Stop Healing Everything,what if its not a Trigger?

Stop Healing Everything: What If It’s Not a Trigger?

Have you ever had one of those days where you think, “What the fuck? I’ve done so much work. Why am I still triggered?”

You’ve done the trauma work. You’ve worked on your nervous system. You’ve looked in the mirrors, felt the feelings, learned the tools—and yet someone or something can still leave you angry, exhausted, overwhelmed or completely drained.

But what if you’re not going backwards?

What if not every uncomfortable response is another wound you need to heal?

In this very real, imperfect, beach-recorded episode of Soil to Soul, I explore the difference between being triggered and being informed—and the possibility that sometimes your nervous system isn’t asking you to look deeper into yourself.

Sometimes it’s saying:

STOP.

This doesn’t feel right.

Trust me.

I talk about sensitivity, trauma, discernment, loneliness, co-regulation, unmet needs, the longing for home and belonging—and what it means to learn to trust your body after years of overriding it.

Because maybe healing isn't about becoming someone who never gets triggered.

Maybe it’s about learning not to abandon yourself when you do.

And maybe...

you don’t need another mirror.

Maybe it’s time to find your people.

Welcome to Soil to Soul—healing from the ground up, inside out, organically, holistically and soulfully. 🌱

Kristin Day (aka Kiki) is a naturopathic herbalist, nutritionist, counsellor, kinesiologist, Compassion Key practitioner & holistic healer treating root cause with 38 years of experience. Soil to Soul explores healing from the ground up — inside out, organically, holistically, soulfully.
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📩 Connect: kristinday61@gmail.com
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to this episode of Soil to Soul Healing from the Ground Up, the Inside Out, organically, holistically and soulfully. I've titled this episode When the Work Doesn't Seem to Be Working. That is nervous system work and learning to trust the difference between a trigger and a warning. I'm really glad you're here. My name is Kristen Day, and today we're talking about a little bit of nervous system work and whether it's worked or not. Because uh I've been thinking about something. How do you know if the work's working? How do you know if you've come from trauma and everything seems to trigger you? How do you know if you've done all this nervous system work? And then you can still have these absolutely fucking awful days where you beat yourself up in really hard because you're feeling bitter and angry and exhausted, and everybody else around you seems to have what you want. And even as I say that, I can feel the emotion coming into my throat because sometimes you just think, what the fuck? I've done so much work. This can't still be happening. And then you even resent the fact that you're having to do more work. I get it, I really get it. Because some of us who are hypersensitive, empathic, and if you want to call us starseeds, call us starseeds, whatever language you use. Some of us came into families that just didn't provide us with what we needed. Our needs were taboo. Or perhaps we learned that our needs were taboo. And it was dangerous to have needs. So we decided we weren't going to need. And instead, we became exquisitely attuned to everybody else. We learned to read the room in a second. We knew when somebody's mood changed. We could walk into a room and feel what was happening before anybody had said a word. And that sensitivity can become an extraordinary gift, but it can also become a curse. Or perhaps it was a curse. Because when you're constantly attuned to everybody else, you can lose touch with yourself. You become the understanding one, the empathic one, the one who accommodates, the one who feels everybody else's feelings. And then without even realizing it, you can start recreating your childhood relationships in your adult relationships. You can find yourself drawn into relationships with people who are incredibly sensitive, perhaps, but perhaps they don't have the capacity to dive into their feelings. They shelve them, they distance themselves, they keep people at arm's length. And you're sitting there thinking, I can feel everything. Why can't you just come towards me? And then you start looking for another mirror. What am I supposed to heal here? What have I done wrong? Why am I triggered? And sometimes I'm just fucking died of mirrors. There can't be more mirrors. I've looked in every mirror in every hallway. I've looked at every misshapen object and every distorted image of myself. I've turned over the stones. I've felt the feelings. I've done the nervous system work. I've done it for decades. So sometimes I just want to say, can I just can I just live now? And that's where something has shifted for me. Because yesterday I had an experience. I was speaking to somebody and I thought, oh my god, you sound like my tribe. We had similar interests. There was knowledge to share. I thought I was talking to a kindred spirit, and I walked away feeling absolutely drained, sucked dry. And I could have gone down the old road and said, What's wrong with me? Why didn't we connect? Maybe I should have been nicer. Maybe I haven't healed enough, but I didn't. Instead, I listened, and my nervous system went, Oh no, fuck no. And I realized maybe this isn't another mirror. Maybe this isn't another wound I need to excavate. Maybe this is discernment. Maybe my nervous system isn't always saying, here's another thing that's wrong with you. Maybe sometimes it's saying, stop. Wrong way. This person isn't for you. And that's a really important distinction. Because if you've spent your whole life believing that every uncomfortable feeling means you need to heal something, you can become very good at overriding yourself. But they're nice, but we have the same interest. But I should give them another chance. Maybe I'm just triggered. Sometimes you are, and sometimes you're just being warned. Discernment is learning to know the difference. I think that's the part of the next layer of healing for me. Not becoming less sensitive, not becoming less empathic, but learning to trust my sensitivity. Learning to trust what my body is telling me. Because there is another part of this that I don't think we talk about enough, and that's loneliness. When you spent years doing the work, it can become incredibly lonely. Because sometimes there's nobody you can reach out to who actually knows how to hear what you're saying. You might have people around you, but they don't understand why a seemingly ordinary conversation can leave you completely depleted. Sometimes you just need somebody to debrief with, somebody to reflect with, somebody to co-regulate with. Because we are human beings. We are designed for relationship and we are designed for co-regulation. And finding people who actually feel like home can take time. So yes, sometimes when it gets all too much and I'm alone, I might have a couple of beers, and I'm not saying that's the answer, and I'm not recommending alcohol as a nervous system tool. I'm just being honest. Sometimes I try walking. Sometimes I go into nature like I am today with the waves crashing in the background. And sometimes I have a shower. Sometimes I do all the things I've learned to do, and sometimes I'm still sitting here thinking I cannot climb out of this today. And sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I stop trying to solve my entire life because there are days when you're just exhausted. And that doesn't mean you've failed. And I think there's something else I need to say here because I don't want to sit here and pretend I've arrived. My needs were so unmet as a child. Safety, home, support, somebody to lean on, somebody to soothe me. And it's actually quite extraordinary when I look at my life now. Because I'm living in a caravan. I'm living nomadically, and honestly, that was the last thing I ever wanted to do. I wanted a home. I wanted somewhere that was mine, somewhere I could put my things down and breathe, somewhere I could finally relax. And here I am. And I could look at that and go, well, fuck. After all this work, I'm still here. And sometimes I do. Of course I do, I'm human. But I also can say I'm getting there. I don't know exactly what the path looks like yet, but I'm getting there. I'm doing a podcast. My life's work. And there's another layer to this for me, too. I'm a Taurus moon, and if you know anything about astrology, you know that a Taurus moon wants to feel safe. They want comfort, they want familiarity, and somewhere to land, somewhere you can put your things down and go. I'm home. Somewhere you can choose to close the door, make yourself a cup of tea, and just fucking be. And for the last seven years I haven't really had that. I have had that. I had 130 acres of land that I permacultured and regenerated. And I don't have it now, but I'm bloody well gonna have it again. So I think that that lack of stability made my dysregulation incredibly apparent. Or perhaps it didn't create the dysregulation, perhaps it simply took away some of the structures that have been helping me to hold it together. Because when you don't have a stable place to land, when you're constantly adapting, constantly moving, constantly wondering what's next, where can I go? The nervous system doesn't get the same opportunity to say we're safe now, we can rest. And for somebody whose deepest unmet needs were around safety, support, home and belonging, well, it's a pretty big one. So yes, I'm living in a caravan, and yes, I desperately want a home, a real home. And a garden. I'm a gardener. And I just bought myself a plot in the local community garden, so there's a step. I'm doing what I need. But I'm certainly not going to pretend I've transcended the desire of wanting my home and my land and my garden. I haven't. I do want somewhere to land. I want somewhere familiar. I want somewhere where my body can finally say, you don't have to be on alert anymore. Maybe that's not weakness, maybe that's not being needy, maybe that's not something I need to spiritually transcend. They're basic needs. Think of Maslow's triangle of needs, safety, home. Can't self-realize without it. Maybe it's simply a very human need. And I'm getting there. I'm really getting there. Because when people used to say to me, the work never ends, I used to get so resentful, I'd think, what do you mean the work never ends? I've been doing this for 40 fucking years. When do I get to be finished? But perhaps I understand it differently now. Maybe the work doesn't end because we're not broken things that need to be completely repaired. Maybe life keeps keep life keeps giving us opportunities to know ourselves more deeply. But there is a difference between healing and endless endlessly, endlessly searching for what's wrong with you. And I don't want to do the second one anymore. Because sometimes the bitterness is grief. Sometimes the anger is grief. Sometimes looking at somebody else's life and thinking, why do they have all that I want and I don't? Is the little girl inside saying, why didn't I get that? Why didn't I have safety? Why didn't I have support? Why couldn't I go to somebody and be soothed? Why did I have to learn to do everything myself? And for me, money became tangled up with that. Money represented support because when there was no safety, no safety net emotionally, money became the thing that meant I can look after myself. I won't be helpless. I won't have to rely on anybody. So when I feel unsafe, my nervous system can go straight to I don't have enough. And I understand that now. That doesn't mean I never feel it again. It means I can now recognize it. I can say, Oh, there you are, that's the old fear. And I can hug myself at least. I don't have to beat myself up for having it. Having that feeling. That's the difference. So if you've done years of nervous system work and you're having one of those days where you think, what the fuck? Why am I still like this? I want you to know something. Maybe you're not going backwards. Maybe you're not failing. Maybe you're not broken, and maybe you're simply human, and maybe you're learning something new. Maybe you're learning not that not every activation is a wound. Maybe some activations are information because your body is saying, pay attention, this doesn't feel right. Don't abandon yourself to make this connection work. You don't have to override yourself anymore. And perhaps that's the one of the greatest signs that the work is working. Not that you never get triggered, but that you don't abandon yourself when you do. You notice, you listen, you recover, you come home to yourself. You cave it like me in my caravan, or you go to the garden, and eventually you begin to trust your own discernment. You begin to understand that being sensitive doesn't mean you're weak. It doesn't mean you're broken, it doesn't mean you're too much. Your sensitivity may be one of your greatest gifts, but the gift needs boundaries. It needs discernment. It needs self-trust and it needs tribe. Because I don't believe we are meant to do this all alone. I want community. I want people who can sit beside one another in the messy middle. People who don't need to fix each other, people who can listen, people who can grow, people who can say, I see you, I get it. You don't have to carry this alone. That's the kind of community I'm looking for. That's the tribe I'm calling in. And perhaps that's the new earth I'm interested in creating. Not some perfect place where nobody is triggered and everybody has healed everything, but a world where we can just be human together, where sensitivity is honoured, where needs aren't taboo, where we don't have to abandon ourselves to belong. Where we lovingly walk beside one another in gross and in love. And maybe that's the deeper meaning of home for me. Because perhaps home isn't just a building. But I'm still gonna want the fucking building. I want the home, I want the land, I want the place to land. I want people and I want community, I want somewhere where my body can exhale, and maybe I'm on my way home. So maybe the work doesn't end. Maybe we can end the war within ourselves. Maybe that's the work. Maybe one day instead of asking, why am I still triggered? We can ask, what is this moment trying to show me? And then listen. Not with fear, not with shame, not with another mirror, but with compassion. Because you've looked at enough mirrors. Maybe it's time to look around and find your people, your tribe, the ones who don't suck you dry, the ones whose presence lets your nervous system breathe. The ones where connection doesn't require you to abandon yourself or put on a mask. And until you find them, please remember you are not failing because you are still sensitive. You are not failing because you have a bad day, you are not failing because you're tired of the work, and you are certainly not failing because sometimes you just need to stop, sleep, cry, breeze, or say, fuck it, I can't do this today. You're human. And the work is not to become on someone who never hurts, the work is to become on someone who stays with herself or himself when he or she does. And maybe that's how you know the work is working. Not because you never fall apart, but because you know how to come home. So I'm just sitting here listening to this ocean. Thank you for listening. And I'm looking forward to next time. Have a beautiful day. We do need tribe, and the more we make connections, the more we heal, we co-regulate, even if it's just through a message and feeling like you've been hurt. I'm really glad you found soil to soul, and I really hope that it helps you to find yourself, and I really hope we build a beautiful world together. Until next time. I'm Kristen Dave, this is Soil to Soul, healing from the ground up, the inside out, organically, holistically, and sulfur.