When people think about healing from trauma, they often think about healing relationships with other people.
Healing from an unhealthy relationship.
Repairing family dynamics.
Learning to trust again.
Setting healthier boundaries.
All of these are important.
And there is another relationship that often receives far less attention, despite shaping every part of your life:
The relationship you have with yourself.
If you grew up feeling unseen, criticized, emotionally neglected, rejected, or responsible for other people's needs, those experiences didn't just affect how you relate to others.
They shaped how you learned to relate to yourself.
Trauma Doesn't Only Affect Relationships With Others
As children, we learn how to treat ourselves largely by observing how we are treated.
If your emotions were welcomed, you may have learned that your feelings matter.
If your needs were responded to consistently, you may have learned that you are worthy of care.
But when children repeatedly experience criticism, emotional neglect, unpredictability, shame, abandonment, or chronic stress, they often begin to internalize those experiences.
Over time, those external experiences become an internal relationship.
The way you were comforted, spoken to, protected, encouraged, ignored, criticized, or valued gradually becomes the way you begin relating to yourself. What once came from the outside can slowly become your inner voice.
Without realizing it, many adults begin speaking to themselves the way they were spoken to.
They dismiss their own emotions.
They ignore their own needs.
They criticize themselves for struggling.
They question whether they're "too much."
They push themselves beyond exhaustion.
They become compassionate toward everyone except themselves.
Many People Continue the Abandonment They Once Experienced
One of the most painful parts of trauma is that it often continues long after the original experiences have ended.
Not because the people are still there.
But because the patterns have become internalized.
You may abandon yourself by:
- Ignoring your own emotions
- Constantly putting everyone else's needs ahead of your own
- Staying in relationships that repeatedly hurt you
- Silencing yourself to avoid conflict
- Believing your needs are inconvenient
- Criticizing yourself when you're struggling
- Expecting yourself to simply "get over it"
- Never allowing yourself rest without guilt
None of these behaviours develop because someone is weak.
They often begin as ways of surviving difficult environments.
The challenge is that the strategies that once helped us survive can eventually become the very patterns that keep us feeling stuck.
How to Heal Your Relationship With Yourself
Healing isn't simply learning coping skills.
It isn't only understanding your past.
It isn't about becoming perfectly confident.
Instead, healing often involves gradually developing a new way of relating to yourself.
Imagine responding to yourself with the kind of care, protection, encouragement, and steadiness that may have been missing earlier in life.
Learning to comfort yourself instead of criticizing yourself.
Learning to protect yourself instead of repeatedly sacrificing yourself.
Learning to believe your own experiences instead of constantly doubting them.
Learning to set limits without feeling guilty.
Learning to become someone who consistently shows up for yourself.
In many ways, healing involves becoming the steady, compassionate presence for yourself that you may not have consistently experienced growing up. The voice that reassures rather than shames. The part of you that protects rather than abandons. The part that says, "I'm here. We'll figure this out together." Therapy is, in part, about helping that voice become stronger.
For many people, this becomes one of the most profound parts of therapy.
Because eventually, you are no longer relying entirely on the external world to provide what was once missing.
You begin developing those qualities and internal resources within your own relationship with yourself.
Why Insight Alone Often Isn't Enough
Many people may already understand why they struggle.
They know where the people-pleasing came from.
They understand their attachment patterns.
They recognize their inner critic.
And yet, they still find themselves reacting in the same ways.
That's because intellectual insight doesn't automatically change emotional learning.
Our nervous systems often continue operating according to beliefs that were established years (or decades) earlier.
This is why deeper experiential approaches can be so powerful: they begin changing how you experience yourself.
A Different Way of Healing
This shift doesn't happen through self-criticism or sheer willpower. It happens through new emotional experiences that gradually reshape the way you relate to yourself.
One of the ways I help clients strengthen their relationship with themselves is through my Self-Worth Intensive for Complex Trauma & Self-Criticism.
Rather than focusing only on symptom reduction, this three-session therapy intensive explores the deeper emotional experiences that continue shaping how you see yourself today.
Using a combination of Clinical Counselling Hypnotherapy and Emotion Focused Therapy, we work beneath habitual thought patterns to access the emotional beliefs, unmet needs, and protective strategies that often developed much earlier in life.
Across three 2-hour therapy sessions, we'll work toward helping you:
- Develop greater self-compassion
- Heal chronic self-criticism
- Strengthen your sense of self-worth
- Understand where these patterns began
- Build a more secure and supportive relationship with yourself
You can learn more about my Self-Worth Intensive for Complex Trauma & Self-Criticism here.
If you're looking for ongoing support rather than an intensive, you can also learn more about my approach to trauma therapy.
Healing Doesn't Mean Becoming Someone New
One of the greatest misconceptions about healing is that you need to become a completely different person.
Most of the time, healing isn't about becoming someone else.
It's about changing the relationship you have with yourself.
Because the person who speaks to you most is you.
The person who accompanies you through every challenge is you.
The person who comforts you, protects you, advocates for you, and reminds you of your worth can become you.
And over time, that relationship has the power to change almost every other relationship in your life.
How Your Self-Relationship Changes Everything
As your relationship with yourself begins to change, other parts of life often begin changing too.
You may find it easier to set boundaries, choose healthier relationships, recover more quickly from setbacks, quiet your inner critic, and trust your own judgement.
While healing doesn't remove every struggle, it changes the place from which you meet those struggles.
Instead of facing life as your own harshest critic, you begin facing it as your own ally.
Want to Go Deeper?
If you've spent years learning how to care for everyone else while leaving yourself behind, know that this relationship can change. My Self-Worth Intensive for Complex Trauma & Self-Criticism was created to help people begin that journey in a deeper, more experiential way.
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Rebecca Steele | Smart Therapy®
Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist (MA, MSW, RSW, CCC)
Rebecca Steele is a psychotherapist in Ontario who supports adults experiencing anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), relationship patterns, self-worth, emotional neglect, and high sensitivity (HSP traits). Her work integrates depth psychology, emotion-focused and psychodynamic approaches with evidence-informed OCD treatment to help clients better understand themselves and create lasting change. She may also incorporate the Enneagram as a tool for self-understanding and personal growth.
Looking for Additional Support?
If you're located in Ontario and are looking for support with mental health concerns, therapy may be the best fit. Book a therapy appointment here.
If you're outside Ontario, or are primarily seeking support for personal growth, self-understanding, life transitions, or creating meaningful change rather than treatment for a mental health condition, coaching may be a better fit.
