“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” (Gospel of Thomas, apocryphal)

Regardless of the source or origin of the phrase, when I read it I thought it could not be more accurate; it is what I see in practice every day.

Trauma does not always scream.

Sometimes it hides in the body, in long silences, in symptoms we do not understand, until it appears, and not always in the best way.

What we do not express does not disappear: it is transformed into insomnia, anxiety, blocks… until something or someone helps us to look at it and let it go.

In therapy, we do not “relive” the trauma: we give it a safe space to express and transform that blocked energy.

 

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