5 Signs You’re Healing from Trauma
Trauma healing isn’t linear, and progress doesn’t always look like what people expect.
Okay But… How Do You Know If You’re Healing From Trauma?
Unsure if you’re healing from trauma? Most people, before they start trauma therapy, want to know how they will know when they’re done. Some people start trauma therapy because they are wanting somebody to walk to through life with them and will want that therapist-client relationship to last for as long as possible. Others, especially when it comes to trauma therapy, want to know how they will know it is working, and when it is appropriate to end. Let’s talk about it!
Trauma Healing Isn’t Linear
“How do I know if I’m healing from trauma?” is a common and completely understandable question. Trauma healing isn’t linear, and progress doesn’t always look like what people expect. Some weeks may feel lighter and more hopeful, while others stir up emotions that feel messy or confusing. The truth is that trauma therapy isn’t about reaching a perfect endpoint. It’s about building emotional resilience, nervous system regulation, and a deeper sense of connection to yourself and others.
For trauma survivors, this process often involves learning to feel safe in your body, trust your emotions, and notice when peace and balance start to outweigh distress. Understanding these patterns can help you recognize the subtle but powerful signs that you’re healing.
Five Signs You’re Healing from Trauma
Here are five signs that you’re healing from trauma:
1. You can regularly access joy, safety, and calm.
I use this analogy in therapy with my clients all the time – if you were learning how to swim, would you just jump into the deep end with no floatie nearby? Would you want to be able to know where the edge of the pool was so you could feel more secure? Of course you would.
Diagram of the trauma and healing vortexes by Sensori Motor Art Therapy.
That is why being able to access safety in some way is essential for trauma healing. Dr. Peter Levine, creator of Somatic Experiencing, talks about the “trauma and healing vortexes.” These vortexes happen in what he calls the “river of life.” This river is flowing along well enough until a trauma happens and then - BAM! The easy flow is disrupted and you have a trauma vortex (see diagram).
We have to have access to the healing (think: safe, calm, neutral even) to be able to work through the trauma. Sometimes people come into therapy without really knowing how this feels. Here is an exercise to help you to be able to access these feelings and sensations:
Think about the last time that you had a great day. Who was there? What were you doing? As you think about what made this day great, can you picture it? If you press pause on the best part of your day, can you taste, smell, or even feel it? What emotion are you experiencing now as you conjure this? If you do a body scan from the top of your head to your feet, what are you able to feel? Could this be associated with the emotion you identified earlier?
2. You can feel things in your body.
You might get sick of hearing me say this, but you have to have a semblance of safety in order to do this. When a lot of people who have experienced trauma come to trauma therapy for the first time, they have spent so much time disassociated from their body that they have no idea how to drop in.
When clients begin to do this, it is a great way to tell that the needle is moving in the right way and they are starting to heal from their trauma. In his book, “The Practice of Embodying Emotions,” Dr. Raja Selvam explores the concept of how each emotion we feel is held in the body in some way. The somatic expression of an emotion can be different from person to person, but it is an important piece of the trauma healing puzzle.
3. You have more capacity for emotion.
After trauma happens, people will often use a lot of somatic energy repressing their emotions. People learn over time that their emotions:
Are burdening other people.
Are dangerous to feel.
Can’t be tolerated.
Will make them feel worse.
This is the work that we are undoing in somatic therapy and EMDR therapy. We are working really hard to make sure that the amount of emotional or somatic distress that the person feels is tolerable while being uncomfortable. This helps to not retraumatize the person while also creating more capacity to feel.
I liken this to weight training. You wouldn’t wake up one day without having worked out in a while and decide you’re going to squat 300 pounds. You want to pick a weight that is just challenging enough to make you stronger without injuring yourself. This builds capacity for lifting heavier weights.
Being able to tolerate emotion or sensation and realizing it isn’t going to kill you is what also creates this capacity. We can’t go too much over the threshold (or as some call it, the “window of tolerance”) or it will backfire. Trauma healing looks like tolerating more emotion than you had before.
4. You don’t avoid things like you used to.
When we are traumatized, the part of our brain that is constantly trying to protect us is really active. It is the part that responds to the fireworks as if they are firearms. The fear response is ever-present and constantly taxing the mind, body, and spirit. This combination of fear and fatigue leads to withdrawal. This is why depression and PTSD go hand in hand.
When a person has worked through the difficult emotions and memories associated with their trauma, their nervous system is able to understand that it is safe now. The brain gets the hint that it no longer has to go into fight, flight, or freeze constantly. Trauma has the tendency to overcouple things, or overassociate things. Fireworks become firearms. Loud cheers at a football game are indistinguishable from your dad yelling at your mom in the kitchen when you were seven.
Trauma therapy uncouples these things, allowing for people to start to engage with their life again in new ways. They are able to go to the football game, make new connections, and find joy again. This is one of the biggest markers I look for as a sign of healing.
5. You are finding connection again.
One sign that you are healing from your trauma is that you are able to find and feel connection again.
Traumatized individuals live more in a state of fight, flight, or freeze than others do. This means that the part of the nervous system they are in (either the sympathetic or the dorsal vagal parts), they are unable to be in a calm, rested state. This is the “ventral vagal” state, which is a part of the parasympathetic nervous system.
We love to be here. This is the rest and digest state, the part of the nervous system we are in when we feel relaxed (and not disassociated). We cannot connect with other people when we are not in the ventral vagal state even a little bit.
Therefore, it is important to recognize when people start to be able to spend more time in social situations, start to date again, be around their families more with little distress. Better yet – they want to connect with others. This is a fantastic sign that their minds and bodies are out of that chronic trauma response that probably sent them to therapy in the first place.
What Happens in the Nervous System as You Heal
From Fight, Flight, or Freeze to Rest and Connection
When you’ve experienced trauma, your nervous system often becomes stuck in survival mode, constantly scanning for danger and reacting as though the threat is still present. This might look like chronic anxiety, hypervigilance, emotional numbness, or exhaustion. These responses are the body’s way of protecting you when it didn’t feel safe enough to process what happened.
As you begin healing through somatic therapy or other trauma-informed therapy modalities, your nervous system starts to recognize that the present moment is different from the past. You may notice yourself taking deeper breaths, sleeping more soundly, or feeling calmer in situations that once triggered panic. This shift from fight, flight, or freeze into rest, connection, and safety is a powerful sign that your body is learning it’s no longer in danger. Over time, your system can access balance more easily, responding to stress when needed but returning to calm more quickly afterward.
How Therapy Helps You Reclaim Your Life
Healing the Mind-Body Connection Through Somatic Work
Trauma often disrupts the natural communication between mind and body, leaving people feeling disconnected, numb, or constantly on alert. Somatic therapy focuses on restoring that connection. Rather than only talking about what happened, you learn to notice physical sensations, regulate your nervous system, and release stored tension and energy from the body.
This body-based healing helps you rebuild internal trust. Instead of feeling at war with your body, you begin to see it as a source of wisdom and safety. Over time, this creates space for calm, confidence, and emotional clarity.
Healing from trauma isn’t about erasing the past. It’s about creating safety, connection, and trust within yourself so you can live fully in the present. Through somatic therapy, you can calm your nervous system, release stored emotions, and reconnect with your body’s innate capacity for resilience. When you begin to feel grounded, peaceful, and more like yourself again, that’s when you know real healing is happening.
Start Your Trauma Healing Journey With Somatic Therapy
At Embodied Healing KC, our trauma-informed therapists guide you with compassion and skill, helping you safely process emotions and build resilience. If you are ready to start healing from trauma and would like some support, reach out! Lauren Bradley has immediate openings and is ready to help you on your journey.
Happy healing!
Frequently Asked Questions About Healing From Trauma
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Signs you’re healing from trauma include feeling more joy and calm, reconnecting with your body, tolerating difficult emotions, engaging socially again, and feeling safer in relationships.
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The length of trauma healing varies for everyone. It depends on factors like the severity of trauma, therapeutic support, and nervous system regulation. With consistent therapy, gradual progress becomes visible through increased stability and connection.
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Somatic therapy helps trauma survivors reconnect to their bodies, release stored stress, and regulate the nervous system. This body-based approach promotes deep emotional healing and lasting change.
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When you begin to feel emotions fully without being overwhelmed, it means your nervous system can tolerate more activation and return to safety. This emotional capacity is a key sign of trauma recovery.
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If you notice more emotional regulation, less avoidance, and greater comfort in your body and relationships, therapy is working. Healing doesn’t happen all at once. It’s felt through consistent shifts over time.
Stevie Olson-Spiegel is a Licensed Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner located in Kansas City. She uses Somatic Experiencing as her main body-based trauma healing modality, as well as EMDR. As an Intuitive Eating Counselor, she uses these principles to help her clients challenge their relationship with their cultural misconceptions about their body and food.
