workplace Takeover There’s a particular kind of silence that falls in a room when someone dismisses your years of work with a single raised eyebrow or a casual, “Well, this is how we did it at XXXXX.” It’s not the booming kind of conflict that ends in slammed doors or raised voices. No, it’s quieter than that. It lives in the comments like: “Oh, that’s interesting, but we usually do it this way.” “How did this even work before?” “It’s going to take a while for everyone to catch up to the new standards.” These phrases slip in under the radar, just enough to plant doubt, but not enough to raise a formal grievance. You start to second-guess yourself. Was that personal? Are they actually saying I’m not good enough? Or am I just tired? If you’ve ever experienced a company takeover, where you go from being a respected team member to a reluctant spectator of a corporate invasion, you know how deeply this can...

   The Power of Heart Energy: The Influence You Might Not See, But Others Can Feel You’ve probably heard someone say, “That person gives off a certain vibe.” It’s more than just a saying; it’s something we feel deeply and instinctively. But have you ever paused to think about how far your own energy reaches? Studies show that the electromagnetic field generated by the human heart can extend several feet beyond the body. That means the emotional state you're carrying – whether it's peaceful, tense, open, or shut down – can quietly shape the space around you. In my life as a nurse, a carer, a veteran, and the spouse of a veteran living with PTSD, I’ve learnt firsthand that our presence – what we carry in our hearts – has real weight. It can either calm a room or unsettle it. The way we show up – how we breathe, listen, and regulate ourselves – has a ripple effect. And when you’ve lived through trauma, this becomes even more important. Our energy can become a source of comf...

  The Hidden Cost of Change: Understanding Nervous System Stress During Organisational Transitions Why It Feels So Hard--and How to Protect Your Inner Ground Let’s be honest: when your organisation announces a merger or acquisition, the room doesn’t erupt in cheers. It goes quiet. You feel it before you even understand it. A gut-punch. A tightening in your chest. A thousand invisible “what-ifs” clattering inside your mind. You might smile or nod while the news is delivered, but your nervous system has already clocked it as a threat. And that’s not drama--that’s biology Why Change Feels Like Danger ­­­­ Our nervous system is designed to keep us safe. It constantly scans for cues: Is this environment safe? Do I belong? Am I secure? When big changes hit, especially ones we didn’t initiate, it triggers our body’s age-old survival system. Takeovers, mergers, and acquisitions are full of unknowns. Will your job still exist? Will your team change? Will your role be respected ...

What If Your Symptoms Are Messages? Decoding Trauma Through a Mind-Body Lens In our fast-paced, demanding world, many of us experience physical and emotional symptoms that we’re quick to dismiss as problems to be fixed. We might take a pill for a headache, stretch out our stiff neck, or struggle through yet another sleepless night. But what if these symptoms aren’t random at all? What if they are messages, deep calls from the body that need to be heard? What if, instead of seeing them as inconveniences, we learnt to decode these messages to understand what our bodies are trying to tell us about past trauma? Trauma affects us in more ways than we often realise. While most of us are familiar with the emotional or psychological aspects of trauma, it’s crucial to understand that the body plays a significant role in how we store and process these experiences. Trauma doesn’t just live in our minds; it lives in our bodies, too. As a nurse and somatic trauma-informed coach, I’ve seen fir...

  This Is My Community: The Quiet Crisis of Caring Behind every healed wound, every comforted soul, every life saved or soothed, there’s a person holding space. A nurse. A carer. A frontline responder. A family member who gives everything, every day, for someone else. And while society often praises these roles with applause and sentiments, an untold truth runs quietly beneath the surface: those who care, carry. They carry stories, pain, grief, and trauma, and often do so in silence. As we mark Mental Health Awareness Week 2025 , themed around community , it's time we turn our collective gaze to a quiet epidemic: vicarious trauma and burnout in the communities that care. When Care Costs Too Much Whether you’re a registered nurse, social worker, paramedic, unpaid carer, working in a care home or home care, you are on the front lines of human suffering. You sit with death. You manage distress. You absorb anger, fear, and hopelessness, sometimes daily. And even when you ‘cl...