Trauma Therapy
Are You Carrying the Weight of Past Experiences?
Trauma doesn’t always come from one big event. It can build quietly over time – through emotional neglect, chronic stress, painful relationships, or moments when you had to shut down just to get through. You might not even think of what you’ve been through as trauma, yet you may notice its effects in how you think, feel, and relate to others.
For many men, trauma shows up as irritability, numbness, overthinking, or a constant feeling of being “on alert.” You may find it hard to relax, trust others, or stay present in your body. Sometimes it looks like emotional distance in relationships, difficulty sleeping, or an underlying sense that no matter what you achieve, it never feels like enough.
At Wild North Men’s Therapy, we see trauma as the body and mind’s natural response to overwhelm – not a sign of weakness or brokenness. Healing begins when we start to listen to what the body has been holding and give it permission to release at its own pace.
Why Men Struggle With Trauma
Many men learn early on to compartmentalize pain. When life gets hard, we’re taught to tighten up, push forward, and keep things together. Even if our functioning has been greatly affected, we get used to our pain and think to ourselves, “What’s the point of even going there?” or “Don’t upset the apple cart.” We accept the idea that things cannot or will not get better. That unearthing painful memories and emotions will make things worse. That the good ol’ days of feeling free and vibrant are behind us.
But, unprocessed trauma doesn’t just live in the mind; it lives in the body and the nervous system. It shapes how you react under pressure, how you interpret danger, and how safe you feel in closeness or stillness. It constantly pulls the strings of our behaviour without our conscious awareness.
For some men, that might mean shutting down during conflict. For others, it shows up as anger or clinging to control. These reactions are triggered when someone or something gets too close to a wound that has not healed.
Understanding trauma isn’t about revisiting the past for its own sake. It’s about recognizing how past experiences continue to live in the present, and learning how to bring those patterns into awareness so they can begin to shift.
Leaning Into Trauma
When you’ve lived with pain for a long time, it can start to feel like standing on a frozen lake – solid and still on the surface, but with deep currents moving quietly underneath. You learn where it’s safe to step and where it isn’t. You hold your breath, careful not to crack what’s holding everything together.
That’s what many men do with trauma. We build a kind of internal ice – a protective layer that keeps us functioning but disconnected from what’s underneath. We tell ourselves it’s safer not to disturb it. But over time, that frozen stillness becomes its own kind of pain. It keeps us from feeling alive, connected, and at ease in our own bodies.
Leaning into trauma isn’t about smashing the ice or diving into everything at once. It’s about slowly bringing warmth to what’s been frozen – learning to sense the emotions, memories, and sensations beneath the surface without being overwhelmed by them.
Each time you approach those places with awareness, the ice softens a little more. You begin to feel movement where there was once only tension. The body starts to trust again. And what once felt unbearable starts to find room to breathe.
Healing from trauma is about allowing what was frozen to thaw – so that life, feeling, and connection can flow freely again.
How We Treat Trauma at Wild North
While talk therapy can help make sense of what happened, sometimes words only take us so far. Many men can explain their story but still feel anxious, numb, or shut down. That’s because trauma isn’t stored as a memory in the mind – it’s held in the body.
As Dr. Gabor Maté teaches, trauma isn’t what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result – the disconnection from yourself. When we’re overwhelmed, parts of us go offline to help us survive, and those same protective responses can linger long after the danger has passed.
At Wild North Men’s Therapy, our work helps bring these parts back into connection. Drawing from Dr. Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS), we meet each part of you with curiosity instead of judgment, exploring what it’s been protecting rather than trying to get rid of it. Healing becomes less about fixing and more about releasing the burdens you carry and restoring trust in yourself.
Somatic therapy deepens this process by inviting the body back into the conversation. Through grounding, breathwork, and gentle regulation exercises, we help you notice where your body is holding tension – the tight chest, the clenched jaw, the weight in your shoulders – and create space for release.
We’ll move at your pace. There’s no pressure to talk about anything before you’re ready. Over time, these practices help you find stability, awareness, and the ability to respond to life’s challenges with more calm and clarity.
The goal isn’t to erase the past or return to who you were before. It’s to give you space to be Who You Really Are today – someone who can feel deeply, connect openly, and live with compassion and courage.
Discover more about Internal Family Systems (IFS) and how it shapes the Wild North approach.
Explore how Narrative Therapy guides the Wild North approach to helping you author a more authentic story.
Uncover how Somatic Therapy at Wild North helps you access the body’s wisdom to heal and integrate trauma.
Together, we’ll work on connecting you to the part of yourself that is calm, confident, courageous, and able to see the world with greater clarity. This is the part of you that knows how to hold space for your anxious feelings. It is the part of you that inherently knows how to heal your suffering and live in the present.
Inclusive Practice
My practice is LGBTQ+ affirming, sex-positive, and welcoming of women, non-traditional relationships, and gender-diverse identities. I’m also a friend and ally to the BIPOC community, and I have experience working with clients from diverse cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. I strive to create a therapy space where you can explore your culture and experiences without fear of judgment or minimization. If you were born in the Milky Way, you are welcome here.