Why you just want to be told what to do after you’ve experienced trauma

Have you ever wondered why you’re searching for advice so desperately after a traumatic experience?

You know when you’re feeling confused, hurt and overwhelmed, you just want someone to tell you exactly what to do and any advice seems like a lifeline?

It isn’t just you.

Trauma changes how your brain processes (or doesn’t process) information and experiences.

It’s like your house is on fire and you’re in survival mode, trying to escape but there’s so much smoke, you can’t see a way out.

When your house is on fire, your nervous system knows it’s not the time sit down at the kitchen table and draft up a long term plan of action.

You just need to get out of there, Fast AF!

When your brain is on fire, you can’t access your prefrontal cortex (PFC). The PFC is the part of your brain that makes decisions and plans out your next move.

Your PFC is offline because your brain is in emergency mode handling what has happened, even if it went down years or decades ago.

So you start grasping for whatever advice you can get from therapists, friends, family—no matter if it’s actually helpful or doesn’t even make sense.

You keep asking, “What would you do, if you were in my situation?”

Now you’re drowning in advice—but can’t follow any of it because you need your PFC for that too.

Trauma Drives a Need for Certainty

You’re begging for certainty from anyone who sounds confident, even if it won’t give you what you truly need.

And you’re not even sure what you really need.

Why Traditional Therapy Misses the Mark

Most therapy models don’t understand the brain. Most therapists haven’t studied Neuroscience at the Master’s level.

Most therapists assume you can think clearly and can access your own solution.

They will tell you to pause and reflect when your brain is on fire.

Advice aimed at a calm brain does not compute for a brain in chaos.

Have You Ever Left Therapy Feeling Triggered AF?

When you talk about trauma, it revivifies it. So you think all the intrusive thoughts and you feel the intense feelings in your body.

This is like putting gasoline on a fire.

Your brain needs to be cooled off.

You Need Safety, Not Insight

Revivifying and reliving trauma is not what you need. You will never access insight when your brain is on fire.

Transformation doesn’t happen by being told what to do. It begins the moment you stop outsourcing your solutions and create the right environment for your brain to cool off.

You’re not indecisive. You’re dysregulated.

You can feel what’s happening in your brain in your body.

Let’s connect.