Healing Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Creating Safety Through Imagery and Play
Using guided imagery and gentle inner work to support trauma recovery from CPTSD and narcissistic abuse.
Healing Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Creating Safety Through Imagery and Play
We’ve been taught that healing is supposed to hurt.
That transformation only counts if it comes through pain, tears, or breaking points. That if we’re not sobbing, sweating, or exhausted, we must be doing it wrong.
But that’s a lie—a deeply embedded one. Especially for those of us who survived by bracing, hustling, shrinking, or enduring. Pain was familiar. Rest felt dangerous. Softness? Unfamiliar. Untrustworthy.
But here's what I’ve come to believe:
True healing doesn’t have to hurt. It can be gentle. It can even be playful.
The Nervous System Learns in Safety
If you’ve experienced complex trauma or narcissistic abuse, your nervous system has spent years—or decades—scanning for threat. Noticing microexpressions. Bracing for shifts. Preparing to fawn, flee, freeze, or fight.
In that state, pain isn’t growth. It’s reinforcement.
The nervous system doesn’t learn well in threat. It learns in safety.
When we introduce healing through safety, softness, and subtlety, we begin to retrain our body and brain to trust that something different is possible.
Guided Imagery: A Gentle Path Inward
One of my favorite ways to help clients heal without retraumatizing is through guided imagery.
We bypass the intellect and meet the subconscious through image, story, and symbol. Instead of retelling old traumas, we invite the inner world to show us what needs attention.
Sometimes it’s a meadow.
Sometimes it’s an animal.
Sometimes it’s a child version of you, waiting to be held.
You don’t need to dig. You don’t need to force. You get to witness.
And witnessing is healing.
Why Play Is Not Just for Children
Many trauma survivors are high achievers. Perfectionists. Hyper-responsible. We’ve been serious for a long time.
So when I bring in play, I often see a flicker of confusion or resistance.
But play is a trauma response too—a healing one. It’s the freedom to experiment, to fail, to explore. To be curious instead of hypervigilant. To try on new roles instead of being stuck in survival mode.
When we use creativity, imagination, and even silliness in healing, we build emotional range. We develop flexibility. We say to our systems: “You are safe enough to explore now.”
Want to Try Something Right Now?
Close your eyes.
Take a breath.
Imagine the softest place you’ve ever been. A bed. A patch of moss. A blanket on a rainy day. Let yourself go there.
Now imagine there’s a creature in that place with you. Gentle. Loving. Curious. Maybe it’s a cat, a deer, a dragon, a dove. Maybe it’s something you’ve never seen before.
This creature is here to support your healing.
Ask it: “What do you want me to know right now?”
Just breathe and listen.
There’s no right or wrong here.
Only messages meant for your highest good.
Healing Can Be Soft
You don’t have to break down to break through.
You don’t have to bleed to be born anew.
You can heal through softness. Through beauty. Through the quiet knowing that you are already becoming.
You don’t need to earn your healing through more suffering.
You get to be held.
You get to be witnessed.
You get to play.
Ready to Explore This Work?
Come explore this gentle path with me. Guided imagery, somatic grounding, and symbolic transformation are part of the work I do every day with clients ready to reclaim their lives.
And if all you do today is close your eyes for one moment of peace, let that be enough.
Healing is already underway.
Schedule a consultation, or call/text me at (949) 274-9821
