I remember a time when I worked absent-minded. Dissociated. I could barely sleep at night because my body kept telling me that sleep wasn’t safe, and that danger could come while I was unconscious. My body felt stiff, and like I was storing unprocessed emotions in my physical tissue. I spent years with chronic joint pain, and after visiting several specialists across different countries, not one of them identified what my body tension actually was: stored trauma. Your most impressive skills aren’t accomplishments— they’re adaptations. Your hyper-competence, your constant vigilance, your ability to power through? Those aren’t personality traits. They’re survival responses. The systemic......See More