By Orit Krug  |  October 4th, 2021

In order to understand how dance therapy releases trauma from the body, we need to first understand how trauma gets stored in the body.

When anybody experiences trauma, their higher-functioning brain goes offline. This is the part of the brain that processes verbal language, makes decisions, and plans what to say or do in any situation.

In the moments that you experienced trauma, you lost the ability to make any rational thought or decision, or remember anything in words.

Your primal brain took over to defend, attack, and save your life. This is true even if you weren’t in actual physical danger and the abuse you experienced was purely emotional.

Therefore, your memories and feelings associated with past traumatic events become stored in your body as fragments of sensations.

Have you ever smelled a perfume or cologne that brought you RIGHT back to the memory of an old partner? Even though you had not thought of them in a long time? This is one small example of how smell, touch, sound, and other senses become memories for significant events in our lives.

Trauma is stored in your body as physical sensations that are connected to your trauma.

After working in psychiatric hospitals and clinics for 8 years, I took my first private client in 2018. She prefers to stay anonymous, so we’ll call her Amy.

Amy had been a well-established psychotherapist for over 20 years. She also received her own personal therapy for childhood trauma for 20+ years. Amy started working with me because she was “curious,” but I like to think her body led her to me because there was unfinished business in her healing.

A month into our work together, I guided Amy to explore movements to let go of control in her body. She immediately started crying as she recalled memories of childhood sexual abuse.

“I don’t understand. I thought I healed my trauma and now it’s showing up again,” she said.

I helped her regulate through her emotions and reassured her, “You’ve done so much important work to heal, but these are the memories you haven’t yet reached… until now.”

When Amy did the “letting go” movements, it stirred up a certain sensation in her body that brought up memories of her past sexual trauma.

There was no adequate verbal explanation I could provide her. Her trauma was never stored in words. It has been stored in the body, and, like every other client I work with, there are certain movements that will stir up different sensations in their bodies.

Each of these sensations is directly tied to the memories of their past trauma. This is not a one size fits all process!

For Amy, it was the “letting go” movements. For my client Brigid, it was strong-weighted movements. For another client Claire, it was slowing down and bringing her body to the floor.

And then there’s you.

You are a unique individual with a unique set of traumas. The way that you’ve stored them inside your body will determine your own experience of accessing and releasing them through movement.

Dance Therapy releases trauma in a safe, gentle and specialized way.

First, it’s essential to say that you cannot rely on ANY modality to heal you. You have to do the work too.

Secondly, not all Dance Therapists are equal. Many don’t have specialized trauma training. If you work with a Dance Therapist, make sure they are experienced in trauma healing and that they’re a safe match for you.

With that said, Dance Therapy can absolutely feel MAGICAL in healing trauma, especially if you’ve been stuck for many years.

Through Dance Therapy, we begin by gently & safely helping you connect back into your body so that it becomes safe to start accessing what’s been trapped in there.

Then, as we begin to move together, old trauma inevitably gets stirred up because you’re literally and metaphorically moving what you’ve been repressing in your body for so long.

However, instead of you reacting, numbing, or repressing in response to your trauma getting triggered in session, we see your micro-movements & micro-body signals that show us you’re about to enter into a fear state.

But we don’t let you go into that fear state because the point is to NOT repeat the same patterns that are happening in your life & relationships.

In that exact moment that fear comes up in your body, we help you stay present & regulated in your body AND the therapeutic relationship.

That way, you can stay present in your relationships, even when you get triggered. This allows you to CHOOSE how you want to respond, instead of overreacting or shutting down.

Expanding your window of tolerance to stay calm, even while triggered, is the essence of rewiring your nervous system.

You deserve to find peace in your body & live freely without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.

By Orit Krug  |  September 24th, 2021

You’re finally with a healthy, loving partner, so why do you still have a fear of rejection in relationships?

Your fear of rejection in relationships might be confusing the heck out of you. Part of you that knows how amazing your partner treats you. But there’s a much LOUDER part that points out all the ways your partner could hurt you.

If this is happening for you, then this is a strong sign that you’re storing trauma in your body from past relationships.

Even though your mind knows that your partner is committed to you and loves you, your body feels all this anxiety and fear about getting heartbroken. 

Your mind may even obsess over every single word your partner says, or the subtle way they squinted their eyes when they said it. 

Hours later, deep into your circle of thoughts, you find your shoulders all the way up to your ears. This fear creates so much tension in your body.

This isn’t your fault. This is how old unresolved trauma impacts our ability to enjoy life and love.

Trauma fuels your fear of rejection in relationships, even when there’s no real threat.

This is NOT a reflection of your character and it does NOT mean you are damaged goods.

Old trauma stored in the body creates irrational fear in the nervous system and brain. 

Even if your trauma happened over 20 years ago, the threat of the past repeating today feels SO intense. Almost as if it’s happening all over again (time itself does not heal trauma).

Read: How long does it take to heal from trauma?

You’ve gotten majorly hurt in past relationships. Thus, you hold the belief in your body that ALL relationships end in hurt. Even when there’s clear, practical evidence that you’re safe and supported with your current partner.

You may repeat affirmations that you are safe or worthy of love, but the part of your mind that says these words cannot access the part of your brain & body where your trauma is stored.

Talking about your fear of rejection in relationships will not heal the trauma that’s fueling it.

We cannot possibly heal trauma through talking, journaling, or affirmations. These exercises speak ONLY to the higher-functioning part of the brain, or your prefrontal cortex.

Yet, your trauma is stored in your NON-VERBAL primal brain, which does not understand verbal language. 

It’s like speaking French to someone who only understands English. 

You can hear all the words in the world, like “I am worthy of love!” or “I am safe with my partner!” But the part of your brain and body that’s storing trauma will not be able to comprehend it.

You have to speak your non-verbal brain & body’s language to begin to process and heal trauma. And the language of the body is MOVEMENT.

Break free from your fear of rejection by healing your trauma through movement.

My client Shay was so afraid of rejection (and intimacy) that her body would literally freeze up whenever she spoke to a new love interest.

Because the “freeze” response is an ancient nervous system response, we knew that her trauma was being triggered just by LOOKING at someone she was interested in potentially dating.

Through working together in my dance therapy-based program, Let Love In, she was able to rewire her nervous system to stop freezing at the slightest chance of intimacy.

We practiced this directly through our therapeutic relationship. One thing we did was literally move closer together and further away. When we moved closer, she felt her anxiety rise and an immediate urge to completely disconnect from me and her body.

Slowly and gradually, I helped her use specific movements that helped her stay regulated in her nervous system and stay connected to me even through the fear she felt in her body. 

Eventually, she was able to be fully present and calm when we got closer to each other. This was an essential breakthrough in her trauma healing because this experience directly translated to her external relationships in her world. Instead of being intensely afraid of rejection, she was finally able to invite more intimacy and love in her life. This was the transformation she had wanted for so long, but her body wouldn’t allow it until doing this work together!

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  September 10th, 2021

Are you in the wrong relationship or is unresolved trauma tricking your brain?

Do you constantly switch between wondering if you’re in the wrong relationship, and then being totally head-over-heels for your partner? If so, you probably have old trauma still stored in your body. 

One day you’re in love with your partner and fully believe you’ll be together forever.

The next day, you’re overcome with anxiety and thoughts like, “I don’t think I can do this anymore” while planning your secret escape.

This isn’t because you’re in an unhealthy or toxic relationship. In fact, when you objectively think about your relationship, you know it’s the healthiest, most amazing partnership you’ve ever been in.

But, too often, you flip like a switch. If your partner isn’t texting you enough, you no longer feel like your relationship is stable.

If your partner is quiet, you immediately assume that they no longer want to be with you. That’s when you start to create your exit plan so you can leave them FIRST.

This isn’t a reflection of your character. This is TRAUMA controlling your ability to feel calm and safe in a healthy relationship. 

To cope, your mind makes up stories that you’re in the wrong relationship. Because that’s safer than totally letting your guard down and letting yourself be fully loved.

Should you trust the voices that say you’re in the wrong relationship?

Whether it’s the voices in your own head, or your friends (aka, unqualified “therapists”), you may want to pause before you believe them.

My client Corrie used to have thoughts of leaving her husband every single day. She had been through decades of talk therapy and alternative approaches trying to resolve this.

She consistently came home from work and flipped out at her husband and daughter. Her baselines was snappy and frustrated. And she blamed this on the relationship.

She felt intense urges to run away, which was her Flight response hijacking her body and emotions. The threat of being in her relationship felt so real, like stumbling upon a bear in the wild. She truly felt she needed to escape. Fast.

While she spent all those years feeling like damaged goods, she didn’t realize how much her nervous system controlled & intensified her fear of being in her marriage.

But once we helped her release her trauma through her BODY, she said all of her relationship doubts & anxiety dissipated. She finally felt calm and rooted, not only in her relationship, but inside her skin as well.

Corrie went from thinking she was in the wrong relationship DAILY to becoming so much closer with her husband and daughter. 

For the first time, she enjoyed her life with them and even felt excited about their future together.

If Corrie trusted those voices in her head, and followed primal urges in her body to leave, she would’ve broken apart her family. All based on false beliefs due to old trauma making her feel that NO relationship is safe.

How do you know if it’s trauma tricking you into believing you’re in the wrong relationship?

There are several ways you can tell this is old trauma running the show:

1. You have a strong track record of Relationship Anxiety, where you constantly fear that your partner isn’t right for you. No matter how many relationships you leave, you always feel the same doubts & fears in the next one.
2. Your partner is emotionally stable, but you cycle between being high & in love with your partner to low & hopeless about your future together.
3. The tiniest “signs” set you off. For example, your partner’s tone was “slightly different” when answering your question about where they went after work. Or, they didn’t answer their phone at the grocery store because it was on “Do Not Disturb.”
4. There has been absolutely NO evidence that your partner is disloyal or doesn’t love you, but you cannot trust them no matter what they say or do.

Once you experience trauma, your nervous system becomes wired to look for danger signs even when there are none. That’s because its #1 mission is to keep you from getting hurt like you did in the past. 

It’s like an animal in the wild who senses every vibration and smell to make sure they won’t get eaten alive by a predator.

You sense your partner’s TINIEST mistakes or things they said “wrong” as the biggest betrayals. When in reality, there is no perfect relationship and you are each bound to mess up every now and then.

Even if there are TRULY questionable things that your partner has done, you won’t know for sure if you’re in the wrong relationship until you heal your trauma. 

Unresolved trauma creates so much confusion because you’re wired to automatically react to protect your life, even when you rationally know that you are safe. 

You deserve to find peace in your body & let love in without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.

By Orit Krug  |  August 27th, 2021

Let’s talk about what to do when past trauma is affecting your relationship with your partner today.

It’s the worst feeling when you’re finally with the healthiest, most loving partner, but past trauma is affecting your relationship. 

You may be sabotaging your connection or constantly worried that they’re going to leave at any moment. If you’re at all the way I was, you can’t stop imagining that they’ll turn into a monster like your abusers were to you.

It’s ironic. Your fear of abandonment and rejection is actually making you abandon and reject your partner.

When you’re constantly absorbed in your fears and thoughts of “what-if,” you’re not present in your relationship for your partner.

You’re either stuck in the past or constantly worrying about what might happen in the future. This makes you emotionally absent and neglect your partner. The very same thing you’re afraid of them doing to you.

Recognize that your fear of being hurt is making you hurt your partner.

If past trauma is affecting your relationship by rejecting your partner’s acts of love (because you don’t believe it), questioning your ability to trust them, and creating stories about how they’re going to hurt you… then you’re hurting them in almost the same way you fear them hurting you. 

My client Lavinia used to constantly reject her husband’s acts of love and intimacy. She pushed him away when he wanted to be physically closer and she dissociated during sexual intimacy.

Deep down she wanted to feel unconditionally loved and wanted, but her fear of intimacy and abandonment made her communicate to her husband that she didn’t want him (which is not actually the case).

When your fear of abandonment or intimacy is making you reject your partner, then past trauma is affecting your relationship because you cannot let in the love that’s right in front of you. Yet, all you want to do is FEEL and be loved.

Release the trauma through your body to free yourself of self-sabotaging fears.

When you experience trauma, you store those memories in your body and nervous system. 

This rewires your brain and nervous system to be on constant high alert and make a whole lot of problems out of nothing.

It makes you hypervigilant to see the tiniest things as huge red flags or warning signs that your partner is going to hurt you.

Because all of this is occurring in your BODY and primal nervous system, you cannot talk yourself into behaving a different way. You cannot repeat affirmations or journal about it, and expect it to be resolved.

This is also because the higher-functioning part of your brain, that uses verbal language and cognitive planning, goes offline during trauma and any time you get triggered.

Hence, you did not store the majority of your trauma in words, so you cannot access those memories in words. Which means you also cannot use words or conscious thought to release trauma.

In order to release body-stored trauma, you must access the memories through the body. You must speak the language of the body, which is movement.

Through a specialized process where you connect to your body through movement, you CAN heal your trauma and rewire your nervous system for healthy, lasting love.

You deserve to find peace in your body & let love in without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.

By Orit Krug  |  August 3rd, 2021

Let’s talk about why you keep looking for what’s wrong in your relationship.

It’s not like you’re ALWAYS looking for what’s wrong in your relationship, right? 

One day you’re totally in love with your partner, thinking how perfect they are for you, and how you’re going to be together forever.

Then the next day, you’re plagued with thoughts like, “I don’t know if this is going to work out” as you point out all the things that they’re not doing right.

Maybe they didn’t text you exactly when you wanted them to. 

Or they didn’t say, “I love you” FIRST in 4 days (not that you’re counting, right?)

This dramatic rollercoaster is a strong indication that you have old trauma unresolved in your body.

Old trauma makes you question anything that is potentially hurtful to you.

By nature, relationships are potentially hurtful. Sharing your heart with a partner is an emotional risk. Even in a healthy, stable relationship. 

With old trauma trapped in your body, the tiniest risks can feel like death threats. 

You know in your mind that it’s not a huge deal your partner didn’t text you back on time. You may even come up with a practical explanation. Maybe they got stuck at work or lost service on the train.

But your body isn’t rational. In the 20 minutes that you didn’t hear from them, you experience so much anxiety, it feels like your life is in danger.

This is your old trauma hijacking your body, your emotions, and the way that you relate to your partner.

That’s because your nervous system is now wired to look for all the danger signs that something is wrong in your relationship. Even when they’re not REAL danger signs.

You’re not consciously looking for what’s wrong in the relationship. Your survival system impulsively reacts at the first sign of “danger” which makes you feel unsafe to stay in your relationship.

Your nervous system operates under the belief that love is not safe.

You keep looking for what’s wrong in your relationship because it protects you from getting hurt like you did in the past.

Whether you experienced trauma in childhood, a romantic relationship, or both, you learned that it is NOT safe to give or receive love.

Even in a healthy relationship today, your survival system still picks out the tiniest pieces of “evidence” that you will not be safe with your partner.

This is also known as hypervigilance. Like an animal in the wild looking for any sign of a predator. They must pay extremely close attention to any noise, vibration, or shadow that indicates they could get eaten alive.

Now, we are civilized humans, but we are also animals who evolved from living this exact way in the wild. 

When your partner forgets to pick up your favorite bag of chips at the supermarket, or looks at you a certain way that feels “off”… it feels like your relationship is no longer a safe place to be.

It’s usually one little thing that sets you off. Suddenly, it feels like you’re not going to survive your relationship. As if you’re going to be eaten in the wild.

This is NOT your fault or a reflection of your character. You cannot change the wiring of your nervous system with “positive thoughts” or affirmations. You can’t just decide that you’re going to stop looking for what’s wrong in your relationship.

You must rewire your nervous system in order to break the unhealthy pattern of looking for “signs” that your partner will hurt you.

Rewire your nervous system to feel safe, happy, and excited in your relationship.

My client Corrie used to spend hours in her head thinking about leaving her marriage.

She fantasized about running away and how things would be better if she wasn’t with her partner.

Once we began to release old trauma from her body, her brain understood the difference between her current reality and past trauma (her husband is not a monster from her past).

After she completed my Let Love In program, I asked her what changed in her marriage.

She said…“I see him again.”

“Instead of the scary version I painted of him, I can see him and all the expressions of love and devotion that he does every day.” 

Before the program, she had only focused on his flaws and the ways in which he could hurt her. 

But once she rewired her nervous system and took off her trauma-tinted glasses, she was hopeful and excited about their relationship.

Her entire world transformed. Actually to a point where her entire family needed to get used to this new, evolved version of Corrie.

The Corrie who wouldn’t come home and flip out immediately. It took some time to believe that her new baseline is calm, present, and affectionate. 

Corrie had spent YEARS in therapy trying to work this out without success and sadly almost gave up on her relationship that she’s now so happy to be in. 

You have the ability to experience this transformation too.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  July 28th, 2021

Healing childhood trauma is an uphill battle for most people, but is it possible that it’s easier than we think?

I spent a lot of time struggling to heal my trauma and have healthy relationships without sabotaging them.

After 15+ years of childhood trauma, I was (passive) aggressive and unable to trust ANY act of love in my relationships.

When I met my now-husband, Aaron, I had already been in talk therapy for 3 years in an attempt to finally break my unhealthy patterns.

Talk therapy gave me the cognitive awareness about why I was STILL sabotaging the relationship and partner of my dreams. But I didn’t know how to stop.

Eventually, Aaron couldn’t take any more of my controlling and abusive behavior. He broke up with me about a year into our relationship. 

That was my breaking point.

I didn’t realize that talking couldn’t help me heal my childhood trauma.

It was 2013. I was 3 years into my dance therapy career and I finally decided to do this work as a client. 

I enrolled in a dance/movement therapy program where I finally accessed and released my childhood trauma from my body. 

My entire life transformed and I got my relationship back with Aaron. Stronger & healthier than I had ever experienced in my life before. 

I went from pushing him away to truly letting in his love without being defensive or constantly questioning my worth. 

Our clients experience a very similar transformation, even after 20+ years of talk therapy, energy healings, and other approaches.

Trauma must be released through the body.

It’s essential to understand that your childhood trauma is stored in your body. 

You may be able to verbally recall memories from the past, but most memories and emotions associated with your trauma are stored in the non-verbal brain & body.

Let’s do a quick recap of the science behind this (click here for a full-on free training).

When you experienced your trauma, your higher-functioning brain went offline. This is the part of the brain that uses verbal language to think, remember, and make decisions. 

Hence, your trauma was NOT stored verbally in your memory.

Your trauma is not remembered in words. It is remembered through sensation.

If you can resonate with the following scenario, then you already know this to be true.

“It happened out of nowhere. I was having a great day and all of a sudden, BAM! I had a flashback. I was simply walking down the street when it happened. Nothing specific seemed to trigger it.”

You might’ve smelled a specific scent or heard a noise that immediately brought your body and nervous system to a trauma memory. As if it was happening all over again.

That’s how trauma gets stored (and triggered) in all of us. Through fragments of sensation associated with the traumatic event.

If your abuser wore a certain cologne, or your mother baked “apology cookies” after hitting you… you only need a faint whiff of these smells to bring you right back to the traumatic event.

There are no amount of words or mindset work that can access most of the trauma you’re holding in your body.

We must access trauma through the body. And the language of the body is movement.

Dance Therapy is the perfect match for healing childhood trauma. 

When you work with a dance therapist who is qualified to heal trauma, then you get to connect back to your body in a SAFE and gentle way.

However, connecting back with your body inevitably stirs up old trauma memories. So you can’t just say, “Great! I’ll just dance at home” or go to a yoga class.

There is a crucial point in time during the healing process that cannot be approached alone. Most people who try it DIY end up making their trauma symptoms worse. 

A skilled dance therapist can see your micro movements & micro body signals that immediately shows us when your trauma is getting stirred up in your body. 

This is the crucial point of time where you have the opportunity to change everything you’ve been wanting.

Instead of dissociating, disconnecting, numbing, or escaping your body, your dance therapist will help you stay regulated, present and connected to your body. 

Through repeated experiences of staying present when your nervous system used to hijack your body’s behaviors, you rewire your nervous system.

Additionally, staying present in the therapeutic relationship, when you’re triggered and tend to escape or lash out, will directly help you do the same in your external relationships.

You deserve to find peace in your body & let love in without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.

By Orit Krug  |  July 27th, 2021

Intimacy avoidance can happen even in a healthy, loving relationship.

Let’s talk about why intimacy avoidance is happening in your relationship and how to know if you’re creating distance due to past trauma:

1. You’ve been hurt in the past.

Your unresolved trauma of abandonment and rejection creates a story in your body and nervous system that all closeness and intimacy end in hurt.

It feels too scary to risk more rejection and let your guard down, and that makes it “safer” to avoid intimacy. 

You truly have to be vulnerable to initiate sexual, emotional, and physical intimacy. If you’re stuck in a self-protective state, then you’ll experience too much anxiety just thinking about this risk.

You may also think about initiating a sexy text or reaching out for a hug. But because your body is so frozen in the old trauma, you remain stuck in not taking any action.

This isn’t your fault. It’s what commonly happens when trauma is stored in the body, which leads us to reason #2.

2. You have a fear of rejection.

If your fear of rejection stems from trauma, then your nervous system is now wired to look for every potential danger sign that you could get hurt.

Let’s say your partner leaves their socks on the floor and hasn’t picked them up in 3 days. You asked them multiple times, but they haven’t listened.

Feeling utterly wounded, you think:

“WHY? Why don’t they care about my needs? Why doesn’t ANYONE love me?”

You totally blow it out of proportion in a very intense and quick way.

This is how you know that your old trauma is being triggered. It’s the littlest things cause a deep wounded feeling of rejection.

Maybe your mind knows that you’re overreacting, but your body feels like giving up and collapsing. This can make you feel like you don’t have the emotional strength to risk intimacy. Hence, it feels best to just avoid it.

3. You and your partner aren’t always on the same page.

In the beginning of my relationship with Aaron–before I healed my trauma–I avoided sexual intimacy.

He wanted to do the deed at night and I preferred it in the morning when I was more energized and awake. 

I often tried to make a move after breakfast, but he repeatedly said no (I later learned that he doesn’t feel sexy with a full belly, ha!).

I immediately made up a lot of stories in my head like, “Why doesn’t he love me?”

“Is he more attracted to someone else? WAIT, IS THERE SOMEONE ELSE?”

It was so triggering for me that I stopped initiating sex for a while.

After I healed my trauma, I could actually have a healthy conversation about this instead of assuming the worst.

We still have our different needs for intimacy.

Even now, there are times when I just want to cuddle with him and he says he wants his own space. Or he’s too sweaty to be touching.

Back in the day, I was heartbroken over it. I always suspected that he was lying to cover up why he doesn’t really want me.

Now that I’ve taken off my trauma-tinted glasses, I can finally see him and his needs. I have no resentment when his needs are different than mine. It’s not personal.

When you and your partner aren’t on the same page, what are the stories you create about it? Are they too painful? Is it easier to just give up trying?

Intimacy avoidance is easier than dealing with the old trauma.

It’s common for old trauma to resurface when you and your partner have different preferences for intimacy. This makes your nervous system automatically go into self-protection mode to prevent getting hurt like you did in the past.

However, this “protection” is self-sabotaging and leads to intimacy avoidance. Inevitably, you will get hurt again because of the distance you’re creating in your relationship today.

In order to truly rewire your nervous system, break patterns of avoidance and ENJOY intimacy, you have to do this healing work through your body and movement. 

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  July 22nd, 2021

Cheating on someone you love is often a sign of unresolved trauma.

I know this personally because I used to have uncontrollable urges to emotionally cheat on the people I love and it all went away once I finally released the trauma from my body.

So let’s jump in:

1. Your nervous system is adapted to equate love with drama & trauma.

Have you told your therapist or friends that you’re struggling with emotionally cheating on someone you love, and they said something like, “Oh, you’re just bored!” 

I imagine that was pretty infuriating. It’s MUCH more complex than that. 

First of all, the feedback that “You’re bored” is highly invalidating and irresponsible coming from a therapist because there is something much deeper happening at the level of your nervous system, due to old trauma.

When you experience trauma, you become wired to feel “safe” and comfortable in traumatic and dramatic relationships.

This makes safe and healthy relationships feel boring because the drama isn’t there. It actually feels empty, like something is missing.

You cannot simply resolve this by doing something more exciting with your partner. Your entire system that keeps you alive currently CRAVES chaos, because that’s the only way it knows how to survive.

Creating drama and risky situations through emotional cheating, despite being with your partner who you love, gives you that instant rush that also makes you feel calm and settled again. 

2. You’re addicted to other people’s approval and reassurance.

In the early stages of your relationship with your partner, their reassurance and approval of you was very satisfying. But it no longer gives you a rush because you’ve been together for so long. It’s like a drug that used to feel so good but now your body adapted to it, so it feels boring and uneventful.

Now, you feel the need to find a different drug or a stronger hit that will actually cause that rush of sensation and excitement in your body. This is also why you look outside of your relationship for something riskier and more taboo. The higher the risk, the higher “reward” (or dopamine hit to your body).

After experiencing trauma, even from 20+ years ago, our bodies often become disconnected and numb. If you don’t feel alive on the inside, you’re sure as heck not going to be able to feel that within your relationship.

So you’re constantly seeking that hit of fire or spark, when in reality you must be able to feel that in yourself first. That way, you can feel ALIVE enough to feel a sense of aliveness in your relationship.

That was actually one of my favorite pieces of feedback from a former client of my Let Love In program. She had actually started working with us to resolve her own issues with sexual intimacy, and she said, “I got so much more than that.” 

She added, “When the shift began to happen in my body (which I am still experiencing), it was like something was being born/made new from deep inside of me. My moment came amidst the tears & rawness of it all and I realized that I was ALIVE for the first time in my life. My husband has even said that he’s noticed a change.  He says I’m more connected – I’m there with him & that is huge!” 

After years of trauma, you have to access this aliveness within yourself to feel it anywhere else in your life. You will not find sustainable excitement or passion if it’s not within you. Even if cheating gives you a temporary rush of excitement, betraying the person you love will only create more hurt and trauma.

3. You need a backup plan.

Trauma has made you believe that all love ends in hurt, rejection, and abandonment. 

Even though you know in your mind that your partner is dedicated to you and won’t leave you, you still worry you’ll be left alone.

You’re cheating on someone you love because you need a backup just in case something goes wrong in your current relationship. This is a self-protective mechanism. Because with trauma, you now have the belief stored in your body that all love ends in hurt, rejection, abandonment.

The person you’re emotionally cheating with is your backup plan or safety net. This is similar to anyone who’s hoarding or saving up finances on the side just in case they need to leave. This plan would make sense for someone planning to leave an abusive relationship, but when your relationship is healthy and you’re still doing that – you know that old trauma is still controlling you.

Protecting yourself from being ALL IN in your relationship prevents you from experiencing the highest potential of love, connection, and intimacy with your partner.

No wonder you’re not satisfied. You’re not letting it in.

All of this sets you up for a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. When you look for a backup for when things go wrong, but you’re the one who’s creating the things that are going wrong. Then it’s like, “I guess I needed that backup after all!” Because you created the problem. 

A former client of Let Love In began to work with us because she emotionally cheated on her husband. 

She was always a “good girl.” She grew up with parents who never allowed her to express any “negative” emotions so she learned to hide her true feelings. 

Now, even though she’s with a loving, supportive husband today, she always felt like she had to put on her good girl mask with him.

Thus, she was never truly seen in her relationship. She operated under the belief that she had to look for a safer relationship elsewhere to finally be herself, even though she had it right in front of her. 

Once she rewired her nervous system and allowed her body to believe it’s safe to be her true self– that her husband is not her father or mother, and that she’s not a “helpless child” anymore– she finally repaired those childhood experiences and started expressing herself unapologetically. 

She began to take up more space while being more confident in her body. Her true self emerged in herself and in her relationship. This eliminated her false belief that she is only safe to express her needs and be seen in a relationship outside of her marriage.

4. You know why you do it, but you don’t know HOW to stop doing it.

You know exactly why your past trauma is making you stray, but cheating is like an addiction that takes over you, and you find yourself repeating the same pattern again.

It doesn’t matter how much intellectual understanding or cognitive awareness you have about your patterns of cheating. In order to truly change your behaviors, your body and nervous system must be on board so you can actually physically follow through with your mind’s intention to not cheat.

This takes much more work than telling yourself not to cheat because this old trauma repeatedly controls and hijacks your behaviors before you can even think about doing something different. You have to rewire your nervous system to feel safe and excited in a stable, non-dramatic relationship.

Until you feel that safety with your partner, you’ll continue to impulsively sabotage your relationship.

Stop the cycle of self-sabotage and rewire yourself to enjoy the healthy love you have now.

In my FREE Rewired For Love training, you’ll learn the 3 secrets to healing your trauma and ending your unhealthy relationship patterns that stem from the past. 

This free training will give you the clarity you need to create the most connected and fulfilling relationship with your partner without sabotaging your amazing connection or repeating the same stories from the past.

Sign up for my FREE training

By Orit Krug  |  July 8th, 2021

There are so many unhelpful tips about how to deal with emotional triggers in relationships.

To manage emotional triggers in relationships, many experts will say, “Breathe before you respond,” or “Practice a script of what you want to say in X situation.”

Unfortunately, these tips don’t actually work in the moment when your brain and body are triggered.

We cannot simply breathe our way through triggers. We cannot cover up intense nervous system reactions with rehearsed words.

When we are triggered, we lose the ability to make rational decisions and control our emotions, even when we intellectually know we’re overreacting.

In order to understand why, let’s first get clear on what exactly is a trigger.

The difference between a trauma trigger and a normal emotional response.

Let’s say your partner asks you 7 times in the same week, “Where’s that wooden cooking spoon?” 

A normal response would be something along the lines of, “Wow, this is getting irritating. I wish you would just remember where the spoon is so you don’t have to ask me so many times.”

A trauma trigger would look more like yelling and crying, “WHY can’t you just listen? WHY don’t you ever hear what I’m saying to you?” Followed by a total meltdown.

Now, it’s okay and even healthy to have normal frustrations with your partner (I can’t tell you how many times my husband tells me he can’t find something and then I find it in 2 seconds, ha!).

But with a trauma trigger, there’s an intensely different reaction happening in your brain, nervous system, and your body.

When you have old trauma stored in your body, your hippocampus is diminished and it cannot distinguish past trauma from the present reality.  So when your partner asks for you to find something for the 7th time in a week, it feels the SAME as when your parents neglected your emotional needs because they didn’t pay attention to you.

Want to see a map of how exactly the brain is affected by trauma? Sign up for my FREE Rewired For Love Training.

This triggers in you the old trauma of being unheard, unmet, and betrayed by the people who were supposed to love and see you more than anyone else.

Are you being triggered or are you having normal, healthy responses in your relationship?

Are you experiencing normal emotions that come with living or being with a partner for many years? Are you having a healthy amount of bickering or disagreements?

Or are you experiencing intense reactions that make you impulsively yell, shut down, or get in your car and leave in the middle of a conversation?

Are you able to follow common tips like, “Breathe before you respond” or “Communicate that you’re angry in a nice way?” Or does it all go out the window as soon as you have conflict or confrontation with your partner?

Many people will call themselves broken or damaged goods because they can’t follow these “simple” and “helpful” tips to stop being triggered, but the truth is that NO ONE with unresolved trauma can fake being calm. 

You must teach your nervous system to regulate itself and expand your window of tolerance so that you can respond the way you’d like, without pushing away your partner.

Even if breathing and scripted words have worked a few times before, they are not long-term, sustainable solutions to rewiring your nervous system.

Rewiring your nervous system will help you maintain calm in the face of triggers.

My client Allison used to become so triggered whenever she and her partner talked about money. She’d blow up so fast. She would yell and say, “You need to get a job or I’m DONE!” She would be quick to shut down and end the conversation. 

But this morning, she sent me a message and said that things have completely shifted for her. She said, “I can’t believe it! We actually had a conversation about money. I was able to be present and he even asked me for advice!”

Rewiring her nervous system allowed her to be able to CHOOSE her response. She said she still felt the impulse to give an ultimatum and shut down the discussion… but she didn’t.

And that is KEY! 

She had become so comfortable with feeling discomfort and difficult emotions in her body (through our sessions) that she was no longer hijacked by them. By being able to stay present in her body and our therapeutic relationship FIRST in session, she was easily able to do that in her real-life relationship.

That is the process of rewiring, in a nutshell, where your nervous system becomes so comfortable and skilled at staying present and connected even through confrontation. This is what brings relationships closer than ever instead of falling apart whenever there is a bump in the road.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  December 22nd, 2020

It’s normal to doubt yourself in your relationship sometimes, but if you’re repeatedly asking yourself the following 6 questions, it’s likely that your past trauma is causing you to question your worthiness and potentially sabotage your relationship.

Let’s jump in:

1. Am I asking for too much?

Your love is happy to give you what you need but sometimes when they’re stressed or exhausted, they say “Not now,” or, “Can you just do it?”

This triggers an intense feeling of abandonment and betrayal within you. Even though they are there for you 90% of the time, these occasional incidents make you feel like no one loves or cares about you.

It makes you question why you’re even with your partner if they can’t be there for you or can’t do you a favor (even though you know this isn’t true).

Once you calm down and reflect on what just happened, you realize that you completely blew things out of proportion. Yet, you still wonder, “Am I asking too much?”

You probably aren’t asking too much, but past trauma has a pervasive way of making us constantly overreact, doubt ourselves, and shut down from the people who love us the most.

Hence, the next question…

2. Am I overreacting?

If you have old trauma stored inside your body, then you probably overreact more often than you’d like.

This is NOT your fault.

When you experience past trauma, your nervous system becomes hardwired to impulsively react in a fight, flight, or freeze response whenever you experience the faintest reminder of your past trauma.

For example, your partner hugs you from behind and suddenly you freak out and push them away before even realizing what just happened. The way they snuck up on you automatically triggers a memory of your unpredictable abusive father instead of being able to appreciate a sweet, loving gesture.

You actually want this healthy affection all the time, but these acts of intimacy scares the crap out of you, especially when it comes by surprise. Instead of being free-spirited, fun and spontaneous in your relationship, you’re usually on guard and in need of control.

Another example is that if you keep raging at your partner whenever you see a text from a number you don’t know and automatically assume they’re cheating, then yes you’re overreacting. However, this is NOT a reflection of who you are as a person. It is your trauma controlling your emotions and behaviors.

These impulsive reactions are primal and occur in the non-verbal part of your brain – where your trauma is also stored. There is no amount of trying to talk or think your way out of behaving differently until you release trauma from your body.

3. Do they really mean it when they say ‘I love you?’

When you’re still holding on to the trauma of being abandoned and rejected in past childhood or romantic relationships, you’ll automatically assume you’re not worthy of love in your relationship today.

Your partner could tell you “I love you” EVERY DAMN DAY and you still won’t believe it until you heal the trauma of past heartaches.

Even if you affirm in your mind that they DO love you, those 3 words still won’t click with you when your partner says them. Instead, you may remain numb. Trauma has made you so disconnected from your body that you can’t feel your heart even though there’s so much healthy love right in front of you.

My client Zoe had an amazing breakthrough with this when we worked together. She always thought she took in her husband’s love, but it wasn’t until she released the trauma from her body and started feeling safe to FEEL (instead of cut-off from her body by being obsessively in her thoughts) that she realized how much love she was truly missing from him.

She couldn’t believe how much love she had been blocking before she could really feel the difference in her body.

Your mind has to believe it, but your body also has to FEEL it.

4. Do they think about other women, men, etc?

Yes. They probably casually think about others and that’s totally normal. Your partner can be in a monogamous, committed and loyal relationship with you AND still think about others.

YOU are the person they have dedicated their life to and the most important one in their world.

When you are confident in yourself and truly know how amazing you are, it doesn’t matter that they have perfectly normal and healthy thoughts about others.

It no longer feels threatening that they think about other people because you trust and know that they won’t randomly abandon the amazing human that you are.

5. Do they miss me when I’m out?

I used to think that Aaron would discover how much better life was without me when he went out with his friends. I had nightmares of him coming home to say he was bored and done with our relationship. This was a complete lack of confidence in myself and my trauma-rooted belief that I was unworthy of his love.

Once I healed my trauma and believed that I was worthy, I no longer went batsh*t crazy when he went out. My anxiety stopped and I was able to wish him the best time without secretly wishing he would be miserable without me.

I now believe that wherever he is, near or far, he thinks that he is the luckiest guy to be spending his life with me and that he cannot wait to come home and hug me. What a huge shift!

6. Do they even care that I’m upset?

OF COURSE. Your partner is with you because they care deeply about you.

Maybe you’ve rejected their acts of love and how much they care about you SO many times that they’re afraid to try showing you again.

Or maybe you’ve been too scared to express your true emotions, so they honestly don’t know HOW you want them to show you how much they care.

My former client Jessica froze up every time she wanted to express frustration. She was so afraid her husband would react in anger the way her abusive father used to, even though her husband never did. Her old trauma made her quiet her voice and hide her needs until she released the trauma from her body.

Once Jessica finally started speaking her truth, her husband became much more clear about what she wanted and how to give that to her – both emotionally and physically. Now she is 100% unapologetically honest and it has reignited the amazing spark they had before having kids.

You deserve to find peace in your body & let love in without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.