How to do the work of therapy

A Simple, Spirit-Centered, Trauma-Informed Approach to Healing

If you’re beginning therapy—or wondering how therapy actually works—it’s easy to feel unsure about where to start. We often come into counseling hoping to “move forward,” to feel better, to get unstuck… but the path toward healing can feel abstract or mysterious at first.

The work of therapy becomes far less overwhelming when we simplify it. 

I often tell clients:

Healing happens in three stations.

Imagine therapy as a “healing gym.” You don’t walk in and expect to lift the heaviest weight on day one. You move through a few simple, repeatable exercises that gradually reshape your inner world. And over time, your spirit becomes stronger, clearer, more connected, and more at peace.

These are the three stations:

  1. Awareness
  2. Resourcing
  3. Reprocessing

Let’s walk through each one.

1. Station One: Awareness — Learning to See What’s Happening Inside You

Awareness is the foundation of all therapeutic change.

This is the daily practice of gently observing your inner world: your emotions, your thoughts, your nervous system state, and the various “parts” of you that take over in different moments. In my practice, a core tool we use is Dan Siegel’s Wheel of Awareness—a simple, contemplative exercise that helps you connect with what I call your core or spirit.

It’s profound to realize that through something so simple—breathing, noticing, grounding—you can connect directly with that inner core where you are:

  • safe
  • steady
  • connected
  • aware
  • held by God’s Spirit

When you strengthen this connection day after day, something essential begins to happen:

You start to notice when you’re not okay.

You feel the shift into survival mode. You recognize when you’re blended with a part of you that’s overwhelmed, anxious, reactive, perfectionistic, or angry. You can say, “Oh—my go-go-go part is driving,” or “My inner critic is taking over,” or “This reactive part is shouting because it’s scared.”

Awareness does not seem flashy. But without it, no true healing can occur.

Awareness is the skill that allows you to say:

“Something in me is activated. Something in me is afraid. Something in me is managing my life right now.”

That moment of recognition is the beginning of transformation.

2. Station Two: Resourcing — Building Safety, Strength & Truth Into the Nervous System

Trauma leaves behind very specific beliefs in the body:

  • I am not safe.
  • I am trapped or powerless.
  • I am defective or not good enough.

Resourcing is the intentional practice of strengthening the opposite experiences:

  • I am safe.
  • I am free.
  • I am strong.
  • I am whole.
  • I am loved.
  • I am accepted.

Think of resourcing as “installing” emotional truths into the nervous system so that your brain has actual felt experiences of safety and strength to access during difficult moments.

Some examples of resourcing practices:

Safe Place Imagery

You visualize a place—real or imagined—where you feel calm, safe, grounded. You let your body feel that safety. Repeating this daily slowly rewires the brain toward peace.

Strength & Competence Memories

You recall moments when you felt powerful, capable, or cared for. You savor those memories until your body remembers what strength feels like.

Gospel Resourcing

You meditate on spiritual truths that anchor your identity:
God’s presence, His love, His acceptance, His strength in your weakness.
You let these truths settle not just in the mind but in the body.

This station is often the most neglected… and one of the most important. It creates the internal stability required for deeper trauma work. If awareness is noticing what’s happening inside, resourcing is helping the inside become a safer place.

3. Station Three: Reprocessing — Healing the Trauma Stored in the Body

Reprocessing is the deeper trauma work—what clients often think therapy is supposed to be from the beginning.

In modalities like EMDR or parts-based trauma therapy, reprocessing involves gently accessing exiled memories—those experiences that were overwhelming at the time and still hold emotional charge today.

A memory becomes a “trauma memory” when it leaves you believing:

  • I’m unsafe.
  • I’m powerless.
  • I’m defective.

Reprocessing aims to do three things:

  1. Desensitize the emotional charge
  2. Update the belief
  3. Integrate the experience into your story with peace rather than pain

This work can be deeply healing… but it’s impossible without awareness and resourcing first.

You can only process trauma safely when your nervous system has learned:

  • how to calm
  • how to feel secure
  • how to stay connected to your core
  • how to anchor into truth, strength, and love

That is why therapy is a journey, not a quick fix.

The Arc of Healing: Becoming Connected to Your Story

As you move through the three stations of therapy—again and again—something beautiful takes shape:

You begin to understand your story.

You become connected to your body.

You feel more present within yourself.

Your internal chaos loosens.

Your parts become more translucent.

God’s Spirit shines more clearly through you.

The goal is not perfection.
The goal is connection.

To be able to say:

“I know my story. I am no longer afraid of it. I am no longer ashamed of it. I am no longer controlled by it.”

That is the work of therapy.
Simple.
Sacred.
Transformative.

If You Are Beginning This Journey

Therapy unfolds one gentle step at a time.
Your task is to keep showing up to the three stations:

  • Awareness — noticing with kindness
  • Resourcing — building safety and strength
  • Reprocessing — healing what hurt you

If you stay with the process, day after day, something in you will soften, release, and come alive again.

Your story will become a place you can live in—fully, freely, peacefully.

And that is the gift of therapy.