Unhealed people don’t listen with their ears; they listen with their triggers

“Unhealed people don’t listen with their ears; they listen with their triggers.”

Often, we give ourselves the illusion that we have healed from past or recent trauma—until a trigger knocks on the door of our pain.

For a long time, my way of coping with trauma was to block it out, keep my distance, and suppress all my emotions as if they never existed. But I was wrong. Our subconscious stores all those negative emotions and feelings, keeping them buried until one trigger causes them to explode.

Not addressing trauma at the right time and suppressing emotions instead of actively healing can have harmful effects on mental health. The more you grow, the more you realize that healing cannot be forced—it is a process. Though slow, it leads to true transformation. But when you suppress your feelings, convincing yourself that you’ve healed, you may find yourself proving the saying:

“Unhealed people don’t listen with their ears; they listen with their triggers.”

And so, I have to work hard to teach myself that healing is not about pretending pain doesn’t exist. It’s about facing those emotions, allowing myself to feel them, and navigating the difficult channels that lead to true healing. Only then can we truly be set free.