The Root of Your Anxiety: How Trauma Shapes the Way You Feel
You may find yourself feeling constantly on edge, second-guessing your decisions, or struggling with a sense of never being enough. While anxiety can feel like something happening now, it often stems from earlier experiences that shaped how your nervous system responds to the world. Understanding this connection is the first step toward lasting change.
Trauma Isn’t Always Loud
When we think of trauma, we often imagine one big event — but trauma is often quieter. It can look like growing up in an environment where love felt conditional, where being “enough” meant achieving more, doing everything right, or keeping the peace. Over time, these subtle patterns become internalized and stay in your nervous system, shaping how you relate to others and yourself. What can look like persistent anxiety that never goes away might be your nervous system’s way of expressing a trauma response.
When Anxiety Is the Alarm, Trauma Is the Reason It’s Going Off
Anxiety is your body’s alarm system — alerting you of potential danger. But if your system was wired in an environment that didn’t feel emotionally safe, that alarm can become overly vulnerable.
You might feel anxious about making mistakes or when things aren’t done perfectly — underneath, this may be a fear of criticism or failure, and a deeper fear of rejection.
You may find yourself going above and beyond to keep the peace, hesitant to say “no” or set boundaries — because at some point, your nervous system learned that conflict or disconnection could mean abandonment.
You might notice a pattern of over-extending yourself in relationships, driven by a longing for closeness and reassurance — maybe you learned that love had to be earned to feel safe.
When anxiety is seen only as a present-day symptom, we can easily overlook the underlying story beneath it. You’re not overreacting — your body learned that safety meant staying alert.
Looking Beneath the Surface
In relational and attachment-based therapy, we explore how early relationships shaped your sense of safety and worth. Through a psychodynamic lens, we uncover unconscious fears or patterns that still drive your reactions today.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS) or parts work, anxiety is seen as a protective part of you — working to protect you from pain that once felt unbearable. By getting to know this anxious part with curiosity instead of judgment, it can begin to calm its vigilance.
In emotionally-focused and trauma-informed approaches, we don’t just manage anxiety — we work to create experiences of safety and connection, helping your nervous system learn what calm really feels like.
If these approaches resonate with you, they reflect the evidence-based approaches I use in my therapy practice to help clients heal and grow. You can learn more about my approach to therapy and areas of focus.
Healing the Root, Not Just the Symptoms
Coping tools can help manage anxiety in the moment, but lasting change often comes from understanding why anxiety developed in the first place. Anxiety is a learned response — meaning that what was once adaptive can be unlearned.
Healing happens when we heal the root — the experiences that taught your nervous system to stay on guard is what brings meaningful lasting change. By processing the underlying wounds and creating new experiences of safety, your system can gradually learn that it no longer needs to stay in survival mode.
Anxiety is your body’s way of protecting you. Healing begins when that alarm no longer needs to keep sounding. What was learned can be unlearned with safety and compassion.
As a psychotherapist offering online therapy across Ontario, I focus on helping clients address the root of recurring patterns through a trauma-informed lens. If this post speaks to you, I invite you to book a consultation and take the first step toward lasting change.
