Let me pipe up real quick.

They say don’t name stray animals—
because once you give it a name,
you’ll get attached.

And that makes sense… for animals.

You don’t want to fall in love with something that doesn’t belong to you.
You don’t want to feel the weight of letting go once it starts to feel like home.

But trauma?

Trauma’s the opposite.

You have to name it.
Because the moment you name your trauma, you stop letting it live inside you like a ghost you feed but never see.

Pain that goes unnamed just roams.
It finds a place to sit in your silence.
It claws at your relationships.
It sheds into your self-worth.
And the longer you leave it nameless,
the more it starts to feel like you.

You ever wonder why you over-apologize?
Why you shut down the second you feel misunderstood?
Why you grind so hard but still feel like you ain’t earned a break?

That’s trauma, bro.
Not weakness.
Not dysfunction.
Not “just how you are.”

That’s a survival system built by a younger version of you—
a kid who had to figure it out way too early.

So yeah—people-pleasing? That was your armor.
It kept the yelling down. It made the room safer.
You learned early that being liked could be the difference between calm and chaos.

Perfectionism?
That was you trying to keep things from falling apart.
If everything looked right, maybe no one would notice how bad it really was.

Silence?
That was protection.
If you didn’t speak, you couldn’t be punished for what you said.

Control?
That’s what you held onto when nothing else around you could be trusted.

But here’s the thing:
those tactics were brilliant—for the environment you were in.
You survived.

But you’re not there anymore.

And now?
Now naming it is the way out.

“I was taught to hide my needs.”
“I was made to feel like a burden.”
“I was never protected when I should’ve been.”

When you name it, it loses its power.
You stop blaming yourself for things you didn’t create.
You stop repeating patterns that were built in emergency mode.

This ain’t about getting attached.
This ain’t about coddling the past.

This is about facing it
naming it
grieving it
and letting it go.

Because trauma unspoken becomes identity.
But trauma named becomes history.

This post isn’t for everyone.
This is for the man still carrying the weight without knowing why his back hurts.
For the grown version of you still trying to keep a stray pain alive—
feeding it, fearing it, and hoping one day it just leaves.

But it won’t. Not until you call it what it is.

So name it.
Not to get attached.
But to finally give it back.

Remember, we all carry something, but here you don’t have to carry it alone. Pipe up!

Sometimes addressing our past s not easy. This is where our free download 7 Day Reflection Journal helps.

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