I’ve written before about not sweating the small stuff. About discernment. About boundaries, triggers, and knowing when to lean in and when to walk away.
And here I am, writing about them all over again.
Not because I’ve run out of ideas—but because this is what my life revolves around now. Discernment isn’t a class I aced and moved on from. It’s a practice I keep coming back to, again and again, because life just keeps throwing new stuff my way.
Triggers don’t vanish. Healing doesn’t wrap up neatly with a bow. What does change is how I show up when things pop off.
When the Body Speaks First After A Trigger
There will always be something—or someone—that sets me off.
That doesn’t mean I’m backsliding. It doesn’t mean I’ve failed at healing. It just means I’m human, with a nervous system built from years of history, experience, and doing whatever I needed to survive.
When a trigger hits, I don’t jump straight into deciding whether it’s “small stuff” or not anymore. That call comes later.
First, I turn inward.
I notice the chaos in my system. I listen to whichever part of me has come to the surface—sometimes it’s the part that’s felt betrayed, sometimes the hyper-vigilant one, sometimes a younger version shaped by how things used to be. I give her room to breathe. I let her say what she needs to say. I ground myself, take deep breaths, go for a walk, stretch it out, write it down. I stay right there with myself until I feel centered again.
Only then do I figure out what to do next.
Because trying to discern anything while my nervous system’s firing on all cylinders isn’t really discernment—it’s just reacting, or shoving stuff down and calling it maturity.
Being triggered doesn’t automatically mean something matters deeply. But it also doesn’t mean it should be brushed off.
That difference is everything.
Refusing the Bypass — The Trap of “Just Letting Go”
We live in a world that mixes up letting go with being healed.
“Just let it go.”
“Choose peace.”
“Don’t give it energy.”
“Be the bigger person.”
“If you’re still affected, you haven’t healed.”
This kind of advice can sound soothing, but for those of us with trauma histories, it often ends up being another way to gaslight ourselves. It asks us to ignore what we feel rather than listen to it. It makes sensitivity seem like weakness, and setting boundaries like we’re just being difficult.
This “bypass culture” treats discomfort like we’re doing something wrong—instead of seeing it as information.
Discernment asks a different question entirely: What do I actually need here? Do I need to care for myself around this? Let it go? Or create some distance?
Letting go can be wise. But it can also be premature.
There’s a huge difference between releasing something because it really is small—and letting it slide because we’ve been taught to make ourselves smaller.
The Limits of Self-Help
I’ve also noticed how some self-help practices—even those that sound kind and caring—can quietly hurt us all over again.
There’s this practice I keep seeing shared. It suggests saying something like, “I forgive the part of me that’s still attached to the person who hurt me.” I get why it exists. The idea is to shift our focus away from the person who caused the harm and back to ourselves—to take our power back instead of getting stuck in blame.
That intention is understandable.
But in practice? It can cross a line without anyone meaning it to.
In trauma-informed work, the word “forgive” can make it sound like we did something wrong. Like the part of us that’s still hurting, still holding on, still feeling the impact is somehow behind the times, or mistaken, or needs to be fixed. Without trying to, it can move the focus from what was done to us—onto us for still being affected.
It’s polite, well-meaning… but it can border on victim-blaming or shaming ourselves.
Being attached to someone who mattered—even someone who hurt us—isn’t a failure. Being affected by harm isn’t a moral flaw. Our nervous system doesn’t need to be forgiven for responding to what’s real.
In my own life, I’ve learned that what actually helps isn’t pardoning that part of me—it’s standing right beside her. Acknowledging that she’s reacting to something that truly happened. That what was done was wrong. And that while I can’t control the person who hurt me or undo the past, I can choose—when I’m ready, no rush—to find my way back to feeling steady again. No pressure, no self-judgment, no skipping over what I need.
This way, I honor the hurt I felt. I name what happened clearly. And instead of fixating on the person who caused it—something I can’t change and have no control over—I take my power back by moving forward only when I’m ready. Without bypass.
Sometimes the most healing response to the triggered self isn’t “I forgive you,” but “I see you. I’m here. You make sense.”
The Inquiry — The Choice of Alignment
Once I’m feeling steady, then I ask myself the hard questions:
- Is this about what I prefer or about what I value?
- Would staying involved means I have to override myself?
- Is this a one-time slip-up or part of a pattern?
- Will stepping back help me feel calm—or will it leave me feeling like I betrayed myself?
Small stuff can be let go without losing respect for myself. But when something goes against my values? That’s a whole different story.
Sometimes discernment means letting things roll off my back.
Sometimes it means drawing a line.
Sometimes it means stepping away completely.
And sometimes, like when I came across a wellness figure whose work had all the same manipulative patterns I’ve known before, I just cut ties right then and there. No debating it. No needing to justify myself. No explanation required.
I don’t choose battles anymore. I choose what lines up with who I am. I choose alignment.
The New Axis — Living Without Vigilance
Over time, discernment stopped feeling like work. It just became how I move through the world.
It’s like digestion—I don’t think about it all the time, I just let my body do its thing. Healing’s like that now, too. I don’t monitor it constantly anymore.
Healing just happens as a side effect of how I live: with clear values, boundaries I actually enforce, and choosing spaces where I don’t have to be on high alert all the time.
I act when action is needed. I stop when my part is done.
No more chasing explanations. No more replaying things in my head. No more trying to make people understand me.
Clarity cuts down on overthinking. Discernment keeps me from getting tangled up in stuff I don’t need to be in. And trusting myself means I don’t have to convince anyone of anything.
This is what stability feels like to me now—not that nothing challenging ever happens, but that I don’t carry more than I need to.
A Note on Self-Help Culture—and a Rare Exception
Most mainstream self-help struggles with this kind of nuance. It usually cares more about being positive than being precise, more about forgiveness than self-respect, more about how things look than how they feel in our body.
That’s why a book I found recently—Living & Loving after Betrayal by Steven Stosny—stood out so much.
It didn’t tell me anything I’d never heard before. But it didn’t mess with discernment either.
Stosny doesn’t rush forgiveness. He doesn’t make one feel bad for not letting go yet. He puts self-respect, values, and being true to oneself ahead of making things right with someone else or looking “good.” He sees resentment as useful information, not a problem to fix—and healing as how we orient our life, not a finish line we cross.
In a sea of pressure to “transcend” everything, his work just quietly says something I needed to hear: Taking back one’s self-respect isn’t bitterness. Being clear about what one needs isn’t resistance.
That alignment mattered to me.
The Sovereignty of the Page
I write about all this not to teach anyone, or convince them of something, or fix their stuff.
I write because it helps me make sense of things. It ties all the pieces together. It turns what I’ve lived through into something coherent.
If something I share resonates with someone else, I trust it’ll find them when they need it. If it only matters to me? That’s okay too—the work is still done.
This isn’t about being heard. It’s about being me.
Returning, Again
Triggers will come. I’ll practice discernment again. Healing will continue—quietly, naturally—because I’ve built my life to support it.
I don’t carry everything anymore.
I don’t explain everything anymore.
I don’t stay where I know I need to leave.
This isn’t the end of the story. It’s just how I find my way now.
And I’ll keep finding it—again and again.
In my next entry, I want to dive deeper into naming these patterns—and why owning our growth often means ditching the heavy cloak of false humility we’ve been taught to wear.
If any part of this speaks to you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
Peace and Blessings,
— Thea 💙 theasjournal25@gmail.com
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