Learning to trust yourself again - how trauma can disconnect us from intuition and inner knowing

Many of us have heard the phrase “trust your gut.” But what happens when you feel disconnected from your gut entirely?

In therapy, I often hear clients say they no longer know what feels right for them. They second-guess themselves, ignore their own needs, or struggle to recognise when something feels unsafe or misaligned. Often, underneath this is not a lack of intuition, but a disconnection from themselves.

So what is intuition?

Rather than something mystical, I think of intuition as our ability to tune inwards and listen to the subtle messages coming from our body, emotions, and nervous system. It can show up as a sense of ease, discomfort, tension, openness, heaviness, clarity, or unease. Intuition is often quiet. It is less about panic or urgency, and more about an internal knowing.

When we are connected to ourselves, intuition can help us navigate relationships, boundaries, choices, and safety. It supports self-trust. Trauma, however, can profoundly impact this connection.

When someone has experienced trauma, particularly relational or developmental trauma, they may have learned to disconnect from their body in order to cope. If your feelings, instincts, or needs were ignored, criticised, or unsafe to express, it can become difficult to know what you truly feel. Survival responses such as dissociation, hypervigilance, fawning, or people-pleasing can pull us away from our inner experience.

Sometimes trauma can also make fear feel like intuition. When the nervous system is constantly scanning for danger, it can be hard to distinguish between a trauma response and a grounded inner knowing.

Reconnecting with intuition often begins with reconnecting with the body.

This can start gently: noticing sensations, slowing down, paying attention to moments of contraction or ease, and becoming curious about emotional responses without judgement.

Therapy can provide a safe relational space to explore these experiences and rebuild trust in yourself over time.

Intuition is not something we either possess or lack. Often, it is something that has been buried beneath survival strategies. With safety, awareness, and self-compassion, it is possible to reconnect with that inner voice again.

Understanding anxiety through a trauma-informed lens.

Why anxiety is not the enemy, and how the nervous system tries to protect us

Anxiety is one of the most common reasons people seek therapy. It can feel overwhelming, exhausting, and at times completely consuming. Many clients understandably describe anxiety as something they want to “get rid of” — an unwanted feeling that interrupts life, relationships, sleep, work, and even the ability to relax.

But what if anxiety is not the enemy?

What if anxiety is actually the body trying to protect us — even when it gets it wrong?

What is anxiety?

At its core, anxiety is the nervous system responding to a perceived threat. It is the body preparing us to survive.

Long before we consciously think something is dangerous, the body is already reacting. The heart may beat faster, breathing might change, muscles can tighten, digestion slows down, and the mind becomes more alert. This is not weakness or failure — it is biology and your body doing what it is meant to do.

Anxiety often lives in the body before it becomes a thought.

You may notice:

• tightness in the chest

• a racing heart

• nausea or digestive discomfort

• dizziness

• restlessness

• tension in the shoulders or jaw

• difficulty sleeping

• a sense of dread or hypervigilance

  
  

The body is essentially saying: “Something does not feel safe.”

The difficulty is that sometimes the nervous system responds to genuine danger, and sometimes it responds to reminders, memories, stress, or old experiences that no longer require protection.

Anxiety and trauma

For many people, anxiety is deeply connected to trauma.

When someone has experienced overwhelming, unpredictable, unsafe, or emotionally painful experiences, the nervous system can become highly sensitive to threat. It learns to stay alert in order to prevent future harm.

This is not a conscious choice. It is an adaptive survival response.

Trauma can teach the body:

• the world is unsafe

• people are unpredictable

• mistakes are dangerous

• rejection must be avoided

• vulnerability leads to pain

  
  

Over time, the nervous system may begin reacting not only to actual danger, but to situations that feel emotionally similar to past experiences.

This is why anxiety can sometimes feel confusing or disproportionate. A person may logically know they are safe, while their body reacts as though danger is present.

The traffic light system

One way to understand anxiety is through the “traffic light” system of the nervous system.

Green Zone

This is where we feel relatively safe, connected, grounded, and able to cope. We can think clearly, engage with others, rest, and respond flexibly to stress.

Amber Zone

This is where anxiety begins to activate. The nervous system senses possible threat. We may feel worried, restless, irritable, overwhelmed, or hyper-alert. In this state, the body is preparing for action.

Red Zone

This is survival mode. The nervous system believes danger is here now - we may shutdown, feel disconnected and numb and enter a freeze state.

When someone has experienced trauma, the nervous system can move into amber or red more quickly, sometimes without obvious cause.

The goal is not to stay permanently “green” — that would not be realistic or even healthy. The nervous system naturally moves between states throughout the day.

The work is learning to recognise our state earlier, understand what our body is communicating, and support ourselves with curiosity rather than shame.

Anxiety is trying to help

Anxiety is often attempting to:

• keep us safe

• prevent rejection

• avoid failure

• protect us from emotional pain

• prepare for uncertainty

• maintain control

  
  

In this way, anxiety can actually be protective.

The problem comes when the alarm system becomes overactive.

Much like a smoke alarm that goes off when making toast, the nervous system can begin reacting to emotional “smoke” rather than real fire.

This does not mean the anxiety is fake. The body response is real. But the nervous system may be responding to old learning rather than present reality.

Why avoidance makes anxiety stronger

When anxiety feels intense, avoiding what triggers it can feel like relief. And in the short term, avoidance often works. But over time, avoidance teaches the nervous system:“That situation really was dangerous.”

This can gradually shrink a person’s world.

Trauma-informed therapy does not force people into overwhelm. Instead, it gently helps people build safety, awareness, and capacity so they can begin relating differently to anxiety.

Rather than fighting anxiety or trying to silence it, therapy may involve asking:

• What is this anxiety trying to protect me from?

• When did I first learn this response?

• What does my body need right now?

• How can I respond with compassion rather than fear?

  
  

Working with anxiety

This can involve:

• learning nervous system regulation

• reconnecting with the body safely

• understanding triggers

• building internal safety

• developing self-compassion

• recognising survival responses without shame

• slowly expanding tolerance for discomfort

  
  

Anxiety often softens when the nervous system no longer feels alone with the threat.

Final thoughts

Anxiety can feel frightening, frustrating, and exhausting. But beneath it is often a nervous system that has worked incredibly hard to keep you safe.

When we begin to understand anxiety through a trauma-informed lens, the question shifts from:

“What is wrong with me?”

to:

“What has my nervous system learned, and what does it need now?”

And that shift can be the beginning of healing.

What is trauma?

Trauma is a word we hear a lot these days, and you may wonder what it really means.

Do I have trauma?

Was that traumatic?

Is this “big enough” to count as trauma?

Am I overreacting?

These are questions many people ask themselves.

I hope to explain trauma in a way that feels understandable and compassionate, and to help you recognise whether this resonates with your own experience.

Trauma is not simply the event itself — it is the impact the experience leaves on the body, mind, and nervous system. This is why 100 people can go through the same event, yet only some may experience long-term effects from it. Our nervous systems respond differently depending on many factors, including our previous experiences, the support we had around us, our sense of safety, and whether we were able to process what happened.

Trauma can come from experiences that are sudden and overwhelming, such as accidents, abuse, loss, violence, or medical trauma. But it can also develop through repeated experiences that may seem smaller from the outside — such as growing up feeling emotionally unsafe, unseen, criticised, rejected, ignored, or constantly on edge.

Often people may dismiss their own experiences because “others had it worse” - but what matters is how your nervous system experienced and adapted to what happened.

Big 'T' and small 't' trauma

You may have heard the terms “Big T” and “small t” trauma.

“Big T” trauma usually refers to experiences that are clearly distressing or life-altering, such as serious accidents, assault, abuse, natural disasters, or sudden loss.

“Small t” trauma refers to experiences that may not appear dramatic from the outside, but which still have a significant emotional impact over time. This might include repeated criticism, emotional neglect, bullying, unpredictable parenting, relationship difficulties, feeling unsafe emotionally, or growing up having to suppress your needs. Neither is more “valid” than the other.

In therapy, I often see people minimise their experiences because they believe they were “not bad enough.” Yet many people carrying deep anxiety, shame, hypervigilance, or difficulties in relationships, have experienced ongoing relational or developmental wounds that were never recognised as trauma.

Developmental and Relational Trauma

Trauma does not always come from one specific event.

Sometimes trauma develops slowly through repeated experiences within important relationships, particularly during childhood.

As children, our nervous systems develop through connection with others. When caregivers are emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, frightening, critical, neglectful, or unpredictable, a child may learn that the world does not feel safe — or that they themselves are somehow “too much,” “not enough,” or responsible for keeping others happy.

This can lead to survival responses that continue into adulthood, such as:

• people-pleasing

• perfectionism

• difficulty trusting others

• fear of rejection or abandonment

• emotional numbness

• anxiety or panic

• shutting down emotionally

• feeling constantly on alert

• struggling to rest or relax

• difficulty setting boundaries

  
  

These responses once served a purpose. They were intelligent adaptations to survive emotionally difficult environments.

Why trauma lives in the body

Trauma is not just remembered through thoughts. It is also held within the body and nervous system. When we experience something overwhelming, our nervous system automatically moves into survival responses such as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. If the experience is not safely processed or resolved, the body can remain stuck in these protective patterns long after the danger has passed.

This is why someone may logically know they are safe, yet still feel anxious, triggered, numb, hyper-alert, emotionally overwhelmed, or unable to relax.

Trauma responses are not signs of weakness - they are signs that the nervous system adapted in order to cope. Your body is working in the way it is meant to in order for you to survive.

Signs you may be carrying unresolved trauma

Many people do not recognise their struggles as trauma-related because they assume trauma only refers to extreme events.

Unresolved trauma can sometimes show up as:

• chronic anxiety or overthinking

• difficulty feeling calm or safe

• people-pleasing or fear of conflict

• emotional overwhelm

• numbness or disconnection

• perfectionism

• burnout

• hyper-independence

• difficulty trusting others

• panic attacks

• low self-worth or shame

• feeling “stuck” in certain patterns

• struggling in relationships

• being highly sensitive to criticism or rejection

  
  

These are not character flaws. They are often nervous system responses shaped by past experiences.

Healing trauma

Healing from trauma is not about “just getting over it.”

It is about helping the nervous system feel safe enough to reconnect, process, and move out of survival mode.

Trauma-informed therapy is not about forcing you to revisit painful experiences before you are ready. It is about creating safety, understanding your responses with compassion, and helping you build regulation, awareness, and connection at a pace that feels manageable for you.

As a trauma-informed integrative therapist, I work gently and collaboratively, recognising that every person’s experience is unique. Healing is not about blaming yourself or others — it is about understanding how your experiences have shaped you, and supporting you in moving towards greater safety, balance, and self-understanding.