Trauma, Awareness, and the Paradox of Healing

We have all experienced trauma on some level. Certain events struck so deeply that they left an imprint on the body and mind. These imprints shaped how we live, how we respond, and how we see the world. In that sense, trauma has not been outside of our path, it has been part of the creating of this design.

When I say design, I mean this particular life experience: the body you live through, the mind and its patterns, the personality, the unique storyline that makes up “you.” Every one of us carries a design, and trauma has shaped it in different ways.

For many, healing trauma looks like inch-by-inch work. We zoom in. We revisit memories, we tell the story, we analyse the pain. This isn’t wrong, it can bring relief, even small releases. But zooming in also keeps the trauma alive as mine. The mind loves this because it thrives on identity. It says: this is my wound; this is who I am.

Awareness shows something different. When we zoom out, when we rest as the wider field, we see trauma as an experience in form. Intense, yes, but not who we are. The body may still ache, the emotions may still rise, but they are all seen within the stillness that holds everything.

And here is the paradox:

awareness was always the one who held the experience. Awareness was there when the body trembled, when the mind screamed, when the child felt unsafe. Awareness allowed it to unfold. And awareness is the same presence that dissolves it now.

The trauma seemed personal because we were identified with the design, the mind-body-personality. We said: this is my story. And yes, it was a unique experience to that form. But awareness was never harmed. It simply allowed, felt through the body, and eventually, without effort (if allowed, if zooming out occurred), dissolved what arose.

So the shift is not from broken to healed. It is from identified to aware. From clinging to story to resting as the space in which story dissolves.

When this is seen, trauma is no longer a weight we carry. It becomes part of the tapestry of the design, honored but no longer binding. The pain is not denied, nor is it suppressed, it is included, felt, and then released into the vastness it came from.

This is the beauty of awareness: the very presence that held the wound is the same presence that frees us from it. Nothing needs to be added. Nothing needs to be fixed. Only the recognition that who we truly are was never broken in the first place.

See how this lands in your body. Does it stir something? Do you feel a push against these words? That subtle resistance is itself a sign of identification, with the trauma, with the past story, with the design. It’s not wrong. It’s simply something to notice. To be aware of. In that noticing, space begins to open.