What happens when the very person who was supposed to protect us… didn’t?

For many adults carrying unresolved childhood trauma, this question isn’t theoretical—it’s a lived experience. When a parent fails to protect their child, but later seeks forgiveness without ever truly changing the behavior or acknowledging the full impact, it creates a disorienting loop in the nervous system. One that confuses love with harm, and forgiveness with survival.

This internal split becomes more than just an emotional wound. It becomes a blueprint.

Conditional Forgiveness: The Reinforcement That Shapes Our Adult Lives

When a child experiences abuse—emotional, physical, or relational—but is then told, “I’m sorry”, without witnessing any meaningful protection, repair, or change, that child often learns to prioritize others' comfort over their own safety.

This pattern reinforces a dangerous belief system:

• “If the harm is less than what I experienced before, maybe it’s not really abuse.”

• “They apologized, so I should forgive them.”

• “I must be the problem if I still feel unsafe.”

  
  

As adults, these beliefs often show up in the form of tolerating emotionally unsafe relationships, minimizing red flags, or confusing apology with accountability. We may even find ourselves feeling guilt or shame for wanting to set boundaries—because we were never modeled what boundaries rooted in self-worth look like.

The Somatic Imprint: How the Body Stores This Confusion

Our bodies are memory-keepers. The nervous system records everything—not in sentences, but in sensations.

When safety was inconsistent or nonexistent, the child’s body learns to live in survival mode. Muscles hold tension where there should be trust. The heart races at intimacy, not because it’s unsafe, but because the body remembers a time when closeness was confused with control.

This can manifest as:

• Chronic tightness in the chest or throat

• Holding the breath in social or relational settings

• An inability to relax—even when “nothing is wrong”

• A constant need to appease, fawn, or fix others to feel safe

  
  

This isn’t weakness—it’s survival intelligence. But it’s not meant to be a lifelong strategy.

NARM®: Reprogramming the Internal Narrative

The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM®) is a therapeutic approach that helps reconnect the adult self with the truth the child self never got to hear: You are worthy of safety, love, and respect. You do not have to earn it by tolerating harm.

NARM® doesn't dwell in the past to relive it—it brings awareness to how the past is still living in the present. It gently uncovers the adaptive strategies we developed as children to survive, and how those same strategies are now keeping us stuck.

A few core questions a NARM-informed session might explore:

• What would it feel like to trust your inner sense of “too much” or “not okay” again?

• When someone apologizes without changing, what part of you feels you must forgive them anyway?

• Where in your body do you feel the impulse to override your own needs?

• Who are you when you are not managing everyone else’s comfort?

  
  

Through breath awareness, present-moment tracking, and compassionate inquiry, NARM® helps us return to the body’s innate truth: I am allowed to feel what I feel. I am allowed to say no. I can create my own safety.

Reclaiming Authority from the Inner Child

If unresolved, the child consciousness leads the way—forever searching for the love, approval, or safety it never received. This isn’t just a psychological pattern; it becomes the compass for how we interpret relationships, authority, and self-worth.

But you are not that child anymore.

You are the adult who gets to witness the child within—not abandon them, but no longer hand them the keys. You are the one who gets to decide what safety feels like now. You are the one who gets to define forgiveness, not as a reflex, but as a choice rooted in alignment.

You Are Not Asking For Too Much

Healing from childhood trauma is not about blaming—it’s about reclaiming. You are allowed to feel hurt by what happened and still choose something different. You are allowed to stop accepting apologies as a substitute for safety. You are allowed to reprogram the belief that love must come at the cost of self-abandonment.

Because the truth is: you are not too much. You are not broken. You are not meant to carry the weight of unhealed adults.

You are worthy of more. And you are allowed to begin again.

Interested in exploring this through body-centered healing or NARM-informed sessions?

At Tranquility Rising, we offer a compassionate space to begin untangling the patterns that once protected you—but no longer serve you. You don’t have to do it alone.