Before We Dig In
Before we dig in, I want to remind us all what this space is, gently, easily, and clearly. So, hello dear readers, here we are again on a healing journey in our individual lives, as we also, all of us, come together inside Holding Space Subscription to democratize our access to tools and trauma informed methods of looking at life for the deeper, subconscious and unconscious healing that is needed. You just can’t talk this stuff out in therapy. I am a therapist, but even I would never proclaim that I am the ideal listener where magically you say, “here is what happened”, and become healed. I never found one that did that for me either. My experience, needing healing I couldn’t find in a therapy setting, is how I birthed the organized healing journey concept. The readers here know it, we get it, we need The Toolbox Approach® and the Phases of Healing so our own toolboxes can build from that scaffolding.
You’ve seen the painters and the workmen out there, up on the scaffolding doing their work. That structure is built for them to do the work, and it is built days and sometimes weeks before the workmen arrive to begin the project. Just like this common practice, The Toolbox Approach® and the Phases of Healing, are here as your scaffolding. You’ve heard of my vision as well, that we are building the warehouse for Your Are Not Broken University, what was launched in the introductory book, as we place content here, so you can think of yourself as going into higher education as a student of your own life when you come here as well. The therapy intensives will begin soon for those of you interested, and if you need solid ground underneath you for sticking to a healing journey consistently, the approach is in those 3-day Intensives as your trailhead.
The Phases Coexist
All of the Phases of Healing: Narrative Healing, Reprocessing Healing, and Relational Healing, coexist. They are always present and naturally occurring, but without guidance they often activate in a disorganized way. When this happens, we move through life reacting rather than learning: triggering old patterns without understanding them, labeling success or achievement as proof that we’ve “moved on,” and choosing what’s in front of us based on repetition rather than growth. Many people only recognize the beauty of the path at the very end. In reality, we are all on it. Painfully, many of us create more experiences to heal from before the lessons begin to land.
Organization matters because it creates safety on a somatic, body-based level. This is not obsessive or perfectionistic organization. It doesn’t demand control or elite performance. It is gentle, functional, and clear; just enough structure to allow your nervous system to settle so learning can actually occur. Let’s look at how this shows up across the Phases.
Narrative Healing
In Narrative Healing, we examine the stories we’ve told ourselves—often half-truths shaped by how something felt rather than what actually occurred or who anyone truly is.
Example:
“I was manipulated and now it’s hard to trust”
versus
“I am trustworthy, and manipulation exists in human behavior on a spectrum from mild to severe.”
The first statement isn’t wrong, but it anchors you to what happened, keeping you hyper-focused on monitoring trust so the story never evolves. The second centers your capacity and introduces discernment. It creates a boundary between who you are and what may harm you, allowing life’s manageable risks to coexist while containing the most severe dangers. This shift opens the door to movement rather than vigilance.
Reprocessing Healing
In Reprocessing Healing, fragmented memories charged with emotional meaning are softened and integrated. Experiences move from sharp, isolated moments into a fuller, calmer internal “slideshow,” allowing us to see more of the picture.
Example:
A lifelong sense of abandonment by a workaholic father becomes a clearer memory: missing a goal at a game, walking home alone, and thinking, “If I were the best on the team, he would show up.” With reprocessing, the person realizes their father never said they weren’t good enough; the belief was created by how those moments were emotionally paired. The meaning shifts, and the nervous system no longer needs to hold the pain in fragments.
Relational Healing
In Relational Healing, Self-energy returns. You become more invested in the kind of guide you are for your own life. Compassion grows; for your inner world, for the stories you once needed, and for the egoic parts that protected you. Your personality is no longer mistaken for your entirety.
Relationships become welcome mirrors rather than threats. Emotional triggers shift into classrooms; places you’re willing to learn from rather than defend against. Safety reorients internally, reducing the need for rigid defenses.
Example:
The challenger personality; proudly self-sufficient, emotionally guarded, unconcerned with others’ input, recognizes that this identity was a survival strategy. Through reflection and therapeutic support, they see how shutting others out shaped their relationships. Over time, they choose connection intentionally and become a more grounded leader at home and at work.
Healing isn’t about completing a phase and moving on forever, it’s about learning how to move among them with awareness and choice. When we bring gentle organization to our healing, we create enough safety for wisdom to emerge. Not all at once. Not perfectly. But steadily, skillfully, and in a way that allows life to keep happening without becoming another wound.
Diving In
Getting the Ick as a Healing
Now that you’ve had your recap, let’s talk about the strangely modern phrase, “Getting the ick”, as it reflects on a very ancient experience that can inform us more towards growth, healing patterns of brokenness, and activate transformation.
It’s usually described as that sudden, almost immediate shutdown that happens when you’re getting to know someone, know them for years already, or sometimes have just met (often in dating), when they do something. Something small, something subtle, something you may not even be able to fully articulate. And suddenly your body says: no. This is not a thoughtful, reflective no. It is not a no done by list-making and considering. It’s a center‑of‑your‑body, retreat now no.
Culturally, “the ick” is often treated as silly, shallow, or even mean; something to laugh about on social media. But in healing spaces, especially trauma‑informed ones, I want to offer a very different reframe:
Getting the ick may not be rejection, it may be a defense against dysregulation, and therefore it may be an automatically activated regulation tool.
And when understood correctly, it can become one of your most important relational teachers.
The Body Speaks Long Before the Mind Explains
From a somatic perspective, what we’re calling “the ick” is a fast, embodied signal. It’s not coming from logic or narrative; it’s coming from the nervous system.
Your body is constantly scanning:
Is this safe?
Is this familiar?
Does this resemble past harm?
Does this signal misattunement, unpredictability, or emotional incongruence?
For many people on a healing journey, especially those recovering from trauma, grief, betrayal, or relational loss, this system has been overridden in the past. We learned to stay when our bodies said go. We learned to explain away discomfort. We learned to mistrust our instincts in order to preserve attachment.
So when the body finally says “no” quickly, it can feel abrupt, confusing, or even shameful. But that speed matters.
The speed of the “ick” is often a sign that your nervous system no longer needs to scream to be heard.
Where the “Ick” Fits in the Phases of Healing
For those of you familiar with The Toolbox Approach®, you already know that healing happens in phases; not because healing is linear, but because our systems need structure to build capacity.
Think of the Phases of Healing as a trail map, not a single path.
Every trailhead has the full map available. Even when you’re starting deep in one phase, the others are still present; informing, shaping, and supporting your movement.
Many people re‑enter the dating or relating world during or after Relational Healing, once they’ve:
Released the narrative that they are broken
Reprocessed what happened to them
Built internal safety and regulation
Relating then becomes practice, not proof. And this is where the “ick” often shows up. Not as failure. Not as avoidance. But as information.
A Story From the Trail
When I returned to dating after loss and deep personal healing, I remember being surprised not by who I was attracted to, but by how quickly my body reacted to certain moments. Sometimes it wasn’t big. It wasn’t overt. It wasn’t harmful. It was a tone. A dismissive comment masked as humor. A subtle lack of curiosity. A moment where emotional presence disappeared.
And my body said: this feels familiar in a way that once cost me.
That was new. In the past, I might have leaned in harder. Explained it away. Intellectualized it. But now, something else had developed: capacity.
The capacity to pause. The capacity to listen inward. The capacity to leave without making the other person wrong, or myself overly accommodating. That wasn’t avoidance. That was healing in motion.
In an effort to bring this work into therapy sessions, I began to notice how eager people were to build capacity, and how much they needed concrete examples of what that actually looks like in real life. Here are a few:
When someone walks you to your car after a first date and you sense an unspoken expectation for a kiss, you gently place a hand on their shoulder, diagonally across the space between you, and thank them for the good conversation.
When your mother checks in to see if you’re okay but has never played with your kids or offered childcare, and you typically roll your eyes and avoid responding, you instead call her and say: “We’re doing okay, but we’re often stretched thin with childcare. We don’t have family support the way some of our neighbors do.”
When a coworker assumes you always have it together and lets things fall through without acknowledgment (someone you used to avoid) you now send a clear, neutral email: “This task is still waiting for follow‑through. Please complete it.” You then follow up face to face to confirm they received the message.
When the “Ick” Is a Boundary, Not a Wall
One of the most important distinctions I want you to hold is this:
A regulated “no” feels very different from a trauma‑driven shutdown.
A regulated “ick”:
Comes with clarity, not panic
Doesn’t require justification
Doesn’t demonize the other person
Leaves you feeling intact, not collapsed
A trauma‑driven response often comes with:
Intense fear or urgency
Shame or self‑criticism afterward
A sense of danger rather than mismatch
Emotional flooding or numbing
Learning the difference is part of relational healing. Sometimes the “ick” is saying: This person isn’t unsafe, they’re just not aligned. That matters. Healing doesn’t mean you become endlessly tolerant. It means you become accurately discerning.
Why This Matters After Trauma or Loss
After trauma, grief, betrayal, divorce, or a heartbreaking ending, many people fear their instincts.
What if I’m too sensitive now?
What if I’m overreacting?
What if I miss out because I leave too quickly?
Here’s the mindset shift:
Healing doesn’t make you brittle. It makes you precise.
Initially, the healing nervous system that once stayed too long and wouldn’t address the “ick”, often swings toward immediate addressing and earlier exits; not because it’s broken, but because it’s learning.
Over time, with awareness:
The exits become calmer
The discernment becomes clearer
The fear fades and choice strengthens
The goal isn’t to never get the ick. The goal is to understand what it’s pointing to.
Gentle Questions When the “Ick” Shows Up
Instead of shaming or dismissing yourself, try asking:
What did my body notice before my mind reacted?
Does this resemble something I’ve already healed from; or something I’m still learning to trust?
Is this discomfort about misalignment, or about vulnerability?
Do I feel more regulated stepping away; or more dysregulated staying?
You don’t need to answer these immediately. Relational healing happens in reflection, not in force.
The Paradox: Safety Allows Choice
One of the surprises of healing is that greater safety often leads to more no’s before deeper yes’s. That’s not cynicism. That’s discernment. You are no longer relating from a place of trying to be chosen, or to avoid discomfort. You’re relating from a place of mutual regulation, curiosity, and capacity.
Getting the “ick” may simply be your system saying:
I don’t have to abandon myself to belong anymore.
And that is not a failure of connection. That is success.
Closing Thought
The “ick” isn’t the enemy. It’s not proof that you’re avoidant, broken, or incapable of love and connection. It may be proof that something important has changed. Your body remembers what either an avoidant or reactive life cost you. Your healing can give it a voice that now you get to listen to with compassion, curiosity, and choice.
And that’s how relational healing continues, one honest signal at a time.
STAY TUNED
Holding Space Integrative Therapies, through ENYA, Everyone Needs You Always LLC, is ready to launch our Three-Day Therapy Intensives this May, 2026. You can find us here at the author’s website for “You Are Not Broken”, and scroll down to our practice. Please also welcome our new holistic and medication provider Sifat Ameen, PMHNP whom you can see outside of the therapy intensive services. There you can learn about the intensives and find the article for establishing your discovery and tailoring process. That process is free until you are ready to commit.
