Why Does the Nervous System Need to Trust Us?

It’s a question that might stir frustration, sadness, or even anger in the hearts of those carrying the weight of past hurts. Why should the burden of trust fall on us when so much of our pain was shaped by others—by caregivers who couldn’t or didn’t show up as we needed, by circumstances beyond our control, by betrayals, and by a world that felt unsafe?

Here’s a thought and a possible truth:

The nervous system doesn’t hold grudges. It doesn’t assign blame. It doesn’t ask why.

What it does is defend and protect and will always act inservice of your survival. Relentlessly. Tirelessly. Even when its methods—tightening its grip, triggering alarms, bracing for perceived and real threats—become the very thing that leaves us feeling trapped, overwhelmed, and disconnected.

As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, explains: “The trauma is in the body. It is not something you choose to hold onto; it is something your body chooses to remember in the name of survival.”

The past is etched into the nervous system, the body, and the hidden corners of our emotions, sensations, and postures. When we neglect our nervous system’s signals—the racing heart, the shallow breath, the tension and tightness, the urge to run, the heaviness of shutdown—we’re neglecting the needs beneath those signals. Needs that are often rooted in tender, unmet parts of us: the inner child who was unseen, unheard, or left uncomforted.

And so the cycle continues. The grip tightens. The triggers flare more often. The urge to escape or withdraw becomes unbearable.

This is why the nervous system needs to trust us—to know that it no longer has to do this alone and no longer needs to stay stuck in survival.

Trust begins when we start to listen. Not to fix, silence, stuff down, or push away—but to truly hear. To meet the body’s signals with curiosity instead of judgment is when the unconscious becomes conscious. To feel what we feel instead of burying it. To slow down and offer safety where rigidity, pain, and chaos have lived for too long.

There is no doubt this process will stir anger.

Why should we have to do this work?

Why can’t it just let us go?

We didn’t create these wounds.

We didn’t choose this survival mode.

Where were the caregivers? The protectors? The proper care? The ones who should have helped to resolve this as we earnestly showed up for healing while offering a false promise of recovery? 

That anger is valid. It’s a part of the story. But here’s what I’ve learned: No matter how justified our anger is, no one else can reclaim the home within us. No one else can build a bridge of trust with our nervous system. This is our work now—not because it’s fair, but because it’s necessary.

And it’s also deeply healing.

When we begin to take care of the unmet needs—the tender places that our nervous system has been guarding all this time—we are, in essence, taking care of the deeply distressed child and younger parts of ourselves. We’re offering them what was missing: gentleness, consistency, loving care. We’re showing them that it’s okay to feel, to rest, to build a quality of trust.

The nervous system doesn’t ask us for perfection. It doesn’t need us to know all the answers or to never feel scared. What it needs is presence. A hand on the heart when we feel the spiral starting. A deep breath into the belly when the world feels too much. A simple, quiet acknowledgment echoing from deep within the soul of our being: “I see you. I feel you. I hear you. I’m here for you.”

Over time, the grip loosens. The triggers soften. The unbearable becomes something we can navigate and bring healing to our past, present, and future. 

The responsibility is ours, yes. But so is the freedom that comes with it. 

As Stephen Porges, creator of Polyvagal Theory, reminds us: “The body doesn’t want to stay in survival; it wants to find safety. But safety must be introduced gently, in ways the body can trust.”

When the nervous system trusts us, it hands us back to the present moment—not shaped by the past, not automatically braced for threats, but alive with possibility. 

And in that space, we find something precious:

Ourselves, the whole of ourselves, made up of the sum of our many displaced and deeply hurt parts.

The anger, hurt, and exhaustion you feel are valid; uncouple them from your stress responses, and it becomes valuable energy to convert to growing the best version of you in spite of it all. 

You didn’t put this there. But you can set it free. Slowly, patiently, and with the care you deserve all along, your vagus nerve can help you. 

I am deserving of my attention, kindness, care and love 

I am deserving of all the good that comes my way 

I have my own home, my own inner home

The light is on and I am home 

Photo by Dohyuk You on Unsplash

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