Is This the Year to Resolve My Trauma? The Answer Is Yes—And Here's Why
Is This the Year to Resolve My Trauma? The Answer Is Yes—And Here's Why
The Question You're Asking
You've carried it for so long. The weight of what happened. The patterns it created. The way it shapes your relationships, your choices, your sense of safety in the world.
Maybe it's been years. Maybe it's been decades. And now, as a new year begins, you're asking yourself: Is this finally the year I deal with this?
The answer is yes. But not because you should. Because you deserve to.
Why Now Matters
There's never a "perfect" time to address trauma. Life will always be busy. There will always be reasons to wait. But waiting costs something—every day you carry unresolved trauma, it costs you peace, connection, and the freedom to be fully yourself.
A new year isn't magic. But it is a threshold. It's a moment when many of us pause and ask: What do I want to change?It's a time when intention feels possible.
If you're asking this question, part of you already knows the answer. Part of you is ready.
The Real Benefits of Resolving Trauma
1. You Get Your Life Back
Trauma doesn't just affect the moment it happens. It echoes forward, shaping how you see yourself, others, and the world. You might be hypervigilant, always scanning for danger. You might avoid situations that remind you of what happened. You might struggle to trust, even people who've earned it.
Resolving trauma means reclaiming the parts of your life that trauma has taken. It means being able to walk into a room without your nervous system in overdrive. It means having relationships where you can actually be vulnerable. It means making choices based on what you want, not what you're afraid of.
2. Your Relationships Transform
Unresolved trauma doesn't stay private. It leaks into every relationship you have. You might push people away before they can hurt you. You might stay in situations that aren't good for you because you don't believe you deserve better. You might struggle to communicate your needs because you learned early that your needs didn't matter.
When you resolve trauma, your relationships change. You can be present with people you love instead of bracing for abandonment. You can ask for what you need. You can receive love without waiting for the other shoe to drop. You can build genuine intimacy instead of protective walls.
3. Your Body Relaxes
Trauma lives in your nervous system. Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget. You might have chronic pain, sleep problems, anxiety that shows up as physical symptoms. You might feel constantly on edge, exhausted from the effort of staying safe.
Trauma therapy helps your nervous system learn that you're actually safe now. Your body can finally relax. Sleep improves. Physical symptoms ease. You stop being at war with yourself.
4. You Break Generational Patterns
If you have children, your unresolved trauma affects them. Not because you're a bad parent—but because trauma is passed down. Your kids absorb your anxiety. They learn your coping mechanisms. They internalize your beliefs about safety and worth.
Resolving your trauma breaks that cycle. You show your children what healing looks like. You model self-compassion. You create a different legacy.
5. You Reclaim Your Power
Trauma tells you a story: You're not safe. You can't trust. You're broken. You deserve what happened.
None of that is true. But trauma makes it feel true.
When you resolve trauma, you get to rewrite that story. You get to decide who you are, separate from what happened to you. You get your power back.
A Real Story: Sarah's Journey
Sarah came to counselling at 42, carrying 35 years of childhood trauma. She'd been sexually abused by a family member between ages 5 and 8. She'd never told anyone. She'd spent three decades managing the fallout alone.
By the time she sought help, the impact was everywhere. She had severe anxiety. Her marriage was struggling because she couldn't be intimate without panic attacks. She was a perfectionist at work, driven by a deep belief that if she was just "good enough," she could prevent bad things from happening. She had no close friendships because she didn't trust anyone.
She came to counselling because she was exhausted. Not from the trauma itself—she'd gotten good at compartmentalizing that. She was exhausted from the effort of managing all the ways trauma was running her life.
The First Months
The early work was about safety and stabilization. Sarah learned grounding techniques. She developed a sense of control over her nervous system. She began to understand how her trauma responses made sense—they'd kept her safe once, even though they weren't serving her anymore.
She also grieved. She grieved the childhood she lost. She grieved the years spent in survival mode. She grieved the relationships that suffered because she couldn't be fully present.
The Middle Work
As Sarah felt safer, she began to process the actual trauma. Not in a way that re-traumatized her, but in a way that allowed her nervous system to finally integrate what happened. She used evidence-based trauma therapy (EMDR) to help her brain process the memories that were stuck.
This was hard. There were weeks when she wanted to quit. But she kept going because she was starting to notice changes. Her anxiety was decreasing. She was sleeping better. She could sit with her husband without her body going into panic mode.
The Breakthrough
About six months in, Sarah had a moment. She was at a family gathering—something that used to trigger intense anxiety. And she realized: she was present. She was actually enjoying herself. She wasn't scanning the room for danger. She wasn't bracing for something bad to happen.
She cried in her car afterward. Not from pain, but from relief. From the realization that she was finally free.
One Year Later
Sarah continued counselling for another six months after that initial breakthrough, consolidating her progress and building new patterns.
A year into her journey, her life looked different:
Her anxiety had decreased by 80%
She and her husband were intimate again, and it felt safe
She'd started a close friendship for the first time in years
She'd told her family what happened (not to blame them, but to reclaim her truth)
She'd quit her high-pressure job and found work that actually felt fulfilling
She'd forgiven herself for the ways she'd coped with trauma
She still had hard days. Healing isn't linear. But the difference was profound: she was no longer defined by what happened to her. She was living her own life, on her own terms.
Why Sarah's Story Matters
Sarah's journey wasn't unique in its outcome—many people experience similar transformations. But it was unique in her courage. She spent 35 years carrying trauma alone. She could have spent the rest of her life that way. Instead, she decided: This is the year.
And it changed everything.
The Cost of Waiting
Here's what's important to understand: waiting doesn't make trauma easier to resolve. It makes it harder. The longer you carry it, the more it becomes woven into your identity. The more you build your life around avoiding it, the bigger the untangling becomes.
But the cost of waiting isn't just about difficulty. It's about time. It's about the years you could be living freely, but aren't. It's about the relationships you could be having, but aren't. It's about the version of yourself you could be becoming, but aren't.
You can't get those years back.
What You Need to Know Before You Start
1. It Takes Courage, Not Strength
You might think you need to be strong to resolve trauma. Actually, you need to be willing to be vulnerable. You need to be willing to feel things you've been avoiding. That's not strength—that's courage. And you already have it, or you wouldn't be asking this question.
2. It's Not About Forgetting
Trauma therapy doesn't erase what happened. It changes your relationship to it. You remember, but the memory no longer controls you. You can talk about it without your nervous system going into overdrive. You can integrate it into your story without letting it define you.
3. You Don't Have to Do It Alone
This is crucial: you can't think your way out of trauma. You can't willpower your way through it. You need support. You need someone trained in trauma who can help you process it safely. That's not weakness—that's wisdom.
4. It's Worth It
Every person who's done this work will tell you the same thing: it was the hardest and best thing they ever did. The investment in healing pays dividends for the rest of your life.
So, Is This the Year?
If you're asking this question, the answer is probably yes.
Not because you have to. Not because you should. But because you deserve a life where trauma isn't running the show. You deserve peace. You deserve connection. You deserve to be fully yourself.
2026 doesn't have to be the year you resolve all your trauma. But it could be the year you start. It could be the year you decide that you're worth the effort. It could be the year you take the first step toward freedom.
And that changes everything.
Taking the Next Step
If you're ready to explore this, here's what matters:
Find a trauma-informed therapist. Someone trained in evidence-based trauma work. Someone who understands that healing isn't about forcing you to relive trauma, but about helping your nervous system integrate it safely.
The first session is just a conversation. You're not committing to anything. You're just exploring whether this person, this approach, feels right for you.
That's all you need to do right now. Just take that first step.
Your future self will thank you.
Niki Gent is available for counselling, mentoring, training, and organizational consultation. To book a session or learn more about Family & Child Consultants, visit www.familyandchildconsultants.com or call 1300 789 649.
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