When Pain Pulls Us In: Trauma, Healing, and the Parts Within Us

Sometimes pain feels like a current.

A memory surfaces. A conflict unfolds. We read another devastating story in the news. Someone we love is struggling, or something in our present moment touches an older wound.

Before we fully understand what is happening, we can feel ourselves being pulled inward.

Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, uses the phrase “trauma vortex” to describe the powerful pull of unresolved traumatic energy. Like a whirlpool, it can draw our attention, bodies, and emotions toward fear, helplessness, shame, anger, or despair.

From an Internal Family Systems perspective, we might say that the trauma vortex is not simply the presence of pain. It is what can happen when a wounded part becomes activated and temporarily takes over our inner system.

In those moments, we do not merely remember the pain.

A part of us feels as though the pain is happening again.

The Parts That Get Pulled Into the Vortex

When something activates an old wound, different parts of us may respond in different ways.

An anxious part may begin scanning for danger.

A critical part may tell us that we should have known better.

An angry part may prepare to fight.

A pleasing part may abandon its own needs to preserve the relationship.

A numbing part may reach for food, work, alcohol, entertainment, scrolling, or anything else that provides temporary distance from what we are feeling.

Another part may simply shut everything down.

These responses are not evidence that we are broken. They are often evidence that our internal system learned how to survive.

Our protective parts developed strategies to keep vulnerable places within us from being overwhelmed again. Some protectors pull us deeper into the pain by obsessing, replaying, predicting, or controlling. Others try to pull us completely away from it through avoidance, disconnection, or distraction.

Although these strategies appear opposite, they often carry the same intention:

Do not let us be hurt like that again.

When We Become Blended With Pain

IFS uses the word blending to describe what happens when a part becomes so activated that we temporarily experience its feelings, beliefs, and perspective as the whole truth.

Instead of noticing, “A part of me feels rejected,” we experience, “I am unwanted.”

Instead of recognizing, “A part of me is afraid this relationship will end,” we become convinced, “Everyone eventually leaves.”

Instead of saying, “Something in me feels unsafe,” our entire body and mind organize around the belief that we are in immediate danger.

This is one reason trauma can feel so disorienting. The present moment becomes fused with the past. Our adult capacities may still be present, but they become harder to access.

The goal is not to argue with the hurting part or force it to calm down. The goal is to help it experience that it is no longer alone.

The Healing Vortex

Alongside the trauma vortex, there is also what might be called a healing vortex.

The healing vortex includes the experiences, relationships, sensations, and inner resources that help us reconnect with safety, strength, hope, and aliveness.

In IFS language, it is the movement back toward Self.

Self is not another part that has to work harder or perform better. Self is the steady, compassionate presence within us that can relate to every part with curiosity rather than fear.

When we have access to Self, we may notice qualities such as:

Calm.

Curiosity.

Compassion.

Clarity.

Courage.

Confidence.

Creativity.

Connectedness.

The healing vortex does not require us to pretend that everything is okay. It does not ask us to bypass grief, excuse harm, or think positively enough to escape our wounds.

Instead, healing allows us to remain connected to ourselves while we encounter what hurts.

We begin to sense:

“This is painful, but I am here.”

“This part is frightened, but it does not have to carry this alone.”

“This happened to me, but it is not the entirety of who I am.”

Healing Is Not Staying Calm All the Time

It is easy to imagine healing as the permanent absence of activation.

We may believe that if therapy is working, we should no longer feel anxious, angry, sad, triggered, or overwhelmed. But healing is not becoming unaffected by life.

Healing is developing a greater capacity to remain in relationship with ourselves when life affects us.

A healthy nervous system does not remain in one perfectly peaceful state. It moves. It responds to danger, connection, loss, rest, challenge, and joy.

In the same way, a healed internal system is not one in which every part is always quiet. It is one in which parts no longer have to scream, dominate, or disappear in order to receive attention.

The goal is not to permanently live in the healing vortex and never touch pain again.

The goal is to learn that we can move between pain and safety without abandoning ourselves.

Moving Gently Between Pain and Safety

Trauma healing often happens through small movements rather than dramatic breakthroughs.

We may notice tension in our chest and then feel our feet against the floor.

We may listen to the fear of a younger part and then look around the room, reminding it that we are here in the present.

We may feel grief for a few moments and then notice the warmth of the sunlight, the steadiness of our breathing, or the presence of someone safe.

We are not avoiding the pain. We are helping our system experience that pain is not the only reality available.

This gentle movement teaches our parts something new:

We can approach difficult feelings without becoming consumed by them.

We can step back without abandoning them.

We can return when there is enough safety and support.

Over time, our inner world becomes less like a battlefield and more like a relationship.

A Different Question to Ask

When we become activated, we often ask:

“What is wrong with me?”

IFS invites us to ask a different question:

“What part of me is here right now, and what is it afraid would happen if it stopped doing its job?”

That question creates space.

It helps us move from judgment to curiosity. It allows us to see that beneath many intense reactions is a part trying desperately to protect something tender.

We might gently ask:

“Where do I notice this part in my body?”

“How old does this part believe I am?”

“What is it trying to protect me from?”

“What does it need me to understand?”

“Would it be willing to give me a little space so I can be with it rather than become overwhelmed by it?”

There is no need to force an answer. Sometimes the most healing thing we can offer is simply our presence.

Becoming a Safe Place Inside

Many of us have spent years searching outside ourselves for someone who could finally make everything feel okay.

Relationships matter. Community matters. Safe people matter. Healing was never intended to happen entirely alone.

And yet, one of the deepest movements of healing occurs when our parts begin to experience us as someone who will not leave them.

We become more able to say:

“I will listen to you.”

“I will not shame you for how you survived.”

“I will not force you to heal faster than you are ready.”

“You do not have to carry this by yourself anymore.”

This is how the healing vortex grows.

Not through domination, denial, or endless self-improvement, but through compassionate relationship with the parts of us that once had no other choice but to protect, hide, fight, please, or shut down.

The trauma vortex tells us that the pain is endless and we are alone inside it.

Healing offers another possibility:

The pain is real, but it is not all that is here.

There is also compassion.

There is connection.

There is a body learning that the present is different from the past.

There are protectors beginning to rest.

There are wounded parts discovering that someone has finally come back for them.

And beneath all the fear, urgency, and striving, there is a Self that has never been destroyed.

A Self capable of meeting every part of us with courage, tenderness, and care.