These Intense Times: Energetic Trauma Decompression and the Call to Self-Responsibility
We are living through what I experience as an unprecedented "energetic decompression" of complex, held trauma. For those of us supporting others through these times, it is important that our clients’ desire for healing not become conflated with the need to be rescued.
For over 15 years, I have felt the Earth’s energies become progressively stronger, with the level of intensity of our inner energetic clearing and the chaos of our personal lives increasing each year.
Through the energetic lens in which I work, what underlies much of this chaos and uncertainty is an increasing and unrelenting decompression of held trauma, distortion and hidden pain from our collective field on Earth. I understand this as a process involving the Earth’s body as well as our own individual human bodies: what has been compressed and held beneath the surface is beginning to emerge.
For some, this is an opportunity—a moment to celebrate, if not without its challenges. All that has been held deep within us, perhaps for lifetimes, finally has a chance to come into the light and release.
But this can also be a profoundly uncomfortable experience. It calls for us to hold our energetic and emotional space, finding new resources, skills, tools and strength as we navigate our own shadow releases “on steroids”—new waves coming up with seemingly unrelenting and increasing frequency.
It is particularly for practitioners supporting clients in the midst of this intensity that I am writing. How do we hold space for what is emerging so powerfully, while gently but firmly keeping personal responsibility for the healing journey in our clients’ hands?
When what was buried begins to rise
What I am seeing in the collective is a rising phenomenon of people who are perhaps, for the first time, unable to avoid their own shadow. Pain, emotions and patterns that could once be pushed down are rising in ways that feel increasingly difficult to manage, bringing people to crisis points and into the search for answers through different healing modalities.
At the same time, there is a pull towards holding on to the old paradigm, within ourselves and at a collective level. From my perspective, the foundations of the old order are dissolving. Familiar and toxic systems—familial, political, economic and energetic—can become more aggressive as the patterns that sustain them are challenged.
We may feel something similar within ourselves: one part longing for transformation, another trying desperately to keep things as they were, a need to hold onto some kind of “comfort zone” of familiarity and stability.
The opportunity in this is great. It is heartening to see so many turning towards healing pathways that touch the body, emotions and spirit. There are many approaches, seemingly multiplying, that offer valuable road maps for crossing the increasingly intense terrain of personal healing.
However, the desire for healing is not always accompanied by an understanding of what that journey may require. As someone’s inner world begins to reorganise, they may look outside themselves for healing, transformation and solace in a way that starts to overwrite their own personal responsibility.
This is where we, as practitioners, need to be clear about what we are offering—and what we cannot offer.
The longing to heal—and the longing to be rescued
When a client appears with a tremendous backlog of unprocessed pain and a desperation to be free of it, it can be tempting to offer the promise that their wounds can be healed quickly and easily.
We hear the emotional overwhelm, the interpersonal struggles and the urgency with which they need to transform all of this in order to be happy, grounded and functional in their lives and relationships. We want to help. We may feel their longing for relief very deeply.
But the need and desire for healing must not be conflated with the need and desire to be rescued.
A practitioner can hold space, offer tools and facilitate a process. We cannot take over another person’s relationship with themselves or assume responsibility for the outcome of their journey.
The desire for healing is not always matched by someone’s current capacity, or willingness, to engage with the work. This requires compassion rather than judgement—but it also needs honesty. Otherwise, an unreasonable amount of responsibility can be projected onto the practitioner, whose tools are expected to become “magic wands” rather than what they really are: ways of working with the self that usually require dedication and constancy to bear fruit.
Our task is to hold our boundaries and manage expectations in a way that supports the client’s own participation, rather than quietly agreeing to carry what can only remain theirs.
A road map, not a magic wand
In my experience, the healing journey tends to be long, slow and full of unexpected twists and challenges.
Emotional wounds that have been held for decades may need months or years of tending before greater clarity and freedom emerge. What I experience as trauma held within the body may need to be approached gently, in successive waves, rather than through an attempt to clear everything at once. Relational entanglements rooted in trauma may need ongoing attention so that familiar patterns do not simply re-establish themselves over time.
An issue that seemed healed may flare up again through an unexpected trigger, revealing a new, previously hidden aspect of a deep, multilayered wound.
There is a pattern I have seen when someone comes into healing with a great deal of urgency. They begin enthusiastically, bringing forward a long story of years, decades or, within their spiritual understanding, lifetimes of compounded trauma. After a few encouraging sessions, some layers begin to shift and emotions start to release.
Then a roadblock appears.
A new and more difficult emotion comes up. The energetic layer they are working with does not seem quite finished. Perhaps, alongside this, the daily practice and integration needed to deepen into the work have not taken place.
This is where disappointment and desperation can enter.
The practitioner has not served them as they hoped. The modality must not be right for them. If everything had worked as it should, surely the original problem would be cleared and there would be no new challenges to contend with?
The client may draw back, seek another modality or give up on the journey, overwhelmed by what is continuing to emerge.
This is where unspoken expectations and reality have parted ways. We cannot reasonably promise that years of accumulated trauma will resolve at every layer of someone’s being in a few sessions, however talented or powerful the practitioner may be.
That does not mean every difficulty should be falsely interpreted as progress, or that a client should remain in work that is not serving them. It means we need an honest understanding from the outset: a healing method can offer a road map and a set of tools, but it cannot walk the journey for us.
What my own journey has asked of me
I, for one, have spent the years since 2020 dealing with unprecedented layers of complexity at the energetic level - and these recent years have come on the back of over almost two decades of previous self healing work.
Within my experience of my person realm, I have encountered what felt like intense energetic attacks connected with ailing familial or collective systems. I have also experienced layers of my own compressed trauma—some of which I understand as reaching through lifetimes—coming up in waves that were, at times, emotionally and physically excruciating, taking my nervous system and ability to cope to the limit.
Looking back over these years, were it not for the daily practice of journeying, clearing energies, being highly attentive to my energy field and staying somatically rooted, I do not believe I would have maintained the level of groundedness and personal integrity that has allowed me to keep mothering, teaching, attending to clients and being in partnership with my Beloved in life and work.
Above all, I have remained willing not to dismiss something simply because it seemed too “weird” to consider when exploring what might be affecting me from within or without. For me, that openness belongs alongside groundedness and discernment.
When a new and sometimes unbearable layer came up, I did not say, “My tools have failed me,” or, “There should not be any new layers coming up—I should be done.”
Had I made the appearance of another layer mean that everything before it had failed, I would have undermined my own capacity and willingness to keep meeting the challenges as they arose—and continue to arise.
Instead, I kept using the tools I know and trust, allowing them to serve me as I went deeper into what I hold.
This has not been a quick or effortless process. It has been a practice of returning, again and again, to what helps me meet myself and remain present in my life.
Self-responsibility is not self-blame
There is a boundary I feel we need to communicate gently but clearly: you are responsible for what you bring to your healing process.
The original traumas may not have been your fault. Taking responsibility now does not mean taking blame for what happened then. Nor does it mean that you should be able to manage everything alone.
It means recognising that how you proceed—how you engage with your own energy, healing and transformation—cannot be handed entirely to someone else.
The practitioner can hold space for you to heal, but cannot assume responsibility for the outcome of your journey. They cannot do your daily practice, make your choices or carry out the integration that takes place within your life and relationships.
At the same time, our responsibility as practitioners remains. We need to be honest about what we offer, thoughtful about the pace of the work and willing to listen when a client says something is too much or is not helping.
Self-responsibility is not a demand to endure whatever arises without support.
Sometimes it means asking for more help, changing direction or recognising that a different kind of care is needed.
The invitation is not, “You must do this alone.” It is, “You have a part in this that no one else can take from you.”
Setting the tone from the beginning
In these times, I would counsel practitioners of any modality to exercise thoughtful boundary setting and expectation management—particularly when they recognise a significant volume of emotional and energetic backlog, and especially when someone is coming to healing for the first time without an established, consistent self-healing practice.
These conversations can be compassionate and direct.
The relationship: You are responsible for what you bring to this process. I can hold space, facilitate and offer tools, but I cannot do your healing for you or promise its outcome.
The expectations: What has been held for years or decades may take time to meet and work through. The process may not be linear. There may be relief mixed with difficult emotions, challenging releases and unexpected layers. We will pay attention to how you are responding rather than assume that greater intensity is necessarily helpful.
The method: The healing methods and understanding offered can provide a road map and tools for navigating your journey. They cannot provide a bypass or a magic wand that makes the process effortless, quick or painless.
The pace: There needs to be room for grounding and integration. The aim is not simply to bring more to the surface, but to support your capacity to meet what is emerging.
The encouragement: You are not alone in this. Facing what you carry takes courage. Find those who are also committed to this work and create community. Taking responsibility for yourself does not mean withdrawing from being supported when you need it.
For those of us who understand these times energetically, we can also name the intensity we perceive without making it the explanation for everything a client experiences. Their own sense of what is happening needs room within the relationship.
Making room for integration
We can consider stretching out our client containers so that there is more room for grounding and integration between healing or facilitation sessions.
Be flexible in your approach. Be ready for a session to become less about opening another layer and more about helping someone find their feet with what has already emerged.
Ask what is happening between sessions. Are the tools being used? Are they appropriate for the person’s capacity and circumstances? Is there enough space for rest, grounding and ordinary life?
When a practice has not been sustained, that is something to explore rather than simply label as resistance. Perhaps the person needs a simpler approach, clearer guidance or a different level of support.
And when someone is becoming increasingly overwhelmed, we need to be willing to pause and reconsider—not automatically describe everything as a necessary purge.
The intensity of these times makes daily tools important within my own practice. But the point is not to create another standard someone feels they are failing to meet. It is to help them develop a workable relationship with their own healing, one they can carry into daily life.
The decision beneath the journey
All of this helps to set the tone of our client containers moving forward.
We can also consider how we consciously invite people into our work: making an inner decision to create relationships with those who hold their healing as their own responsibility and are committed to long-term change.
This does not mean people who never struggle, never become overwhelmed or never need encouragement. It means people willing to participate—who understand that the practitioner is walking alongside them rather than taking their place.
In my own understanding of energetic manifestation, this simple inner decision begins to change who we invite into our field. It clarifies the relationships we are available for and the kind of commitment we are asking to meet.
At the deepest layers of self, there is a decision:
I will embrace these times. I will allow the old trauma and distortion to release. I will discover who I truly am.
That decision does not make the journey comfortable, quick or easy. We may find ourselves being whittled down towards the essential layers of who we are, as what is false or no longer serves us begins to fall away.
But it gives us a place from which to keep meeting the process.
These are the clients we can walk beside year after year, embracing deepening healing and fruitful, meaningful sessions. Their healing may not exude energetic glamour or be breathtakingly quick. Yet their value can be found in solid, lasting changes: in the way someone experiences relationships, in their alignment with their soul work, in their ability to remain present for themselves and the life they are creating.
This is the kind of transformation I want to make room for: a relationship with healing rooted in commitment, groundedness and the willingness to keep meeting ourselves.
To me, that is profoundly meaningful work—and work that these times are calling us to hold with both compassion and clarity.
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