Understanding the Downward Arc: How Survival Becomes Structure
Most trauma models describe what trauma does to us — how it dysregulates our nervous system, distorts our beliefs, or shapes our relationships. Others explain why healing is difficult — the fears, defenses, and resistances that arise when we begin to change. But few describe the process that happens in between: the slow, invisible transformation […]
Downward Arc: How Survival Becomes Struggle
There’s a point in every survivor’s story where what once kept us safe begins to keep us stuck.That shift — from adaptation to entrapment, from flow to fixation — is what I call the Downward Arc. The Intelligence of Survival Every pattern we carry began as a kind of brilliance.When we were children, our bodies […]