What We Mean by Trauma (Beyond the Big Event)
Trauma isn’t only what happened. It’s also what didn’t happen—the safety, attunement, and steady encouragement you needed but didn’t get. Most people picture trauma as a single, catastrophic event: an assault, an accident, a disaster. That kind of shock trauma is real and serious. But it’s not the whole story. There’s another form that hides […]
In Practice: Shaking to Release the Freeze
There are times when your body doesn’t fight and it doesn’t run. It just locks up. You know the feeling — frozen, numb, disconnected. Maybe you’re standing in a conversation and your mind goes blank, or you’re lying in bed and you can’t move even though you want to. It’s like the system has pulled […]
Discipline-Based Practices Overview
Learning about trauma is important. Understanding Daoist concepts is important. But at some point, knowledge has to turn into practice. Otherwise it just sits in your head while your body and nervous system keep running the same old survival patterns. That’s what this section is about: practices you can actually use. Not a full curriculum, […]
Causes of CCT Overview
Childhood complex trauma doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not some abstract idea that just “happens.” It’s born from real conditions—family, social, cultural—that leave a child’s basic needs unmet. Safety, love, encouragement, attunement, stability. When those needs aren’t reliably present, a child adapts the only way they know how: through survival strategies. For some, the […]
Organ System Basics Overview
In Western medicine, organs are understood mostly in terms of anatomy and physiology—what they look like, what they do physically, how they fit into the body’s machinery. In Daoist and Chinese medicine, the picture is much broader. Organs are seen as living networks that connect body, mind, emotions, and spirit. They are physical, yes, but […]
Start Here: A Different Way to Heal
If you’ve tried to “fix” yourself and nothing sticks, you’re not the problem. Many adult struggles are echoes of unmet needs from childhood—and there’s a practical path forward. Why you’re here Something brought you here. Maybe it’s exhaustion that never lifts, anxiety that won’t let go, or the sense that you’re stuck in the same […]
CCT Basics Overview
When most people hear the word “trauma,” they picture one terrible event—a car crash, a natural disaster, an assault. Something sudden and overwhelming. That kind of trauma is real and deeply impactful, but it isn’t the only kind. Many of us live with a different form of trauma, one that doesn’t come from a single […]
Recovery & Awareness Overview
Healing from childhood complex trauma doesn’t begin with a technique. It doesn’t start with qigong, meditation, or even therapy. It starts with something quieter and more unsettling: awareness. Awareness is the first medicine. It’s the moment when you begin to see that the struggles you’ve carried—emotional storms, relationship patterns, coping behaviors, health issues—are not random […]
Four Disciplines Theory Overview
Healing from childhood complex trauma isn’t about one practice or one breakthrough. It’s about creating steady rhythms that support body, mind, and spirit as they slowly untangle from the past. In the Daoist tradition, these rhythms often take shape through four internal healing arts disciplines: contemplative studies, movement, nutrition, and cyclical awareness. Together, they form […]
Survival Strategies Overview
Most of us don’t get through childhood with all of our developmental needs met. Some of us grew up with obvious trauma — abuse, neglect, chaos. Others grew up with the subtler kind: parents who weren’t emotionally available, who couldn’t provide safety, or who didn’t see and mirror us as we were. Either way, when […]