Kasia Soraya - Wise Love

11/08/2026

09/08/2026

Childhood trauma physically alters how cells produce energy, forcing mitochondria into a state of chronic, damaging hypermetabolism, new study shows.

How does childhood trauma translate into lifelong physical and mental illness? A pioneering UCLA study published in Biological Psychiatry offers a compelling cellular explanation: early-life adversity fundamentally alters mitochondria, the powerhouses of our cells.

By conducting stress tests on live immune cells from adult volunteers, researchers discovered that those who experienced childhood abuse or neglect had mitochondria with an elevated capacity to produce energy. While this hyperactive state—known as hypermetabolism—helps cells quickly cope with immediate stress in the short term, running this cellular engine constantly in the red zone over decades can prematurely wear out the cells, accelerating age-related diseases.

Crucially, the study shows that different types of trauma leave distinct biological scars. While experiences of threat and abuse prepare cells to brace for future stress by altering routine energy demands, experiences of deprivation and neglect lead to highly inefficient energy production. This cellular dysfunction suggests that trauma is not a monolithic experience, and its biological footprint is highly nuanced. By revealing these distinct cellular pathways, researchers hope to design highly targeted early interventions that can protect mitochondrial health and break the link between early hardship and chronic adult disease.

source: Cleveland, S., Carroll, J. E., Montoya, A. K., Cha, L., Stiles, L., & Sumner, J. A. (2026). Early-Life Adversity and Mitochondrial Function: Comparing Cumulative Risk and Dimensional Models of Adversity. Biological Psychiatry.

09/08/2026

Before NARM founder Dr. Laurence Heller's first book was published with its current title of "Healing Developmental Trauma," its original working title was actually "Connection: Our Deepest Desire and Greatest Fear."

That original title reflects one of the most fundamental perspectives in NARM: Human beings are wired for connection. Yet when our earliest experiences of connection are marked by developmental trauma, we adapt in ways that help us preserve our primary attachments—even when it means disconnecting from parts of ourselves.

As adults, this creates a profound paradox: the reconnection that we long for can also feel incredibly frightening. The closer we move toward authenticity, intimacy, or vulnerability, the more those old protective patterns may also get activated.

In NARM, when we see this happen in the work, we understand that it's not something that's going wrong—it's not regression or resistance or pathology. It's a natural expression of what Dr. Heller calls the Core Dilemma, that our deepest desires are often, also, our greatest fears.

06/08/2026

In the 1970s, psychiatrist George Po***ck began publishing research on something he called the anniversary reaction.

Po***ck spent years studying patients dealing with grief and unresolved trauma. Across his case studies, he noticed a consistent pattern. People would experience a drop in mood, unexplained anxiety, fatigue, or physical tension around the same time every year, often without any conscious memory of why that particular time mattered.

Sometimes it was the week of a parent's death. Sometimes the season a marriage ended. Sometimes an event from childhood that the patient had no verbal memory of at all. The conscious mind had moved on. The body had not.

Po***ck argued that grief is not stored the way we store facts. It is stored the way we store sensations. The quality of light in late autumn. A drop in temperature. The specific smell of a particular month. These details get filed away alongside the emotional weight of the original event, and when the same conditions return each year, the nervous system responds as though the loss is happening again.

He called this a psychological echo, a kind of internal calendar that operates independently of memory. You do not need to remember the date. Your body already knows it.

This idea reframed how clinicians thought about unexplained seasonal distress. A patient who could not identify why a particular week felt unbearable was not being irrational or failing to heal. They were experiencing a nervous system response tied to a loss the conscious mind had never fully processed, or had processed and simply forgotten the timing of.

Po***ck published this research across multiple papers throughout the 1970s in the Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and the concept of the anniversary reaction is still referenced in grief and trauma literature today.

If a certain time of year always seems to hit differently, and you have never known why, this may be the explanation.

06/08/2026

The NARM* Healing Cycle is about reconnecting with core needs and capacities, which reduces shame. It's a shame-busting, gentle, humane, and science-based modality that every trauma survivor deserves.

*The NeuroAffective Relational Model, a therapeutic modality developed specifically for recovery from Complex PTSD

DM me if you wish to explore more ✨

06/08/2026

04/08/2026

Different maps. One human system. - One nervous system. Many languages. Shared possibilities for healing.

Dan Siegel's Hand Model offers a remarkably elegant framework for organising many of the theories shaping contemporary trauma therapy. All the models illustrate different dimensions of the same human experience.

🧠✊ Brainstem – Survival

• Polyvagal Theory → dorsal vagal shutdown
• IFS → exiles carrying overwhelming burdens
• Attachment Theory → disorganized attachment
• EMDR → traumatic memory networks and negative cognitions

🧠✊ Limbic System – Emotion & Protection

• Polyvagal Theory → sympathetic mobilisation
• IFS → protector parts
• Attachment Theory → anxious and avoidant attachment strategies
• EMDR → blocking beliefs and protective adaptations

🧠✊ Neocortex – Integration

• Polyvagal Theory → ventral vagal regulation
• IFS → Self energy
• Attachment Theory → secure attachment
• EMDR → adaptive information and positive cognition

Of course, this is not a one-to-one neuroanatomical map. Each model has its own theoretical foundations, language and focus.

What makes this so valuable is that it helps us recognize how different therapeutic traditions often point toward complementary aspects of the same integrated mind–brain–body system.
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03/08/2026

"Imagine a peaceful river running through the countryside. That’s your river of well-being. Whenever you’re in the water, peacefully floating along in your canoe, you feel like you’re generally in a good relationship with the world around you. You have a clear understanding of yourself, other people, and your life. You can be flexible and adjust when situations change. You’re stable and at peace. Sometimes, though, as you float along, you veer too close to one of the river’s two banks. This causes different problems, depending on which bank you approach. One bank represents chaos, where you feel out of control. Instead of floating in the peaceful river, you are caught up in the pull of tumultuous rapids, and confusion and turmoil rule the day. You need to move away from the bank of chaos and get back into the gentle flow of the river. But don’t go too far, because the other bank presents its own dangers. It’s the bank of rigidity, which is the opposite of chaos. As opposed to being out of control, rigidity is when you are imposing control on everything and everyone around you. You become completely unwilling to adapt, compromise, or negotiate. Near the bank of rigidity, the water smells stagnant, and reeds and tree branches prevent your canoe from flowing in the river of well-being. So one extreme is chaos, where there’s a total lack of control. The other extreme is rigidity, where there’s too much control, leading to a lack of flexibility and adaptability. We all move back and forth between these two banks as we go through our days—especially as we’re trying to survive parenting. When we’re closest to the banks of chaos or rigidity, we’re farthest from mental and emotional health. The longer we can avoid either bank, the more time we spend enjoying the river of well-being. Much of our lives as adults can be seen as moving along these paths—sometimes in the harmony of the flow of well-being, but sometimes in chaos, in rigidity, or zigzagging back and forth between the two. Harmony emerges from integration. Chaos and rigidity arise when integration is blocked." - Daniel J. Siegel, "The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind"

IMAGE: my painting of of the river of well-being, watercolors, ink, psychiatric hospital pencil. 12x9

02/08/2026

Being "Bothered" by Others Makes Sense

"Life makes no sense if completely detached, we are only complete in a community or a relationship. There is no possibility on top of Mount Everest where you are sure that nobody will ever bother you. Individuation always means relationship."
- C.G. Jung, Notes from a Seminar

We do not become fully ourselves in isolation.

Our individuality is shaped in relationship: through connection, disagreement, love, disappointment, repair, and the inevitable tensions that arise when two inner worlds meet. It is often in being challenged by another that we discover who we are, what matters to us, where our boundaries are, and what we are still carrying.

Avoiding relationships may protect us from discomfort, but it also deprives us of one of the deepest pathways of growth. Other people accompany our journey of becoming and they reveal the parts of us we could never discover alone.

Wholeness is not found by escaping tension. More often, it is forged through the courage to stay present within it.

Loving you from here