Mindfulness is often recommended as a solution for stress, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm.
For some people, it helps.
But for many trauma survivors, mindfulness can feel frustrating, ineffective, or even destabilising.
As Reshie explains in the conversation:
“Mindfulness assumes the nervous system can safely turn inward. For many trauma survivors, that isn’t true yet.”
This does not mean mindfulness is wrong. It means timing, context, and nervous system state matter.
Mindfulness Requires a Baseline Sense of Safety
At its core, mindfulness involves noticing internal experience.
Sensations. Thoughts. Emotions. Breath.
For a regulated nervous system, this can feel grounding. For a traumatised nervous system, it can feel like opening the door to everything that was once overwhelming.
As Reshie puts it:
“If the body associates inner awareness with danger, asking someone to sit and notice can increase threat rather than reduce it.”
This is why some trauma survivors report:
- Increased anxiety during meditation
- Intensified body sensations
- Flooding of memories or emotions
- A sense of losing control
The nervous system is not resisting healing. It is protecting itself.
Trauma Is Stored Below Conscious Thought
Mindfulness works primarily at the level of awareness and cognition.
Trauma, however, is often stored in reflexive body responses that occur before thought.
As Reshie explains:
“Trauma doesn’t live where insight lives. It lives in the part of the system that reacts before you think.”
This is why understanding trauma does not automatically resolve symptoms. The body continues to respond as if threat is present, even when the mind knows it is not.
Without addressing this physiological layer, mindfulness alone may skim the surface.
When Top-Down Approaches Are Not Enough
Mindfulness is considered a top-down approach. It works through attention, meaning, and conscious awareness.
For some people, this is helpful. For others, especially those with complex or developmental trauma, it can feel like trying to reason with a system that is already overwhelmed.
As Reshie says in the conversation:
“You can’t think your way out of a nervous system response that was never created by thinking.”
This is where understanding bottom-up versus top-down trauma therapy becomes essential. Bottom-up approaches work directly with sensation, breath, movement, and physiological regulation, helping the nervous system experience safety rather than analyse it.
Why the Body Must Be Included
Trauma recovery often requires engaging the body first, before asking for sustained awareness.
This does not mean abandoning mindfulness altogether. It means preparing the system so mindfulness becomes tolerable and useful.
As Reshie explains:
“The body needs to learn that it can come down before the mind is asked to observe.”
This is why many trauma-informed practitioners integrate body-based trauma approaches that support regulation through physical experience. These approaches help the nervous system settle enough for reflective practices to become accessible.
When Mindfulness Becomes Helpful Again
Once the nervous system has more capacity, mindfulness can play a valuable role.
At that stage, awareness no longer feels threatening. Sensations are noticed without overwhelm. Emotions can be observed without being hijacked by them.
As Reshie notes:
“Mindfulness works best after the system knows it can survive what it feels.”
In this context, mindfulness supports integration rather than triggering survival responses.
Trauma Recovery Is About Sequencing, Not Preference
The issue is not whether mindfulness is good or bad.
The issue is when and how it is used.
Trauma-informed work respects sequence. Regulation before reflection. Safety before sustained awareness. Body before narrative.
When this order is honoured, healing becomes gentler and more effective.
Watch the Full Conversation
This article is drawn from a longer clinical conversation between Reshie and Katrina, where they explore why mindfulness alone often fails trauma survivors and how body-based, bottom-up approaches support real nervous system change.
To hear this explained in depth, with clinical insight and lived experience, watch the full conversation below.