The Mountain Is You

SECOND, REINSTATE A SENSE OF SAFET Y.
You are traumatized because something scared you and 
you are convinced that it is still “out to get you.” This is 
what happens when we don’t face or overcome something 
difficult—we assume the threat lingers indefinitely.
The psychological aspect of trauma healing is that you 
have to literally restore the connection that was severed in 
the exact same way that it was broken.
If you are traumatized about relationships, you need to 
build healthy relationships. If you are traumatized about 

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money, you need to get really good with money. If you are 
traumatized about traveling, you need to travel again.
We do not find the resolution in avoiding these things for-
ever. In fact, just underneath the fear we often find that they 
are the things we really want more than anything else.
THIRD, STOP TAKING THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AT FACE 
VALUE.
Last, to overcome trauma, you have to stop engaging in 
psychic thinking. You have to stop pretending you are able 
to predict what will happen, that you know other peo-
ple’s intentions, or that what you feel and think is absolute 
truth and reality.
This kind of thinking is what takes a triggering feeling 
and turns it into a defeating spiral. You take one scary 
thing and make it into a prediction for what the future 
will hold.
You are not an oracle. You do not know what’s next, 
though you are always capable of choosing what you do 
now. Almost always, the thing you are most panicked 
about is a thing you do not know is happening for sure. It 
is usually an assumption, a projection, a fear turned into a 
terrifying potential reality.
You might think that trauma is something that other, 
more damaged people have, but that is not true. Everyone 

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is traumatized in one way or another, but it is how we re-
spond to it, how we ultimately grow and develop self-mas-
tery from it, that determines the course of our lives.
B E C O M I N G T H E M O S T P O W E R F U L
V E R S I O N O F Y O U R S E L F
Are you being the most powerful version of yourself?
If you had to pause to think about it, the answer is prob-
ably no.
Everybody has different facets of their personality, and we 
act on them based on the context we’re in. It’s a social 
adaptation tool: You are not the same person with your 
friends as you are with your parents. Moving through 
these easily is a sign of high psychological function.
We are acquainted with the versions of ourselves that our 
current life requires. We know who we need to be at work, 
at home, or in love. But we are often unfamiliar with the 
person we need to be in order to move our lives forward.
In “inner child work,” you visualize and address your 
younger selves, often down to a specific age, depending on 
which version of you was traumatized. You communicate 
with that inner child self, learn from them, protect them, 
or give them the guidance that they needed when they 
were young.

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This proves to be profoundly healing for people, mostly 
because we do not evolve past our former selves; we sim-
ply grow upon them.
However, this practice can work the opposite way as well. 
You can also visualize and connect with your future self—
the version of you that you are growing into, or the person 
you know you are meant to be.