Trauma Solutions Counseling

11/23/2025

For those with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), protecting others becomes second nature. Worth gets tied to performance, loyalty, and how much of yourself you’re willing to give up to keep others safe. In high-stakes environments, this self-sacrifice is praised, required, and when lives are on the line, the right response for your team.

However, an important question often goes unasked: What happens when the threat ends, yet the sacrifice continues?

Many veterans struggle to stop the pattern of over-functioning, over-giving, and putting themselves last. It’s not because they’re “too nice” or “too committed,” the truth is that it has become the only way they’ve ever known to exist in the world.

Choosing yourself can feel selfish when survival once depended on meeting everyone else’s needs first. But the transition out of service requires a shift:

From self-sacrifice to self-preservation
From hypervigilance to healthy boundaries
From “I only matter when I serve” to “My life has inherent value”

This is healing not weakness. It’s being able to reclaim the parts of you that were never meant to be expendable.

You were willing to die for your country,
are you willing to live for the life you were created to have?

The courage it takes to serve is one only few know, but the bravery to heal is what allows you to live again!

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” Isaiah 43:18 -19.

11/17/2025

I’ll be set up representing Trauma Solutions and SOF Network. See you there!

Join us in Pensacola for Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret—a gripping live stage production written by Ret. Green Beret Lt. Col. Scott Mann and performed by combat veterans and military family members.

Through the eyes of Danny Patton, a Green Beret caught between this life and the next, Last Out takes you on a powerful journey through the warrior’s experience—from the battlefield to the homefront. Raw, emotional, and deeply human, this is not just a play—it’s a mission to heal, connect, and remember.

Hosted at the Sanders Beach-Corrine Jones Resource Center, this one-night event offers a rare opportunity to witness the cost of war through the voices of those who lived it.

🎟️ TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/the-last-out-elegy-of-a-green-beret

November 22 at 7:00 PM

Come honor the legacy of our nation’s defenders and be part of a story that bridges the gap between military and civilian life.



https://tfpineapple.org/event/november-22nd-7-pm-last-out-pensacola-fl/

📍Save the date—November 22nd, 7:00 PMTickets: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/the-last-out-elegy-of-a-green-beret 913 S I St Pensacola, FL 32502 Sanders Beach-Corrine Jones Resource Center | November 22 An Unforgettable Night of Storytelling, Service, and Sacrifice Join us in Pensacola fo...

11/17/2025

Join us for Friday forThe Heroes Journey 1-Day Storytelling Workshop — a guided experience for veterans, first responders, and Gold Star families to find meaning through story, connection, and belonging.
You’ll learn how to shape your personal story using the timeless arc of the Hero’s Journey — from the call to serve, through challenge and loss, to the return home with wisdom to share.

Date: Friday, November 21, 2025
Time: 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Location: Sanders Beach-Corrine Jones Resource Center 913 South I Street, Pensacola, FL

Register:

https://form-interface-d3a8de.zapier.app/

11/16/2025

Your Reactions to Others Are Reflections of What’s Happening Inside You. The best part is that it’s Exactly How God Designed us, but we have been trying to solve it the wrong way.

Most of what we feel toward others is actually a reflection of something happening within our own heart. If it were only about them, it would land as information- a statement, something to notice, agree or disagree with, and then release.

But when there’s emotion attached, that feeling becomes a signal. It’s a nudge, a gentle tap from the Holy Spirit saying,

“There’s something in you that I want to heal.”

This is not a flaw.
It’s how God wired your heart so healing and restoration can happen from the inside out.

Here are a few ways that it can show up:

• Someone succeeds and you feel irritated.
Most of the time, this isn’t jealousy, it’s grief for the version of you that never felt supported or encouraged and now you stand in your own way of doing it.

God isn’t exposing this to shame you. He’s showing you the places still waiting to be restored within you.

• Someone leaves you out and it hurts.
That pain is an old message rising up, maybe something like “I’m not enough.”

But God calls you chosen, seen, and fully known. He allows the moment not to wound you, it’s to rewrite the story inside you.

• Someone expresses their emotions and you feel uncomfortable.
Their emotions touch the parts of you that were taught to hide, silence, or shrink.

God is inviting you to bring those hidden places into His light.

• Someone rests and a part of you feels resentful.
Maybe you grew up believing rest was unsafe, lazy, or unacceptable.

From the beginning, God modeled rest as holy, necessary, and good.

• Someone’s confidence feels like arrogance to you.
The discomfort often reveals a place where you doubt your own worth.

God isn’t condemning you, He’s trying to restore the identity He already placed inside you.

• Someone asks for help and you get annoyed.
That annoyance belongs to the part of you that learned survival meant carrying everything alone.

But God created us for interdependence, community, and support.

This is the beauty of God’s design:

Instead of asking,
“Why are they like that?” begin asking,
“Lord, what part of me are You bringing into the light right now?”

Your emotions become invitations.
Your reactions become revelations.
Your relationships become refining tools, the places where God grows, shapes, comforts, and transforms you.

This is not punishment.
This is the gentle restoration of the heart.

God uses interactions with others to heal the places in you that were never nurtured, never affirmed, never protected, or never loved the way He intended.

You don’t grow by fixing the world around you.
You grow by letting God tend to the world within you.

11/13/2025

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Attachment Barriers & Personality Adaptations in the Military

One research and experience working with the military population has made crystal clear is that many service members’ stories start long before they put on the uniform.

A significant number of SOF and high-performing military personnel grew up navigating Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), chaotic homes, emotional neglect, unpredictable caregivers, parentification, or chronic insecurity. These early experiences shape the nervous system in ways that look a lot like the traits we later praise in the military:
• hyper-responsibility
• vigilance
• emotional control
• independence
• the drive to protect
• the ability to perform under pressure

But these aren’t “symptoms.” They’re survival strategies learned in childhood that often make someone exceptional in uniform.

However, there is a flip side, especially after service.

When childhood attachment barriers combine with military conditioning, the patterns that once kept someone safe can become barriers to reintegration:
• difficulty with emotional closeness
• distrust
• isolation
• rigid self-control
• identity confusion without structure
• moral injury layered on top of older wounds

And what often gets labeled by society as a “personality disorder” is, more accurately, a personality adaptation, a way of moving through the world that was shaped by adversity and refined by military culture.

What my research is showing:
The military doesn’t “break” their members. It gives form, purpose, and structure to this protective adaptations they built long before service.

The challenge comes after leaving the military, when the identity that protected them can no longer carry the weight of unaddressed childhood pain, moral injury, or the loss of role and mission.

This matters for how we support veterans.
Shifting from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened in your story that shaped how you learned to survive?” changes everything about healing, reintegration, and identity reconstruction.

Veterans don’t need to abandon the parts of themselves that kept them alive. They need space to integrate them, to understand them, and finally give voice to the parts that never had room to grow in childhood or in service.

And for the spouses, partners, and those who love them and want to help…

If we belittle or criticize their behaviors, even unintentionally, their protector parts only work harder. Those protectors were formed in childhood, long before deployment, long before trauma, and they still believe they must keep everything under control to stay safe.

But when you approach their behavior with curiosity instead of judgment, something powerful happens: Those younger parts finally feel seen and heard. And when those parts feel safe, the protectors can step back. This is where closeness begins. This is where healing becomes possible, together

10/28/2025

What Makes a Good Therapist?

When you’re looking for a good therapist, it’s not about credentials, techniques, or letters after a name. It’s about their heart posture, how they show up, how they listen, and whether they reflect humility and truth.

Good therapists don’t settle for surface explanations or validation. They listen for what’s not being said, the pauses, the tension, the ache underneath the words. They hear the bodies screams for help. Proverbs 18:13 reminds us, “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.” True curiosity is key, they seek understanding, not control.

They’re not afraid of what’s messy or unresolved. They understand that healing doesn’t happen on a timeline and that sometimes the most powerful thing they can do is to just simply be. Romans 12:12 says, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.”
They trust the process, the client, and God who works in the unseen.

The best therapists are kind but still speak truth. They don’t flatter or rescue; they hold space for grace and accountability.
Ephesians 4:15 calls us to “speak the truth in love” that is what healing requires.

And lastly, They’ve sat with their own pain and allowed God to meet them there.
They’ve wrestled with their story and let it shape their compassion. Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
It’s that personal transformation that gives their presence depth and their counsel peace.

Because the best therapy isn’t about fixing people, it’s about walking beside them and seeing them for what might be the first time in their lives. It’s about teaching them to see themselves the way that you do, the way that Jesus does.

It’s about creating space where honesty, grace, and growth coexist. And when done well, it reflects the heart of Christ, meeting people right where they are and reminding them they’re not alone.

10/18/2025

10/17/2025

Invisible Wounds Before the Uniform

Do you find yourself constantly doing more just to feel good?

Do you feel like no matter how hard you try, it’s never enough?

Do you crave the thrill, the mission, or the next challenge, because slowing down feels lazy?

If so, you’re not broken. You’re human.
And your brain may have learned long ago that doing equals safety.

When we grow up in chaos, stress, or unpredictability (what researchers call Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs), our nervous system becomes wired for high alert. The body floods with dopamine and adrenaline during action and cortisol during stress. Over time, those chemicals become familiar, even comforting, and sometimes are mistaken for love.

So when life finally gets calm…your brain might start telling you, “Something’s wrong.” Stillness feels foreign. Safety feels suspicious. It’s not necessarily a mental illness, it’s how the brain has been wired to perform.

This is especially true for many veterans and high-performing professionals who learned to survive by staying in motion. The mission never stops, you keep going, searching, moving until the body and soul finally say, “enough.”

Healing begins when we teach the nervous system that peace isn’t danger, it’s repair.

Through somatic awareness, parts work, bilateral stimulation, and faith-based methods, we can help the body unlearn chaos and rediscover what true safety feels like: grounded, connected, loved, worthy and free.

💛 You don’t need to earn your worth through doing. You were worthy before the uniform, before the mission, before the pain.

10/14/2025

Mental health doesn’t have to be hard.

It becomes hard when we fight what we feel.

Our emotions are messengers, not enemies.
They are signals from the body saying, “Something needs attention.”

But when we resist, suppress, or question our emotions, when we tighten against sadness or silence our anger, the body interprets that resistance as danger.

That’s where the real shifts begin to happen. Our nervous system goes into protection mode. Stress hormones rise.
And over time, these patterns can actually influence our genes, not by changing our DNA sequence, but by turning certain genes on or off through a process called epigenetics.

Epigenetics is how our lived experiences, especially emotional ones, communicate with our biology.
When we live in states of chronic resistance (stress, shame, suppression), the body adapts for survival.

But when we allow emotions to move through, to be seen, named, and felt, the body begins to adapt for healing instead.

Allowing emotions doesn’t mean becoming them. It means giving them space to exist.
And that space is what shifts the epigenetic expression from defense to restoration.

So maybe mental health isn’t about “fixing” ourselves. Maybe it’s about letting ourselves be, long enough for the body to remember how to heal.

10/14/2025

Neuroscience just confirmed what so many people with ADHD have always known:
The ADHD mind isn’t scattered, it’s strategically expansive.
It doesn’t lack focus, it sees everything at once.

A new study presented at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology found that people with ADHD often score extraordinarily higher in creativity, especially when they allow their thoughts to wander deliberately.

Researchers identified two kinds of mind-wandering:
• Spontaneous: when thoughts drift without control.
• Deliberate: when the mind chooses to explore.

It’s that deliberate wandering that fuels innovation. The same thing society tells ADHD brains to “control” might actually be their greatest advantage.

Neuroscientists call this activation of the Default Mode Network, the brain’s creative engine that sparks when focus softens and imagination takes the lead.

Psychologists call it the incubation effect, when stepping away allows the mind to connect ideas logic never could.

As Dr. Han Fang from Radboud University explains:

“People with more ADHD traits, like inattention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity, scored higher on creative achievement. Those who allowed their thoughts to wander on purpose showed even greater creativity.”

In other words…the ADHD brain isn’t broken.
It’s brilliantly wired for discovery.
Where others demand order, it finds pattern.
Where others see distraction, it sees connection.

ADHD isn’t a deficit of attention.
It’s a surplus of perception, a mind that thinks in layers, senses what’s coming before it arrives, and fill the gaps between ideas most people don’t even notice.

When guided with awareness, the wandering mind becomes a compass.
It’s not the end of focus..it’s the beginning of discovery.

Researchers have discovered that ADHD’s hallmark mind wandering might actually boost creativity. People who deliberately let their thoughts drift scored higher on creative tests in two large studies. The findings hint that mindful management of mental drift could turn ADHD’s challenges into crea...

09/17/2025

Next Wednesday (Sept 24)! 💙 Join us in supporting Open Door Mental Health, Inc. as they help expand access to quality, compassionate care for military-connected and underserved communities. See you there!

We’re so excited to announce Open Door Mental Health’s very first local fundraiser!

📍 Task Force Pizza – 1826 Lewis Turner Blvd, Fort Walton Beach, FL 32547
📅 Wednesday, September 24th
⏰ 4:00–9:00 PM

When you dine with us, you’re doing more than enjoying great pizza—you’re supporting our military-connected community and helping provide barrier-free, compassionate mental health care for those who serve and their families.

Can’t join us in person? No problem! You can still support the cause by going to https://live.givebutter.com/c/ODMHPizzaNight to make a donation toward the fundraiser. Every gift makes an impact!

Every slice—and every donation—makes a difference. Let’s come together as a community to show our support and make this first fundraiser one to remember!

08/08/2025

We’re excited to be part of the Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce! It’s inspiring to see such an amazing community of people and businesses working together for the good of our area. We can’t wait to see all that’s ahead!

What a great August New Member Luncheon today!
Congratulations to our newest members on taking the next step in growing your business and getting connected through the Chamber.

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Timberman Roofing
REAL Travel
Trauma Solutions Counseling
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Andy & Stephanie Bueno - LPT Realty
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