Lorwen C Nagle, PhD Profile picture
Jan 12, 2025 13 tweets 4 min read Read on X
The most taboo, weirdly romanticized, yet misunderstood topic of 2025:

Childhood trauma.

Dr. Jordan Peterson says it's why your Dad left, why your Mom cried alone, and why you're always anxious...

Here's how to reverse its damage naturally: 🧵 Image
Dr. Peterson says memories older than 18 months still stirring up emotions are a red flag of trauma that needs unpacking.

1st understand trauma happens in 2 stages:

1. Embodied terror
2. Conceptual processing
Terrible memories stay terrible until intentionally deconstructed.

When broken into manageable parts and challenged they dissolve.

Feel the feelings, but don't let them rule you.

As a Harvard-trained psychologist, here are 5 strategies I use with clients...
1/ Reframe distorted thoughts to loosen trauma's grip.

-Identify cognitive distortions
-Practice self-compassion over self-blame

You can't change what happened, but you can change the meaning you ascribe to it.
2/ Avoid trauma talk during an active crisis.

Dr. Peterson stresses not rushing to analyze trauma in the midst of a crisis.

When the house is on fire, just get out!

Well-intentioned "help" can backfire if mistimed.
3/ Old baggage loves to resurface in relationships.

-Focus on the current issues, not the past.
-Set clear conditions to resolve conflicts.
-Fight over what's happening NOW, not over everything.

One dispute pulls the thread, and suddenly every fight is about everything.
4/ You're not alone.

Shame from trauma is a universal human experience.

And, healing shame takes courageous vulnerability.

But you need to know: that vulnerable child isn't YOU anymore!
5/ Exposure therapy gradually desensitizes you to trauma triggers:

-Retrain your brain to lower reactivity.
-Always work with a trauma-informed therapist.
-Confront memories, situations, sensations in controlled doses.

It may feel slow-- even difficult --but you're reclaiming your life...
As a child, I experienced abandonment trauma.

By age 5, I'd crafted an alter ego that was tough and a tomboy. It
shielded the vulnerable side of me. And, I became self-alienated.

By 20, despite honors in school and blinding success, I fell into deep depression.

Years of therapy, spiritual work and working with others brought me to my true self. This could be your story too.
I have clients who've healed from horrible trauma.

Take the case of Rick, a 42 year-old founder I treated, he was riddled with chronic insomnia.

He would lie awake for hours, around 3 AM.
During therapy, he described growing up in a home where his father would come home drunk at 3 AM...
His father threw furniture and shouted waking the whole family every night.

As a little boy, Rick felt he must stay alert to keep safe and help his mother.
1 month into therapy, Rick was able to sleep through the night.
I've dedicated my life to helping people transform with mindfulness.

-Release anxiety naturally.
-End the cycle of overthinking.
-Transform fear through presence.

If you're facing these issues, schedule an Enlightenment Call to see if
I can help: calendly.com/lorwen_consult…
And, if this resonated with you, follow @LORWEN108 for similar threads on anxiety, stress, and mindfulness.

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More from @LORWEN108

Jan 15
Modern therapy is built on an 18th-century mistake.

Descartes said: “I think, therefore I am.”
Vico said: “We create what we know.”

One built a culture of analysis.
The other understood imagination.

Western society chose the wrong one. 🧵
Here's the story no one is telling you...
For 400 years, we’ve treated the mind like a machine.

1. Analyze the thought.
2. Reframe the belief.
3. Control the emotion.

But human wounds weren’t created through logic.

They were formed through images, feelings, and lived experience.
We understand our world through our imagination.
Giambattista Vico discovered something radical in 1744:

Human consciousness moves through three ages:

• The Divine Age – knowing through image & feeling
• The Heroic Age – knowing through myth & story
• The Human Age – knowing through reason & analysis

We never outgrow the first two.
They live inside our psyche.Image
Read 15 tweets
Jan 14
The most dangerous, oddly glorified, yet overlooked problem in the world:

Overthinking and underacting.

It's why you're stressed, depressed, and your immune system is always in chaos.

Here's Eckhart Tolle's 9-step protocol to escape the prison of overthinking: 🧵 Image
Image
Most people don't realize that unnecessary negative mind activity contributes significantly to their unhappiness.

Overthinking isn't just annoying - it's physically damaging your body...

When you think fearful thoughts, your body reacts as if you're in real danger.

Here's what's happening in the mind...
STEP #1: Recognize there's a voice in your head that never stops commenting on your life.

This realization alone can be transformative.

Most people are completely unaware they're trapped in continuous mental chatter.

Listen to Tolle talk about self-talk patterns...
Read 15 tweets
Jan 13
Nearly 100 years ago, a famous psychiatrist discovered a psychological shortcut that made desperate people believe almost anything.

It wasn’t about money.
It was about healing.

And it worked so well that even scientists stopped asking questions.

Here’s the forgotten story: 🧵 Image
Wilhelm Reich wasn’t a fringe guru.

He was:
• a medical doctor
• a psychoanalyst
• Freud’s star student
• a rising force in European psychiatry

At first, everything he said made sense.

Then it crossed a line science couldn’t follow. Image
Image
Reich noticed something real:

People didn’t just suffer mentally.
They suffered in their bodies.

• chronic tension
• shallow breathing
• sexual shame
• emotional numbness

He called it “character armor.”

This insight was legitimate.

What he built on top of it… wasn’t.
Read 13 tweets
Jan 11
Here are 7 truths Freud revealed in private letters—
(They never made it into textbooks):🧵

1/ Freud wasn’t a “mental health advocate.” Image
He was a neurologist who watched people lie to themselves for a living.

His cleanest ideas weren’t written for the public.

Truth #1: The biggest threat isn’t pain. It’s self-deception.

Pain is honest. Illusion is a drug.

And every drug charges interest.

Bottom line: Most people suffer from the stories they refuse to stop feeding themselves.
Truth #2: People don’t want freedom.

They want permission.

Freedom requires responsibility.
Responsibility costs energy.

So people keep their symptoms.

Bottom line: A symptom is often the price you pay for avoiding a decision.
Read 9 tweets
Dec 30, 2025
One of the most extreme psychological transformations ever recorded didn’t happen in therapy.

It didn’t happen in safety.
It didn’t happen with insight.

It happened inside a Nazi concentration camp.

And the mechanism still explains why most anxiety treatments FAIL today.

Here’s the story: 🧵Image
In 1942, a Viennese psychiatrist lost everything.

• His parents
• His wife
• His freedom
• His name

He was reduced to a number.

Most prisoners collapsed psychologically within weeks.

He didn’t. Image
His name was Viktor Frankl.

• Medical doctor
• Psychiatrist
• Trained in Freud and Adler’s schools
• Deported to Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps.

What happened to him shouldn’t have been possible. Image
Read 14 tweets
Dec 29, 2025
The most influential psychologist of the 20th century wrote private letters to his children.

They weren’t about therapy.

They were about how to survive being human without losing your soul.

Here are 9 principles Carl Jung QUIETLY taught his children—that most people never hear about: 🧵Image
First, understand who Jung was:

• Medical doctor + psychiatrist
• Founder of analytical psychology
• Broke with Freud at the height of his career
• Studied myth, religion, alchemy, and dreams
• Treated world leaders, artists, and thinkers

But his most radical work wasn’t in books.

It was in how he taught his children to live.Image
Principle 1: “Do not become what the world wants from you.”

Jung warned his children that society rewards adaptation—but punishes authenticity.

“If you live only as you are expected, you will become empty.”

The task wasn’t to be successful.

It was to become whole.
Read 13 tweets

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