Healing History Counseling

13/08/2025

People with painful pasts can often struggle with feeling safe. When people have used touch to hurt and harm we can find it hard to not flinch away from all touch.

Healing from those painful experiences can help us learn to allow loving healthy touch into our lives.

We all deserve healthy, loving relationships. Humans are communal in nature and we thrive best when we are part of a web of interconnected and caring people. Healing the harm that was done to us can open us to those vital connections.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumra

13/08/2025

Our inner child isn't being a brat!

They are hurting!

Our unhealed past doesn't just go away. A part of us is stuck holding on to it. Shoved down into a hidden corner of ourselves, that part waits for us to remove the burden from them.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumq9

13/08/2025

As I work with clients with trauma histories, I find myself thinking about anniversaries. Not wedding or first date anniversaries but much less pleasant ones: Awful Anniversaries.

Anniversaries of dreadful experiences. Anniversaries that bring bad memories and intense upsetting emotions. Anniversaries that we would really rather not experience but can't seem to escape.

This blog explores Awful Anniversaries and provides a number of steps that can be taken to make those anniversaries less awful.

Not all anniversaries are good. In fact, some are downright Awful! People who experienced childhood abuse or neglect can struggle with Awful Anniversaries. Awful Anniversaries can take many forms. Possible Awful Anniversaries Specific Date: This can be the date that the abuse happened, the date it s...

12/08/2025

Although Austin's plethora of meditation and yoga studios suggests a city full of chill people, not everyone is comfortable being so chill.

Survivors of childhood sexual or physical abuse often find the idea of being peaceful, quiet or calm as intolerable. Take a minute and sit quietly focusing on your breathing. Some people find that they get tense or upset when they try to do this. Some people find that they can't make their minds quiet; this is very common for people just learning to meditate. It can also be that a person's mind believes being quiet or calm is dangerous.

If calm, peaceful, or quiet was just a prelude to catastrophe during childhood, it makes perfect sense to would work hard to avoid those states as an adult. But calm, peaceful and quiet are not in themselves bad things. It is how they have become associated with the awful events that would follow. When we were a child it may have been impossible for us to avoid the chaos, we could only try to predict it. Now as adults we have much more control of the level of chaos in our lives. Healing our past can help us become comfortable with a quieter, calmer present life.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumq8

12/08/2025

Until we come to love ourselves we will struggle in relationships. A belief in our unlovableness will cause us to undermine and push away any love that is given to us. The cause of a lack of self-love is often rooted in our childhoods. Parent's who ignored, hurt or hated their children can create a belief in their children that they are unlovable. As a child we NEED love and acceptance and when it is denied us we think it is because something is wrong with us. This starts the belief system that can lead to an inability to accept love as an adult.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumq6

11/08/2025

Healing our history can be amazing and wonderful. But it is also challenging and tiring.

While deep in the mud, it can be easy to forget how much healing we have accomplished. We must take the time to pause some times to notice how far we have come. Celebrating our progress is a great way to renew our strength for the next step in our healing journey.

Taking the time to celebrate the healing already done can help us remember why we are doing this hard work.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumq2

11/08/2025

It may be hard to believe, on a day when getting out of bed is beyond difficult, that just making it through the day is a success.

But it is!

We are taught that only accomplishments and successes should be celebrated. And they are right! We just often fail to have reasonable expectations of accomplishment and success.

Staying on a bucking bronco for 8 seconds is an accomplishment!
Now some might argue that a bucking bronco is a lot harder to stay on then getting out of bed.... I would answer - well that depends on why it's so hard to get out of bed. Perhaps it would be useful to consider our life experiences as the horse we have to ride. A childhood without abuse, neglect or sexual assault may be a placid pony while a less uneventful childhood may be a wilder horse. A really challenging childhood may be a rodeo quality bucking bronco.

Staying on the placid pony is much less of a challenge then staying on the world class bucking bronco.

Similarly, getting up in the morning is much easier when we are not struggling with depression, anxiety, self-hate, trauma and a life that just feels like a battle every moment of every second.

When we are fighting those challenging, yet subtle, battles we need to stop helping the other side. Stop beating ourselves up and putting ourselves down for having to fight and start acknowledging how hard we are fighting to just stay on the damn horse.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them.

Interested in working with me? Schedule your free consultation NOW at: https://healinghistorycounseling.com/schedule_now/?utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com

10/08/2025

Go ahead, giggle! Let them wonder!

Laughter, in all it's forms, is good for the soul.

So... laugh it up furball

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? Schedule your free consultation NOW at: https://healinghistorycounseling.com/schedule_now/?utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com

10/08/2025

"Why didn't I fight back?"

"Why didn't I try to get away or scream?"

These are often the questions that survivors of assault and abuse will torture themselves with after they have survived. They may hate that they didn't do ANYTHING or feel that somehow it means they were to blame. The truth is that their mind had most likely chosen the Freeze danger response as their best chance to survive. Some part of their mind, probably the part that most deeply wants to keep living, has determined (correctly or not) that they can't fight their way out, they can't run fast enough to get away, and that there would be no talking their way out of this. So their mind chose the Freeze response as their best option for survival. Later they may believe they had other options, but in that moment a part of them made the best choice it could. (Check out this blog post on all 4 danger responses: http://ed.gr/cujk3

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/y205

09/08/2025

When a person grows up in difficult, awful, or horrendous conditions they do what must be done to get through. Later, when looking (through adult eyes) back at those childhood choices it is easy to judge them harshly. People often forget that it was not their adult selves who made those choices but a young child who was doing their best. Sometimes it is helpful to notice how childish a child's thinking truly is and gain perspective on their ability to make adult choices. Forgiveness of one's self is an important part of healing one's past.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumq1

09/08/2025

It is not always how our family behaves that causes us pain. It can also be our expectations of them.

If our family has never supported us as we needed them to, our continued hope that they will is actually what is causing us pain now. But it can be really hard to let go of those old hurts and harm.

Healing our history can help us let go of those unobtainable expectations and hopes. Healing our history will not make our family any less harmful or toxic than they've always been, but it can help us not cause ourselves extra pain through our own misconceptions.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumqw

08/08/2025

They can bring such joy!

They can cause so much pain!

Our families have a huge impact on our lives. Sometimes the repercussions can last a lifetime. If the echos are of joy, then their presence is a joy. If the echos are painful then their presence can be torture.

If memories of our childhood cause us pain, doing the work to heal our past can have a wonderful impact on our future.

I am an EMDR trained trauma therapist with offices in North Austin & Belton TX. I specialize in helping adults put their pasts behind them. I also offer sessions by video.

Interested in working with me? schedule your free consultation NOW at: http://ed.gr/cumqv