Maybe the Opposite of Trauma Isn't Healing—Maybe It's Presence

We often think of trauma and healing as two sides of the same coin. If trauma is the wound, then healing must be the salve, the repair, the mending of torn edges. That makes sense. It’s a tidy narrative arc. But life—and our bodies—rarely follow tidy arcs.

Lately, I’ve been wondering:
What if the opposite of trauma isn’t healing? What if it’s presence?

Because trauma is absence, in so many ways.

It's the absence of safety.
The absence of choice.
The absence of breath.
The absence of being fully here.

Trauma fractures time. It pulls us back into the past with flashbacks or launches us into an anxious future where danger always looms. It makes the present moment feel unsafe, irrelevant, or unbearable.

So maybe the true antidote isn’t only healing as we traditionally imagine it—not just “getting better” or “moving on.” Maybe it’s being here. Inhabiting our bodies again. Feeling the air move through our lungs. Feeling anything at all.

Maybe the opposite of trauma is Pleasure, Play and Permission to be.

Presence is not a reward for healing. It is the healing.

And maybe healing doesn't look like being "fixed" or being "normal" again. Maybe it looks like becoming more real. More here. More you.

So the next time you feel pressure to be over it, to be past it, to be okay already—pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself:

Can I be present with myself, just as I am?
Can I let this moment be enough?

That might be the bravest, most healing thing of all.

With love,
Marine Sélénée