Behind so much of how we think, what we long for, and how we relate to ourselves and others lies unacknowledged shame, trauma, and the strategies we developed, sometimes very early on, to cope with and hide these realities from ourselves. These make up the “muscle memory” of our emotional worlds, which cannot always be easily recalled, but determine our lives nonetheless. Therapy aims to cultivate awareness of what lies underneath in disconnected, dissociated ways, and provides a space to move through the pain, accept, and integrate the past so that it no longer repeats itself in our lives.