Bessel van der Kolk
Trauma is not just a memory stored in the mind, but an enduring physiological imprint that rewires the brain and traps the nervous system in a perpetual state of danger.
Trauma creates a profound disconnection between the thinking brain, which may attempt to minimize the event, and the feeling brain, which holds onto raw fear and physiological reactivity.
Because trauma suppresses the brain's speech centers and is encoded as fragmented, preverbal sensory experiences, talk therapy alone cannot resolve the body's chronic hyperarousal.
Healing requires bottom-up interventions, such as yoga and deep breathing, which directly recalibrate the vagus nerve and help the autonomic nervous system shift out of survival mode.