NeuroHeir℠ Podcast: Somatic, Nervous System and Generational Healing Tools for Parents, Therapists, and Cycle Breakers

42. Healing Emotional Wounds Through Nervous System Regulation

• Leanna Hunt | Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor + Certified Performance Coach • Episode 42

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0:00 | 22:04

What if your scars aren't proof that you're broken but evidence that your body has been trying to protect you all along?

After losing my father to melanoma, I share the deeply personal story of my own unexpected healing journey following a skin procedure that left me with a painful scar. What began as a frustrating medical experience became one of the most powerful metaphors I have ever encountered for nervous system healing.

In this heartfelt episode, I explore why healing isn't about erasing our wounds—it's about understanding them with compassion. Drawing on my signature Four N Framework (Notice, Name, Nurture, Navigate), trauma research, and my own lived experience, I invite you to rethink anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and other protective patterns through the lens of the nervous system.

In this episode, you'll discover:

  • Why your protective patterns aren't character flaws—they're survival strategies
  • The surprising lesson a healing scar taught about nervous system repair
  • How self-compassion creates the safety your nervous system needs to heal
  • What trauma research reveals about the ways survival patterns can be passed through generations
  • Why healing isn't about fighting yourself—it's about partnering with your nervous system
  • Reflective questions to help you uncover what your behaviors may actually be protecting

If you've ever wondered why certain patterns feel so difficult to change or questioned whether you'll ever fully heal, this episode offers a hopeful reminder: you were never broken. With curiosity, compassion, and the right support, healing remains possible.

Because the goal isn't to erase your story—it's to create a legacy where protection is no longer mistaken for identity.


Research Mentioned in This Episode

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Disclaimer:
Although I am a licensed Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor, The NeuroHeir℠ Podcast is not a substitute for therapy, counseling, or medical treatment. The tools and practices I share are for educational and coaching purposes only. Every nervous system is unique, and what we discuss on this podcast should not replace your own individual therapeutic work or professional support.

The focus of this podcast is my coaching work, which centers on education, nervous system practices, and generational healing tools designed to support—not replace—your personal journey with a qualified provider.

If you are struggling with your mental health or experiencing overwhelming emotions, please seek support from a licensed professional in your area. You don’t have to do this work alone.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the NeuroAir Podcast, the show for cycle breakers, parents, young adults, and helping professionals ready to understand their nervous system through a generational lens, heal what isn't theirs to carry, and consciously choose what comes next. Hi, I'm your host, Leanna Hunts, an associate clinical mental health counselor and certified performance coach. Each week you'll get stories, science, and somatic practices plus my signature for and framework. Notice, name, nurture, and navigate to help you honor resilience, break silence, and build deeper connection with yourself and those you love, all while shaping a legacy of safety, freedom, and possibility. Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the NeuroAir podcast. I'm so grateful that you're here today. As always, whether you're driving to work, folding laundry, sitting on a walk, or maybe you're simply looking for a moment to breathe today, thank you for allowing me to be the one to spend that time with you. And if you're new here, welcome. My name is Liana Hunt. I'm an associate clinical mental health counselor, a somatic-based practitioner, and someone who deeply believes that you are not broken. I do believe, too, that so many of the patterns we struggle with today are actually brilliant adaptations, our nervous systems developed to help us survive. And when we can begin to understand those patterns with curiosity instead of criticism, that's when things begin to change for us. So today I want to tell you a story about a scar. Many of you know that my dad died unexpectedly last year during surgery after his melanoma cancer came back with a vengeance. Losing him changed me in ways that I think I'm still discovering. And after he passed away, I found myself thinking about something a dear friend had told me multiple times. Liana, you really should get that mole on your right shoulder checked. You know how we all have those things that we keep putting off. Well, this was one of mine. It was just one of those things that was like, I will get around to it. I'm sure it's fine. It just didn't seem like a big deal. But after losing my dad to melanoma, I finally made the appointment for a full body check at my dermatologist. Thankfully, we caught it early and because it wasn't one of the good guys, as my dermatologist put it, and it needed to come off. I remember feeling incredibly grateful, grateful that we caught it when we did, grateful that I listened to what my wise friend had been telling me for a long time, and grateful that something much bigger had potentially been prevented. But about six months later, I noticed this strange bump just a few inches above where the original mole had been removed and it didn't look right. So back to the dermatologist, I went. She looked at it and decided she'd rather remove it than wonder about it. And thankfully, it came back completely benign. Now, hopefully, no one has a queasy stomach, but there are a few more details about what happened next. And I'm going to go into them. So if you want to pause or fast forward a little bit, feel free. So this procedure for this strange bump required a much deeper repair with multiple layers of stitches. And about 10 days later, after the procedure, I went back to have the top layer of stitches removed. And the deeper stitches were supposed to dissolve on their own, except over time, they didn't. Instead of continuing to heal, my body actually started rejecting the stuture material. And little by little, they actually started working their way back to the surface of my skin. It was crazy, it was painful, and just was actually kind of freaky. My body was literally pushing out something that no longer belonged there. And as you can imagine, this wasn't what I needed for my skin to heal. And that healing took so much longer than expected. I was left with a pretty gnarly scar right on top of my shoulder, next to my other scar with all my stitches from where my mole was removed. And for the next few months, I actually hated it, if I'm being honest. Every time I would change my clothes, every time I caught a glimpse of it in the mirror, I felt really frustrated and upset with this scar that was left right on top of my shoulder. And I'm sure that you've had moments like this too, not necessarily with a scar, but with something in your life that didn't heal the way you thought it would. Something that maybe lingered or something that reminded you every single day that what happened actually happened. And maybe you're still carrying a lot of emotions around it too, or wished so badly that it just didn't happen. But I want to tell you something too. Being angry at my shoulder or wishing it healed differently actually didn't heal it. No amount of frustration, criticism, or wishing actually changed what the scar looked like. And isn't it amazing how often we do the very same thing with ourselves? So eventually I went back to see my dermatologist to show her my shoulder. I was able to share with her how disappointed I was with the whole overall procedure, what happened. And I asked her if there was anything else that we could do. And what I loved was that she didn't dismiss my feelings. She didn't tell me to just be grateful it wasn't cancer. She simply said, hmm, yes, let me think about it, but there are still some things that we can do to support your body's healing. And the first thing she recommended was laser treatments for the scar tissue. Now, if you've ever had CO2 laser, or if you haven't, let me just say it is not relaxing. For me, this type of laser on my skin is really painful. And in fact, after the treatments, it will look a lot worse up to several weeks before it ever starts to look better, or you can see the benefits of the laser. And because it's brand new healing skin and tissue, you have to be incredibly careful. And it's the middle of summer right now for me. So I had to be very careful and still have to, with especially right on top of my shoulder. And so it's interesting, the very thing that's healing, like this tissue, this new skin that's growing, is also the most vulnerable. Because again, too much sun exposure could damage the very tissue that's trying to repair itself. And I couldn't help but smile because I realized, hmm, this might be one of the greatest metaphors for nervous system healing that I've experienced in my own life. And I kept thinking, I have to write an episode on this. And I promise I'm going to connect all the dots in just a minute. But a few days ago, I looked in the mirror. And for the first time since all of this began, nearly nine months ago, I could actually see signs of healing. The scar looked smoother and my skin was healthier instead of a huge indent at the top of my shoulder. And although my shoulder isn't going to look the same as it did before, that is not my goal anymore. And when I was standing there one morning looking at my shoulder in the mirror, I had this overwhelming thought, Liana, this is what healing the nervous system is like. Because when clients walk into my office, they're carrying wounds. We are all carrying some type of wounds. Some are raw and brand new. Some are decades old. Some are so old that they no longer look like wounds or we recognize them as wounds. Some are more visible outward. And some we carry so deep inside that most people do not notice them from the surface. Oftentimes when I'm getting to know a new client and they're teaching me about their wounds, they'll say something like, This is why I'm broken, Liana. Or they'll try to convince me that somehow their wounds and their scars have everything to do with their worth. But what if our wounds and scars have nothing to do with us being broken or not being good enough? What if they simply show where healing has paused? Because maybe the body didn't know what to do next, or it just couldn't do anything else at that time. And what if, you guys, there is still more healing available? Because just like my shoulder, your nervous system was designed to keep healing when it's given the right conditions, the right tools, and the right support. And here's maybe the fascinating part. Healing doesn't usually pause because our nervous system is somehow failing us. It pauses, or maybe it doesn't know what to do next because our nervous system is still living in a state of protection and trying to protect us, which above all else is its number one job. And that is one of the most important things I find myself sharing with clients almost every single week. The very behavior that you usually want to change is the very behavior that at once protected you. Think about that just for a second. Maybe the anxiety, the perfectionism, the people pleasing, the overworking, the shutting down, the anger, the need to stay in control. My friends, these are not character flaws. These are not evidence that something is quote unquote wrong with you. As I have said this so many times, but they are your nervous system saying, I am doing the very best I can to keep you safe. And I think that that's one of the greatest reframes we can ever offer ourselves. Because my shoulder wasn't the enemy. It was doing the very best it could to heal with the resources it had at the time. And maybe our nervous systems deserve that same assumption too. Because before we can change the behavior, we first have to try to understand what it's protecting. And that's why I always come back to the first two steps of the four ends that I have created. We notice and then we name. We do this because understanding creates compassion. And compassion creates safety. And safety is where healing can begin. To me, one of the deepest forms of self-compassion is looking at ourselves and saying, of course you've been doing this. Of course you developed this strategy like anxiety. It makes sense. You were trying to survive. Now, notice I didn't say it means we stay there. Compassion isn't permission to stay stuck either. Compassion is simply refusing to shame ourselves for the very thing that helped us make it this far. Because here's what I've learned no one heals while being hated. Not a child, not a marriage, not a nervous system, and honestly, not a wound or a scar. Back to my shoulder for a second. Looking back now, I realize I spent months fighting my shoulder. Every time I saw it, I felt discouraged and, like I said, sometimes really angry. I wanted it to look different and I wanted it to heal faster. But can I tell you something? None of that changed my shoulder, not once. What finally changed wasn't my frustration. It was my relationship with it. The day I went back to my dermatologist, I wasn't looking for someone to tell me to just get over it. I was looking for someone to help me understand what my body still needed to look at options and explore what was still possible. And she looked at my shoulder, she listened. Together, we made a plan and we partnered with my body's healing. And that phrase has stayed with me ever since. We partnered with healing, not fighting it, not forcing it, partnering. And isn't that exactly what we hope to do with a therapist or a coach? We're not at war with ourselves. We're learning to walk beside ourselves, to understand ourselves and what we've been through, and to support the parts of us that have been caring so much for so long. Something interesting started happening after that first laser treatment, I should say. I found myself touching my shoulder differently and feeling so much more grateful. And I actually started speaking kindly to it. Now I realize that might sound a little strange, but I'd find myself saying things like, Thank you, body. Thank you for continuing to heal. And thank you for protecting me. We are going to keep healing. And it made me wonder what would happen if we all spoke to our emotional wounds and scars that way. Honestly, what would it be like to stand in front of a mirror and pour love and kindness into the very parts of yourself that you've spent years fighting? What if you offer that love and kindness to the anxious part of you, to the grieving part, to the people-pleasing part, to the maybe perfectionist part, or the part that always feels like it has to earn love? What if you poured that love and compassion into the part that never feels like it's enough? Or the part that learned to stay quiet, or the part that became strong because it didn't believe anyone else would be there. And what if, instead of asking what's wrong with me, you gently started to ask, hmm, what have we been protecting? I believe that that question alone has the power to begin changing our lives. This also reminds me of the work of one of my favorite trauma researchers that I've mentioned before, Dr. Rachel Yehuda. For decades, she's studied trauma resilience and how overwhelming experiences can influence families across generations. Some of her best known research has looked at Holocaust survivors and their children and descendants. Her work suggests that severe trauma may leave measurable biological changes associated with the body's stress response, and that some of those changes have also been observed in the children of trauma survivors. Now, this doesn't mean trauma is somehow our inherited destiny either, and it doesn't mean we're permanently damaged. And Dr. Yehuda herself has been very clear about that. She has cautioned against the idea that we're biologically doomed, what previous generations experience. Instead, her research invites us to consider something much more compassionate, that perhaps some of us entered the world carrying nervous systems that were already doing their very best to prepare us for danger. Now think about your own family history for a minute. Maybe your grandparents or great-grandparents have lived through war or other ancestors. Maybe they lived through major life events like the Great Depression. Maybe addiction has run through your family. Maybe anxiety did or still does. Maybe emotional distance became the way that your family coped and has survived for a long time. Maybe for your family it's been silence and not talking about things. Maybe it's been an overworking and always being the one to have to do a little bit more. Maybe it's also been in never being the one to ask for help. And we don't know exactly how every family pattern is passed forward. Sometimes maybe it's through what our children observe and what we as children observed and what our parents observed and our grandparents and our great-grandparents. Sometimes maybe it's through the ways we learn to connect. Sometimes it's through what was never ever talked about. And sometimes there may even be biological influences that researchers are still working to understand. But regardless of how those patterns have arrived, many of us inherit far more than eye color. We inherit ways of responding to the world. And maybe that's why self-compassion matters so much, because we don't always know where a scar began. And as I've been thinking about all of this, about what we carry and what we're finally ready to release, I keep coming back to those freaking stitches that were supposed to dissolve but didn't. For some reason, my body rejected them. And for months, they slowly worked their way back to the surface. And I spent time in the urgent care and back to the doctor and back and forth until finally they all came out. And at first thought, I was thinking, why is my body doing this? But the more I've reflected on it and the more I've realized my body wasn't rejecting healing, it was recognizing that something which had once supported healing no longer belonged. You guys, our nervous systems are doing something remarkably similar. Maybe there are beliefs and protective strategies or coping patterns or ways of surviving that were exactly what we needed at one point in our lives. And remember that so many of these things that we don't want now, even in those familial patterns, at some point protected us or our ancestors. They did help us survive and they got us through impossible seasons of life. But maybe now they're no longer what our nervous system needs in order to keep healing. Really something to think about. So maybe before we end today, I just want to leave you with a few questions to ponder on as we're thinking about all of this. The first question what wounds or scars am I carrying or could be carrying? Maybe it's a painful relationship, maybe it's an ungrieved loss, or maybe it's a childhood experience, or maybe it's a wound that no one else can see from the outside. Question two, what has this part of me been trying to protect? If we look at perfectionism, maybe it has been trying to protect you from your own self-criticism. If it's people pleasing, maybe that has been protecting you from rejection or anxiety. Maybe your anxiety has simply been trying to prepare you for what it never wants you to experience again. Because when you lived through that thing before, maybe you almost didn't survive it. Okay. The next question What story have I believed about myself or my family because of this wound? And is that story actually still true? Maybe for you somewhere along the way, you began believing I'm not enough, I'm too much, I have to earn love, I have to do it all on my own. Next question. What did I need back then that I may have never received? Was it comfort from a loved one? Was it a sense of safety? Or was it just someone to come and tell you, hey, this wasn't your fault? Or maybe simply you're not alone in this. And finally, if this protective part of me truly believed I was safe, what might become possible now? And this is where the four ends can be so helpful because we can notice with curiosity. We can start to name these patterns with honesty, we can self-nurture with compassion. And then we can navigate one small step at a time, one conversation at a time, one therapy session at a time, one prayer or breath, or one moment of choosing connection over protection at a time. And to me, you guys, this is what becoming a neuroheir has always been about. Instead of fighting the parts of ourselves that learn to survive, we truly understand them well enough that they no longer have to carry us alone. My hope for all of you this week is simply that you leave today with a little more compassion for yourself than you had when you pressed play. Because compassion creates safety. And safety is where I truly believe that healing begins and where we can start to thrive. So until next time, be gentle with yourself this week and remember: you were never broken. Your nervous system has simply been doing its very best to protect someone it loves very much who is you. So until next time, you guys, make it a beautiful rest of the week as much as possible. Enjoy connection time with those you love, those that you feel safe with, and also some beautiful restorative alone time. Until next time. Bye guys. Thanks for joining me on the NeuroAir podcast. This work is about honoring resilience in yourself and also those who came before you, all while finding freedom from what was never yours to carry. With the help of stories, science, somatic tools, and the four ends notice, name, nurture, and navigate, you have a path toward deeper connection with yourself, your loved ones, and the legacy you want to pass on. If today's episode spoke to you, share it with someone who is ready to step into this work too and follow the show so you never miss an episode. Remember, you may not have chosen what you inherited, but you can choose what comes next.