A few weeks ago, I went to the Philippines for what I thought would be a mix of adventure, surfing, sunshine and nurturing work on a self-love retreat. Over the last seven or eight years, I have made a commitment to myself to go away alone at least once a year, usually to a retreat or healing space, to completely step out of my normal life and focus on myself with as little distraction as possible. These spaces have become part of my own healing journey and personal growth, not because I believe healing ever becomes “perfect” or needs a special place, but because I deeply value creating intentional space to reconnect with myself beyond the noise of everyday life (where survival patterns are stronger).
This time, I chose a self-love retreat. Something about it immediately caught my attention because it was not only about self-love in the soft, comforting sense, but also about understanding how difficult it can be to truly love ourselves when survival has been driving our nervous system for most of our lives – this has been my biggest focus over the last 2 years. If you have worked with me before, you probably know this is something I speak about often. So many of the patterns we carry, whether it is perfectionism, people pleasing, hyper-independence, overworking, anxiety, chronic symptoms or emotional shutdown, are not random flaws. They are survival adaptations. They are ways the nervous system learned to protect us.
When people ask me how the retreat was, I usually laugh and say: “It was f***** up.” Honestly, it was probably the most difficult retreat I have ever attended. Not because anything bad happened there, but because I suddenly found myself in one of the safest and most loving containers I had ever experienced, surrounded by incredible people who were also holding their own stories, grief and trauma. And in that safety, some of my deepest wounds surfaced (even if I have been working on them for years).
The grief of losing my grandmother came up. The grief around my cousin came up. The grief connected to my father came up. Old emotions, old survival responses, old stories that I thought I had already fully processed and moved through. I realised that despite all the healing work I have done over the last decade, despite recovering from chronic symptoms and completely changing my relationship with my body and nervous system, there were still aspects of my life where I was operating from fear rather than freedom.
And I think this is important to speak about openly, because sometimes the healing world unintentionally sells the idea that once you become “aware” of your trauma, or once symptoms improve, you are somehow done. But healing does not work like that. Trauma is not simply an event that happened to us in the past. Trauma is the imprint the experience leaves inside of us. It is the meaning our nervous system creates from what happened. It is the beliefs we formed in order to survive. It is the emotional patterns, behaviours and identities that become wired into the way we experience ourselves and the world.
At some point in our lives, usually without consciously realising it, we make adaptations to survive emotionally. We become the good girl. The achiever. The caretaker. The strong one. The hyper-independent one. The perfectionist. The emotionally unavailable one. The constantly anxious one. The one who never rests. The one who disconnects from their body. The one who fears slowing down because slowing down might mean feeling.
And those patterns can become so normal that we no longer even recognise them as survival.
One of the biggest reminders I received during this retreat was that awareness alone is not what changes the nervous system. Understanding your trauma intellectually is not the same thing as creating safety internally. This is something we speak about a lot within mind-body healing and neuroplasticity work around chronic pain and symptoms. The brain and nervous system learn through experience. They learn through repetition. Through relationships. Through emotional experiences. Through embodiment. Through creating enough safety to begin choosing something different and create a new realty and life.
This is why so many people can spend years analysing themselves, processing their childhood, understanding their patterns, and yet still feel deeply stuck in fear, symptoms or survival. Because healing is not only about revisiting the past. At some point, healing becomes about creating a new reality in the present.
And that can feel incredibly uncomfortable.
Because when survival has shaped your identity for years, choosing differently can feel unsafe at first. Rest can feel unsafe. Boundaries can feel unsafe. Love can feel unsafe. Receiving Support can feel unsafe. Slowing down can feel unsafe. Authenticity can feel unsafe. Joy can feel unsafe. Even peace can feel unfamiliar to a nervous system that has spent years preparing for danger.
I also became more aware of how some of my own behaviours were still subtly reinforcing old beliefs and old nervous system patterns. Not because I was “failing” at healing, but because these pathways have existed for a very long time. The nervous system always moves towards what feels familiar before it moves towards what is healthy or free. Is like the survival states are this snake that finds ways to prioritise protection to survive.
This is why deep healing work often requires support. Not because there is something wrong with us, but because we cannot always see our own blind spots while we are inside the patterns. Sometimes we need safe spaces, safe people and new experiences that allow the nervous system to slowly realise: I do not need to survive in the same way anymore.
And this is also where chronic health symptoms and mind-body symptoms can become deeply connected. When the nervous system remains in patterns of hypervigilance, fear, suppression, perfectionism or emotional overload for long periods of time, the body often carries the impact. Chronic stress physiology affects everything from pain and fatigue to digestion, inflammation, sleep, anxiety and immune function. This does not mean symptoms are “made up” or “all in your head”. It means the body and nervous system are deeply interconnected, and healing often requires us to move beyond symptom management alone.
For me, this retreat was not about becoming a different person. It was about becoming more honest with myself and take full responsibility of my life! More aware of the places where survival still quietly speaks. More compassionate towards the parts of me that learned to adapt in order to feel safe. And more committed to continuing to create a life rooted in love, authenticity, freedom and connection rather than fear.
This is also why I care so deeply about the work I now do with others. Not just helping people understand trauma intellectually, but supporting them to slowly experience what it feels like to live differently. To feel safer in their bodies. To reconnect with themselves. To move beyond constant survival mode. To create new experiences that teach the nervous system that another way of living is possible.
On that note, I will soon be holding a 3-hour trauma workshop alongside Misha, a trauma therapist who works with a range of therapeutic modalities to support trauma healing. Together we will explore trauma beyond the idea of “a bad thing that happened”, helping people understand how trauma shapes the nervous system, identity, emotional patterns and health, while also offering practical tools and compassionate understanding around how we begin moving from survival into empowerment and self-responsibility.
And alongside this, I continue to hold my monthly Somatic Embodiment classes and prepare for the opening of my longer-term somatic community space in September. Because more and more, I believe healing is not only about reducing symptoms. It is about learning how to live. How to feel safe enough to be fully ourselves. How to move from fear into freedom. And how to create lives that are no longer organised entirely around survival.
Warmly,
Sara
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