Wellness Expert and Writer, Eleanor Hoath, explores her past pains in order to move forward

If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d be here – actively peeling back the layers of my past, trying to make sense of my patterns and pain – I’m not sure I would have believed you. It wasn’t a dramatic moment that pushed me to start. It was quieter than that: a realisation, after years of battling unexplained physical symptoms, that maybe my body was trying to tell me something my mind hadn’t yet acknowledged. As a functional medicine trained nutritionist, I already believed in the holistic view of health. I was eating well, supplementing, sleeping, exercising – all the things I knew were meant to support my wellbeing. And yet, something deeper wasn’t shifting. It wasn’t until I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk that the puzzle pieces finally began to fall into place. My headaches, my tight hips, my shallow breathing and bloating weren’t random. They were stories my body had been holding onto.

And so began the journey. Therapy, CBT, hypnotherapy, EFT tapping with the incredible Lydia Johnson, bodywork guided by my friend and somatic coach Florence Seck, and most recently, osteopathy and liquid intelligence awareness with Frederic Roscop. I’ve sat across from therapists, laid on treatment tables, journaled until 2am, and cried through somatic release sessions. I’ve learned to let my body speak the words my mind couldn’t.

The journey of “digging into trauma” sounds noble and brave on paper, but the reality? It’s messy, non-linear, and surprisingly physical. If you’re considering it, or already deep in the trenches, here are five things I wish someone had told me before I started.

1. Trauma isn’t just in your mind—it’s in your body too.

We talk so much about mental health that we sometimes forget the body keeps score (thank you, Bessel van der Kolk). I learned this first-hand during a session at Grey Wolfe where a practitioner, after some bodywork, gently said: “You’re holding a lot of male energy in your left hip.” It felt like an odd statement at first and as she massaged the area I felt overwhelmed with emotion. In that moment, it clicked. I was carrying the weight of difficult male dynamics from all angles: witnessing male family members struggle with illness, navigating a then challenging male-dominated work environment, and processing romantic heartbreak. My hips had become the storage unit for emotions I hadn’t been able to express.

It’s easy to dismiss physical symptoms as purely mechanical – a tight jaw from clenching, back pain from bad posture – but so often, they’re our body’s way of holding what our mind isn’t ready to process. It wasn’t until I worked with practitioners who understood somatic release that I realised how much of my healing would come from below the neck.

2. Flashbacks aren’t always about the Big Moments.

I went into trauma work expecting to revisit The Big Events – the obvious ones that had names, dates, and clear timelines. But what surprised me was how often I had flashbacks to things that seemed, on the surface, small. A comment someone made at work. A glance from a stranger. A childhood memory I’d never consciously labelled as painful.

Trauma doesn’t always come wrapped in dramatic headlines. Sometimes, it’s the quiet accumulation of micro-moments that build into something heavy. And when you start unpicking it, those memories can rise up unexpectedly. I wish I’d known to be gentle with myself on the days those flashbacks felt disproportionate or confusing. They mattered. They were data.

3. There is no one-size-fits-all roadmap—and the 5 R’s don’t happen in order.

If you Google trauma healing, you might come across frameworks like the “5 R’s”: Recognise, Respond, Reprocess, Release, Restore. Sounds logical, right? Except real life is messier. Some days I felt like I was stuck between Respond and Recognise. Other days, I felt I’d skipped straight to Release, only to boomerang back to square one.

Healing isn’t a tidy checklist. It’s more like a loop, or a dance, or a spiral. I used to beat myself up for “regressing” or not moving fast enough. But the truth is: your nervous system knows what pace it can handle. Some parts of healing happen quietly, beneath the surface. Trust that.

4. Trauma is subjective—comparison won’t help you heal.

One of the biggest traps I fell into early on was comparing my pain to others. “But I haven’t been through that,” I’d think, dismissing my experiences because they didn’t look like the stereotypical narratives of trauma. It took therapy to understand that trauma isn’t about what happened to you – it’s about what happened inside you as a result.

Two people can experience the same event and walk away with vastly different wounds. And that doesn’t make anyone’s pain more or less valid. Once I let go of comparison, I was able to honour the emotions of girl inside me who had felt so upset at the time, even if the outside world told her she looks to have been fine.

5. Understanding your trauma is a superpower – but it’s not the end of the story.

Something beautiful happens when you start to understand the patterns, triggers, and stored stories your body holds: you reclaim power. I won’t pretend it’s easy; it’s often painful and exhausting. But knowing myself on this deeper level has been one of the most empowering gifts I didn’t know I needed.

Now, I can feel when I’m about to freeze, or when my shoulders start to creep up to my ears. I’ve learned to ask my body, “What are you trying to tell me?” That doesn’t mean I’m immune to anxiety or overwhelm – but I’m no longer fighting blind. And that’s a kind of freedom.

If you’re thinking of digging into your own trauma, know this: it takes courage to turn towards your pain. It takes patience to sit with it. And it takes support to move through it. But somewhere in the middle of the mess, there’s a version of you who’s lighter, freer, and more whole than you ever imagined.

And that version? She’s so worth meeting.

Words by Eleanor Hoath