Hell is Not Hot- It’s Cold Up in Here: Climbing Out of a Trauma Wound
It’s cold in here. It’s dark and void of hope. The feeling is enduring and fading at the same time, reminding you of what has been lost and what may never be recovered. It is the memory of a dream ripped from your soul and replaced with a nightmare over which you have no control. But mostly, it’s cold and lonely.
There is a climb that must take place to get out of this hole. It’s steep and exhausting, requiring a grip so strong and a future-focused vision that trusts in what’s at the end of the climb—even if the ending cannot be seen in the moment. People think hell is hot, but warmth would be a welcome comfort in this hole. Here, the only thing you’re met with is a chill—the freezing pain you cannot escape.
Climbing up and out of this hole and back into life is painful. You must feel your way through the darkness, reach for handholds you cannot see, and trust there will be footing for each step. This hole, where so many of us find ourselves, is a trauma wound. The work of healing this wound is the climb out—the climb back into life, back into wholeness.
What Are Trauma Wounds?
Emotional and mental traumas result from profoundly stressful events that disrupt your sense of safety and connection to the world. Individuals are often left feeling helpless, powerless, hopeless, and overwhelmed. Painful memories and feelings linger, shaping life long after the trauma has ended.
Physical traumas are unplanned injuries caused by accidents or intentional acts. Traumatic wounds are sudden or unplanned injuries, ranging from acute cuts to penetrating wounds. Physical trauma can also lead to mental and emotional trauma depending on how the individual experiences the incident.
The key thing to remember about trauma wounds is that they are real. They happen. It is not okay to dismiss them as small, insignificant, or something to simply “suck up.” All wounds require healing, attention, and care. Healing requires you to pause, notice, and attend to how you are living this life. Whether emotional or physical, I have never seen a wound fully heal without pausing to address it.
The Climb Back into Life
Trauma healing is a journey, and emphasis must be placed on the process. The process will be as diverse as the individual doing the work, but it often includes six key elements: establishing safety, centering/grounding, building natural supports, embodiment, moving past fear, and reorientation to life.
Establishing Safety
When you have been traumatized, your sense of safety is disrupted. Your boundaries are damaged and must be repaired. You may feel overwhelmed by your emotions, your environment, and sensations in your body. This leaves you unprotected and disconnected from yourself and the world around you.
To reestablish safety, begin with exercises that reconnect you to your body in a controlled way—exercises that allow you to have a say in what happens. Understanding sensation, tolerance, and boundaries forms the foundation of reconnection to life.
Centering and Grounding
Centering and grounding are two of the most important skills we can develop to regulate our triggers and emotional disconnection. Trauma can feel like the metaphorical chair has been pulled out from under you, leaving you with a hard landing and confusion.
Grounding and centering give you tools to stay present and reconnect to the moment. These practices allow you to reestablish balance and stability during vulnerable times.
Building Natural Supports
Building natural supports means developing both internal and external resources that aid your well-being. Internally, we can nurture strength, intelligence, spiritual practice, talents, and nervous system regulation. Externally, healing cannot be done through “bootstrapping” alone—it requires community.
You need the support of people who walk a similar path, people willing to surround you with understanding and encouragement. This network makes the climb forward possible.
Embodiment
Embodiment is the practice of living in the present, connecting to the sensations of your body, and reclaiming your life after trauma. It can be both comfortable and uncomfortable.
Embodiment practices involve listening, touching, feeling, allowing, observing, and distinguishing sensations when triggered. This is how we find our grip in the climb out of the dark hole.
Moving Past Fear
Fear is the obstacle that paralyzes us in pain and prevents us from taking the first step out of the hole. It keeps trauma wounds open, whispering that healing is impossible, that life will not improve, that peace is out of reach.
Trauma dysregulates the nervous system each time a trigger sparks a memory, thought, or feeling. By understanding yourself, connecting with your body, and accepting change, you can move fear out of the center of your healing process.
The goal is not to eliminate fear altogether—it can be a protective mechanism—but to have a say in how you respond to it.
Reorientation to Life
A wound can heal. If you remember nothing else about trauma work, know this: healing is possible.
Stepping back into your life, building the healing you need, and receiving support along the way are all possible. Reclaiming your ability to choose is how the wound heals.
By intentionally creating the future you want, while nurturing all parts of yourself with love and respect, healing continues. This is how you reconstruct an identity not defined by trauma, but by resilience and choice.
A wound is a wound—whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Trauma can happen to anyone, and we often have no say in how it enters our lives. That can be a hard truth to accept.
But while you cannot choose how you were wounded, you can choose how you heal. You can choose how you climb out of that cold, dark hell into the warmth of life. Wounds can heal. Scars will form. And through them, you can create a new identity for a life of your choosing.
You have a SAY in how you HEAL.
Dr. Tasha
