Because of my childhood experiences, being overly analytical was a trauma response, an escape into the mind by dissociating from the body. It created an illusion of safety in a world that felt uncertain. But beneath my intellect was a system in constant holding, bracing, surviving.

My family and I were displaced more than seven times as we fled war, which shook my foundation of safety. Later, relational trauma and complex PTSD deepened that instability, and addictive patterns became survival strategies.

At the core of these patterns was self-abandonment and the theme of belonging, or rather, the lack of it.

Since 2012 and for a little over 10 years, I had exhausted conventional therapies that had offered very helpful insights, but insight alone did not create the changes I needed. I found myself looping in my mind and in my stories, feeling defined by diagnosis rather than understood through the lens of survival and resilience.

This is when I came across Neo Emotional Release in 2021 - a new emotion-centric approach to somatic therapy that works with the body’s stored emotional tension to encourage healing from within. It addresses deeply held emotional blocks and their root causes in a safe, supportive space.

I cultivated embodied safety, not as a concept but as a lived nervous system experience. Learning to regulate my system expanded my capacity to feel rather than escape, and I began to recognise the wisdom within my emotions I once avoided, especially loneliness, grief, and helplessness. Through somatic work, including healing my relationship with my parents and intergenerational patterns, I learnt to hold the parts of myself I had exiled and stay grounded in the changes I desired. I stopped compromising my authenticity to belong. I stopped self-abandoning. I learnt that boundaries aren’t walls, and that I can choose myself without guilt.

As my internal sense of safety stabilised, my symptoms and dis-eases gradually healed.