Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

Ana Mael
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

What happens to the nervous system when survival becomes identity? Exiled & Rising is a trauma-focused podcast exploring nervous system regulation, shame repair, displacement, boundaries, and dignity-centered healing in a world that often silences collective trauma. Hosted by integrative somatic trauma specialist Ana Mael, this podcast bridges advanced trauma science with lived experience of war and collective violence — offering grounded, justice-aware healing beyond surface-level self-help. Each episode blends: • Nervous system education • Somatic trauma recovery tools • Boundary and shame repair • Reflections on exile, identity, and belonging • Conversations on trauma justice and systemic harm This is not mindset work. This is bottom-up nervous system repair. Exiled & Rising is especially relevant for: • Survivors of war, displacement, and collective trauma • Immigrants navigating identity rupture • Adult children of exiled and displaced families • Those estranged from family or faith communities • Person seeking somatic approaches to PTSD and complex trauma recovery • Clinicians interested in dignity-centered trauma frameworks Rather than isolating healing from context, this podcast examines how trauma lives in the body — and how justice, sovereignty, and regulation must coexist. Meet Your Host Ana Mael (MSc, SEP, TEB, TST) is an integrative somatic trauma practitioner and founder of the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center. Her work is informed by lived experience of war and collective violence and grounded in advanced training in Somatic Experiencing®, Transforming Touch®, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory, trauma memory reconsolidation, and attachment repair. She specializes in working with survivors of war, displacement, systemic harm, and complex trauma — helping clients restore nervous system stability, dignity, and embodied sovereignty. She is the author of the bestselling books The Trauma We Don’t Talk. Learn more about her work at the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center:
https://www.somatictraumarecoverycenter.com/ — Support & Resources Read The Trauma We Don’t Talk About
https://amzn.to/41SjKKL ❤️ Support the podcast
https://exiledandrising.castos.com/donate Explore all programs: https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/store She lives in Toronto, Canada. Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes and does not replace individualized mental health care. Please consult a licensed provider for personal treatment.

  1. 3d ago

    Fascism Doesn’t Start with Guns - It Starts with Obsession of Self Healing & Passive Liberalism

    Ana is sounding the alarm: fascism doesn’t begin with violence—it begins with apathy. It creeps in through: disinterest, detachment masked as spirituality, normalized silence, the overemphasis on self-care as a form of avoidance. She is not dismissing self-care, but calling out how it’s been commodified into an escape hatch—a way for people to say, “not my circus, not my problem,” while the world burns around them. What She’s Teaching 1. Fascism thrives in silence and disengagement She draws a bold line between early fascism and the bystander effect. It doesn’t require weapons to begin—just a populace too tuned out, too passive, or too spiritually “above it all” to act. “Fascism doesn’t begin with guns. It begins with disinterest.” 2. Spiritual detachment is being misused Ana criticizes how some spiritual communities tell people to “stay in their frequency” or ignore the suffering of others under the guise of “vibrational alignment.” This, she argues, is spiritual bypassing and a dereliction of collective moral duty. “Spiritual influencers telling you to stay in your own frequency…” 3. Self-care has become a cult She’s not against self-care. She is against using it to replace collective action. When we idolize self-care and ignore community responsibility, we are sacrificing our shared humanity. “Self-care has become the new religion, and the price of that religion is our humanity.” ️ Tone and Voice Ana speaks with: Radical clarity – There’s no soft-pedaling. Moral urgency – It’s a wake-up call to a community lulled by comfort and detachment. Feminist and anti-fascist resistance – This is aligned with activist traditions rooted in trauma-informed, politically aware healing. Lessons & Impact Healing without action = complicity. We cannot heal in isolation while harm is enacted around us. Ana insists that true healing includes moral responsibility to others. Collective care must return. The absence of collective care has left us vulnerable to oppressive systems—and we can’t afford to keep paying that price. Reclaim community and moral bravery. This is a call to remember our shared obligations as citizens, neighbors, and humans—especially when laws are being signed in silence. Influence & Cultural Importance Ana is pushing against a rising tide of: performative healing, detached spirituality, passive liberalism. Her voice re-centers the urgent moral work of being alive during political collapse. She’s inviting her audience—particularly trauma survivors and empathic people—to stop retreating inward as their only response. She’s saying: “Your healing is real. But so is the world. Don’t trade one for the other.” Ana Mael’s Unique Approach to Trauma Healing: Ana Mael offers a trauma-informed, justice-centered approach to healing. As a somatic therapist and genocide survivor, Ana’s unique insights stem from lived experience. She doesn’t just teach healing in the traditional sense; she advocates for truth, accountability, and dignity as core components of trauma recovery. Her work speaks to marginalized communities—those who have been forced to sup... Chapters (00:00:00) - Self-Care has become the new religion

    Fascism Doesn’t Start with Guns - It Starts with Obsession of Self Healing & Passive Liberalism

  2. Sep 27

    You Don't Need To Forgive: Privileged Tool Of Silencing

    You don’t owe forgiveness to anyone who hurt you. In this unapologetic and deeply validating episode, Ana Mael dismantles the harmful myth that forgiveness is a requirement for healing. With clarity and compassion, Ana speaks directly to marginalized, BIPOC, and harmed individuals who’ve been told—explicitly or subtly—that their healing must include forgiving those who caused their pain. Instead, Ana offers a radical truth: you do not owe anyone forgiveness—especially if doing so betrays your dignity, survival, or truth. This radical truth reclaims your healing from shame, spiritual pressure, and performative peace. Social, Cultural & Political Significance This episode exposes how the expectation to forgive is often a covert mechanism of control, especially when applied to BIPOC, marginalized, and oppressed individuals. Ana Mael challenges the dominant narrative with this unapologetic truth: “You do not owe anyone forgiveness if it doesn't feel right for you.” This is not just a personal declaration—it is a political one. Racialized, Gendered, and Class-Based Expectations Across cultures, marginalized bodies have been forced to carry the burden of peacekeeping. They’re expected to “rise above,” to be spiritual, graceful, non-reactive—even in the face of dehumanization. But as Ana says: “This is another white privilege thing we are facing. Forgive… so I feel better. Forgive… so you don’t become a potential threat.” Forgiveness, in this context, is not healing. It’s containment. Psychological Impact: Survivors internalize the message that their pain is inconvenient, their anger dangerous, and their boundaries selfish. Behavioral Adaptations: This can result in chronic people-pleasing, freeze responses, emotional repression, and dissociation. Over time, these adaptive responses erode self-trust and the ability to recognize harm. Forgiveness as a Tool of Power Preservation “Forgiveness has become more and more of a tool for privileged ones, for entitled ones... to overlook injustices done to minorities.” This insight cuts to the heart of power dynamics. Ana exposes how forgiveness becomes another “respectability test,” used to protect perpetrators and institutions while bypassing the survivor’s reality. In churches, wellness spaces, and families, survivors are told to forgive not for their healing, but to ease the discomfort of others. Ana names this clearly: “Many times people tell you to forgive so they can feel better. It is for their convenience, not yours.” Spiritual Bypassing and Colonized Healing “Many spiritual communities betray our healing journey.” Ana dismantles spiritual bypassing as a form of emotional gaslighting wrapped in sacred language. Westernized, appropriated spiritual teachings often turn forgiveness into a status symbol of moral superiority, where “if you forgive, you are evolved.” But this creates moral hierarchy and re-traumatizes those still in the process of metabolizing their truth. As Ana warns: “If you're not ready or if you choose not to forgive, that relational field is not safe, and healing is not happening.”  Implications for Somatic Trauma Recovery This episode is a call to reclaim embodied justice as a trauma-healing strategy. Forgiveness Without Safety Is a Nervous System Betrayal: Ana reminds us that healing occurs “when your body, your mind, your heart, and...

    You Don't Need To Forgive: Privileged Tool Of Silencing

  3. Sep 20

    Not Wanting To Live And Not Wanting To Die: Resignation Syndrome – The Hidden Trauma State No One Talks About

    You don’t want to die, but you don’t want to be here either. This is the space no one talks about, not even seasoned therapists,—the silent, hidden trauma state where your body shuts down after too much pain, too much loss, too much survival. This is not depression, it is not you being suicidal. It’s Resignation Syndrom. In today’s episode, Ana Mael—a trauma survivor, war refugee, and somatic therapist—breaks the silence on a deep, hidden trauma state that no one talks about: resignation syndrome. It’s that place where you don’t want to die, but you also don’t want to live. If you’ve been feeling numb, disconnected, exhausted beyond words—welcome. This is not another mental health podcast. This is a space for the unseen, the cast out, the forgotten—for those who have been forced to start over, rebuild, and carry on without ever getting the chance to grieve what they lost. This episode is for YOU if: You don’t feel like dying, but you don’t feel like living either. You’ve ever felt like you don’t belong—anywhere You carry trauma that no one talks about, that no one sees, that has shaped your entire life. You’re exhausted from surviving, from holding it all together, from pretending you’re “fine.” You are a refugee, an immigrant, stateless, exiled, displaced—or born into a family that carries this pain. You grew up in war, in silence, in survival mode, and now you don’t know how to exist without it. Trauma survivors seeking somatic healing, nervous system regulation, and deep emotional restoration You live with PTSD, depression, and dissociation Anyone who has felt unseen, unheard, or exiled from their own identity and home   "Trauma is not just what happens to you; it’s how it shapes your body, your breath, your relationships, your ability to take up space in the world." – Ana Mael   What You’ll Learn in This Episode: A name for what you’ve been feeling—resignation syndrome—and why it happens Why your trauma is valid, no matter what your mind tells you about "having it easier than others" Resignation Syndrome: Understanding this trauma-induced survival state and why it's often ignored Trauma Beyond War: Why you don’t need to have lived through war to feel exiled within your own body The Nervous System & Shutdown: How prolonged trauma, loss, and uncertainty lead the body into a deep survival rest The Role of Silence & Shame: Why comparing trauma invalidates healing and how naming your pain is the first step Somatic Healing & Recovery: How to gently move from resignation into restoration and reclaim your existence. Somatic healing tools to begin moving out of this place—slowly, safely, without force The hidden survival instinct behind your exhaustion (you're not lazy, you have Resignation Syndrom) How prolonged uncertainty, grief, and silence create the deepest wounds Timestamps: [00:01] Welcome & Introduction – Who this space is for [00:06] The Silent Space Between Life & Death – What is resignation syndrome? [00:12] Trauma & The Nervous System – Why the body shuts down under prolonged stress [00:18] The Role of Silence – Why unspoken trauma deepens suffering [00:22] The Difference Between Resignation & Surrender – Finding a path to healing [00:29] Somatic Healing & Next Steps – Practical tools...

    Not Wanting To Live And Not Wanting To Die: Resignation Syndrome – The Hidden Trauma State No One Talks About

  4. Sep 13

    When Being Seen Feels Unsafe: Trauma, Sexual Stare, and the Difference Between Gaze and Violation

    What happens when being looked at no longer feels safe? Trauma can fuse unsafe attention with all attention. In this episode of Exiled and Rising, Ana Mael explores how trauma can change the nervous system’s relationship to human attention itself. After a threatening, rage-filled, humiliating, or sexual stare, the body can begin to fuse stare with gaze—so even ordinary eye contact, visibility, and connection may start to feel dangerous. Ana makes a crucial distinction: gaze is not stare. Gaze carries curiosity, movement, choice, consent, boundaries, and the possibility of connection. Stare carries intensity, fixation, force, exposure, and the feeling of being trapped. For women and girls in particular, Ana addresses the experience of the sexual stare directly. In the episode, she names predatory sexual staring as nonconsensual and violating, and describes how it can feel assaultive even without physical contact. The body can register the stare as an invasion of privacy, boundaries, dignity, and bodily autonomy. The episode also explores rage-filled staring in childhood—the look before punishment, humiliation, emotional explosion, or violence—and how repeated exposure can condition the body into freeze, speechlessness, hypervigilance, hiding, and fear of eye contact. Over time, this can become something larger than discomfort with being looked at. Trauma can fuse unsafe attention with all attention. A person may begin to withdraw, avoid gaze, keep relationships shallow, or stay emotionally distant not because they do not want connection, but because visibility itself has become associated with danger. Ana examines why this withdrawal can be mistaken for introversion, social awkwardness, coldness, or avoidance, when it may actually be a protective strategy: if connection once exposed you to threat, distance can become a form of harm reduction. The deeper cost is relational. One harmful stare can take away countless future moments of safe gaze, tenderness, intimacy, friendship, openness, and belonging. This episode also introduces a somatic way of understanding freeze and the possibility of relearning that safe connection can be entered and left by choice. The central question is not simply, “Why is eye contact hard?” It is: What happens when the nervous system learns that being seen may mean being captured, violated, or overpowered? And how do we begin to distinguish again between consensual noticing and invasive fixation? Chapters (00:00:00) - What Really Happens When You Stop Looking at People?(00:01:16) - Stare vs Gaze in Trauma(00:08:14) - How to survive a trauma-induced withdrawal(00:14:59) - Safe gaze in recovery(00:23:07) - How Safe Attention Became fused with Fear(00:31:58) - Be gentle with yourself

    When Being Seen Feels Unsafe: Trauma, Sexual Stare, and the Difference Between Gaze and Violation

  5. Sep 6

    Changing Your Mind Isn’t Betrayal: It’s Your Freedom And Your Rights

    When You’ve Been Trained to Survive, Not to Think” By a War Trauma Therapist & Founder of Somatic Trauma Recovery Center Core Teaching: Ana Mael delivers a profound and urgent call to reclaim critical thinking as a somatic, embodied skill, especially in a time of rising authoritarianism, digital manipulation, and inherited cultural obedience. Her central message is this: “Critical thinking is not just logic. It’s a nervous system practice.” When people have been trained to survive — in families, cultures, religious systems, or countries under threat — they are conditioned to obey, not to question. Ana reframes critical thinking as an act of moral clarity, embodied courage, and spiritual responsibility — not betrayal. ⚙️ Key Lessons & Takeaways: Critical Thinking Can Feel Like Betrayal: Questioning the beliefs of your community, family, or religion can trigger a survival response — as if you’re betraying your tribe. But Ana reframes this: “What if living by your moral values, by your dignity, is actually what’s happening?” Tyranny Begins with Obedience, Not Violence: Ana warns us that: “Tyranny doesn’t start with weapons. It starts with unchallenged obedience.” This is echoed by her personal history: “My home was detonated two years before I was exiled… everyone was quiet.” Embodiment is the Missing Link: Ana makes a clear case that having facts is not enough. Trauma survivors may know the truth but still follow their abuser if their nervous system isn’t regulated: “You can have facts and still follow your abuser.” Silence Is Not Spiritual: Ana challenges the wellness industry and spiritual bypassing: “Silence is not spiritual. Silence is not neutral. If injustice is happening, silence puts you on the side of the abuser.” Somatic Thinking is Resistance: True critical thinking — the kind that helps us resist manipulation, authoritarianism, and gaslighting — must be lived in the body. That includes: Feeling discomfort Pausing Observing internal reactions before responding Standout Quotes: “When you’ve been trained to survive, not to think, critical thinking feels like betrayal.” “Tyranny begins with unchallenged obedient people.” “You can have facts and still follow your abuser if your body hasn’t integrated the truth.” “Spiritual is witnessing, expanding capacity for discomfort, and acting on it.” “The best investment is your ability to pause before reacting.” Impact: Ana’s message is deeply relevant as we witness the global rise of: Authoritarian regimes Surveillance capitalism AI-driven propaganda Digital burnout Spiritual commodification She brings lived experience from war-torn countries and years of therapeutic practice to connect political, psychological, and somatic truths. Her work bridges a critical gap in mental health, activism, and social resistance: how to build embodied moral clarity, even when your whole system is telling you to stay silent. Somatic Trauma Re... Chapters (00:00:00) - Critical Thinking feels like betrayal(00:07:20) - Critical Thinking in a culture of obedience

    Changing Your Mind Isn’t Betrayal: It’s Your Freedom And Your Rights

  6. Aug 30

    Critical Thinking in the Age of Tyranny: A Survival Skill You Must Have Now: War, Fascism, AI

    Stop Obeying. Start Thinking. At a time when professors are being silenced, protests are criminalized, and AI-generated propaganda floods our feeds, Ana gives us the ultimate counterculture message: “If you don’t practice critical thinking, someone else will do your thinking for you. And if you don’t anchor your moral compass, the algorithm will replace it.” In a world rapidly muting moral dissent through burnout, spiritual bypassing, and algorithmic control, Ana Mael dares to remind us that critical thinking is not just intellectual—it’s somatic, moral, and revolutionary. Her 60-minute teaching, titled “Critical Thinking”, is not a course. It is not an episode. It is a rescue mission—one that blends lived war survival, trauma healing, somatic therapy, and cultural analysis with the precision of someone who’s lived through systems most North Americans are only beginning to glimpse. Core Thesis “Critical thinking is resistance. It’s how you stay human.” -------------------------- Somatic Trauma Recovery Center https://www.somatictraumarecoverycenter.com/ Read the book: https://amzn.to/41SjKKL ❤️ Support the podcast: https://exiledandrising.castos.com/donate ----------------------- For Mael, critical thinking is not a luxury, but a nervous system imperative—a survival skill for those living in environments of danger, displacement, or disinformation. She grounds this not in abstraction but in her own history: being held at gunpoint, surviving fascist regimes, witnessing genocide, and rebuilding a life through trauma recovery and body-based therapy. Her core argument? We are not in a crisis of logic—we are in a crisis of obedience and numbness. Fascism doesn’t start with guns. It starts when people are too tired, too numbed, too self-absorbed, or too polite to question anything. Key Lessons From Ana’s Teaching The Cost of Numbness: From spiritual retreats to social media spirals, we’re outsourcing our agency and mistaking silence for peace.  The Role of the Trauma Body: Trauma wires us for obedience, fast reactions, and emotional withdrawal. Critical thinking must be rebuilt through safety, body awareness, and contradiction tolerance. The Disappearance of Moral Clarity: Ana argues that what’s truly dying is not “freedom,” but the felt sense of right and wrong—the inner compass that once led communities to protect each other. Self-Help as Compliance: She names the billion-dollar wellness industry as a soft agent of autocracy—creating obedient citizens who breathe deeply while their neighbors are erased. Apathy is a Fertile Ground for Fascism: Her critique of silence is not metaphorical—she draws direct lines from Nazi obedience culture to current American and global politics. Ana Mael’s piece “Critical Thinking” is a blisteringly clear, morally urgent, and somatically grounded call for the revival of civic responsibility, nervous system integrity, and moral bravery in the face of global regression. What she offers is far more than commentary — it’s a multi-layered cultural intervention, delivered through the rare lens of someone who has survived dictatorship, genocide, and spiritual betrayal, and who has also spent decades professionally guiding others through the trauma they don’t know how to name. Ana positions herself uniquely as: A trauma-informed political voice: speaking with authority as a war survivor and somatic therapist A truth-telling disruptor: calling out the self-help and wellness industry for creating numb, obedient citizens A social justice teacher: advocating for moral clarity, resistance, and collective care A systems-aware educator: tracing how fascism, obedience, apathy, and economic hardshi... Chapters (00:00:00) - Critical Thinking in a Time of Rising Fascism(00:06:41) - Exhaled and Rising: Somatic Trauma Recovery Podcast(00:07:05) - What is Critical Thinking(00:16:22) - Critical Thinking and the dangers of autocracy(00:17:33) - Critical Thinking in the Toxic Relationship(00:25:20) - Self-Care Industry is killing our humanity(00:36:10) - Who is feeding the spiritual numbness?(00:44:04) - Critical Thinking and the Rise of Fascism(00:52:05) - Critical Thinking(00:56:21) - Critical Thinking in a culture of obedience

    Critical Thinking in the Age of Tyranny: A Survival Skill You Must Have Now: War, Fascism, AI

  7. Aug 23

    You Have a Caring Heart. Not Everyone Does.

    Having a caring heart does not mean you owe it to people who do not return it. If you have a caring heart, you were likely taught to give more, try harder, and wait longer—especially in relationships shaped by power, oppression, or trauma. But generosity without reciprocity is not love. It is extraction. In this episode, Ana Mael introduces a radical but necessary practice: assessing reciprocity. She explores how people who carry kindness, ethics, and care are often targeted by systems and individuals who benefit from their self-underestimation. Ana explains why noticing that care is not returned can feel terrifying—especially for those shaped by exile, racism, patriarchy, disability, or power-over dynamics—where comparison itself was never safe. Through a somatic and trauma-informed lens, Ana unpacks: Why caring people are taught not to assess others How oppression conditions fear of comparison and retaliation The difference between generosity and self-erasure Why recognizing absence of care is not cruelty, but sovereignty How to reclaim your values, protect them, and give consciously This episode is for anyone who has been told they are “too sensitive,” “too kind,” or “asking for too much”—when in reality, they were giving what was never returned. ANA TEACHINGS & PROGRAMS https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/store   RESIGNATION SYNDROME RECOVERY https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/SSApP35o/checkout Read the Book: The Trauma We Don't Talk About https://amzn.to/41SjKKL ❤️  Please donate  This podcast is independently run. No production teams. Fancy edits. Only a somatic therapy education, truth & storytelling. https://exiledandrising.castos.com/donate Somatic Trauma Recovery Center https://www.somatictraumarecoverycenter.com/

    You Have a Caring Heart. Not Everyone Does.

  8. Aug 16

    Withdrawn and Lonely: Somatic Impact & What to Do |The Trauma of Not Being Welcomed

    Withdrawal is a deep somatic adaptation to chronic unsafety, invisibility, and social erasure. Ana identifies withdrawal not as a symptom to be “fixed,” but as a brilliant survival strategy when someone has never felt safe, welcomed, or truly allowed to exist as they are. Welcome to Exiled and Rising. Please follow and rate and always share to others who need to hear this.  Social and Cultural Relevance Ana’s work becomes a mirror for our time. In 2025, with rising political authoritarianism, cultural censorship, and the silencing of minority and independent voices, this episode is a somatic protest. “If you have been silenced… Welcome.” She provides language for the body in a time when language is being censored, surveilled, and politicized. This is particularly potent for: Activists and whistleblowers Immigrants and undocumented people Trauma survivors who were never given words for what they endured ❤️ Support the mission & keep the podcast alive and ad FREE: Donate   SOMATIC IMPACT OF WITHDRAWAL Withdrawal is not avoidance or passivity—it’s a nervous system shutdown in response to: Chronic unsafety (home, society, or internal landscape) Unwelcome identity (race, body, accent, orientation) Invisible pain (displacement, exile, suppression) Types of Trauma Addressed This episode implicitly and explicitly names multiple intersecting traumas: Attachment trauma: lack of welcome and relational safety in early development. Complex PTSD: from systemic oppression, long-term abuse, or exile. Social trauma: caused by racism, xenophobia, colonialism, ableism, etc. Intergenerational trauma: observing parents or ancestors living in submission, silence, or fear. Political trauma: living under surveillance, censorship, or erasure. Ana Mael connects each of these to somatic responses—specifically the state of withdrawal—which becomes the body’s last defense in the face of repeated invisibility or harm. Ana’s reference to “pleasurable contact” is deeply significant. “There is no contact, there is no pleasure. There is only threat.” This suggests a complete loss of social engagement and safe sensory input—essential components for neurobiological repair. Without pleasure, safe touch, or welcome, the nervous system cannot down-regulate. Over time, this can lead to: Low vagal tone Suppressed immunity Digestive and hormonal dysregulation Chronic fatigue and inflammation Psychological and Somatic Framework “We withdraw when nothing around us is safe.” Ana reframes withdrawal as a biological response to terror, not a flaw. This is aligned with polyvagal theory (Dr. Stephen Porges), which describes how the dorsal vagal shutdown leads to freeze, collapse, and dissociation when safety is chronically unavailable.  The Somatic Roots of Withdrawal: Disconnection from engagement is a protective mechanism, not avoidance. The body learns: “It’s not safe to speak....

    Withdrawn and Lonely: Somatic Impact & What to Do |The Trauma of Not Being Welcomed
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What happens to the nervous system when survival becomes identity? Exiled & Rising is a trauma-focused podcast exploring nervous system regulation, shame repair, displacement, boundaries, and dignity-centered healing in a world that often silences collective trauma. Hosted by integrative somatic trauma specialist Ana Mael, this podcast bridges advanced trauma science with lived experience of war and collective violence — offering grounded, justice-aware healing beyond surface-level self-help. Each episode blends: • Nervous system education • Somatic trauma recovery tools • Boundary and shame repair • Reflections on exile, identity, and belonging • Conversations on trauma justice and systemic harm This is not mindset work. This is bottom-up nervous system repair. Exiled & Rising is especially relevant for: • Survivors of war, displacement, and collective trauma • Immigrants navigating identity rupture • Adult children of exiled and displaced families • Those estranged from family or faith communities • Person seeking somatic approaches to PTSD and complex trauma recovery • Clinicians interested in dignity-centered trauma frameworks Rather than isolating healing from context, this podcast examines how trauma lives in the body — and how justice, sovereignty, and regulation must coexist. Meet Your Host Ana Mael (MSc, SEP, TEB, TST) is an integrative somatic trauma practitioner and founder of the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center. Her work is informed by lived experience of war and collective violence and grounded in advanced training in Somatic Experiencing®, Transforming Touch®, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory, trauma memory reconsolidation, and attachment repair. She specializes in working with survivors of war, displacement, systemic harm, and complex trauma — helping clients restore nervous system stability, dignity, and embodied sovereignty. She is the author of the bestselling books The Trauma We Don’t Talk. Learn more about her work at the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center:
https://www.somatictraumarecoverycenter.com/ — Support & Resources Read The Trauma We Don’t Talk About
https://amzn.to/41SjKKL ❤️ Support the podcast
https://exiledandrising.castos.com/donate Explore all programs: https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/store She lives in Toronto, Canada. Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes and does not replace individualized mental health care. Please consult a licensed provider for personal treatment.

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