The Trauma Myth
What if your story isn’t trauma—it’s a decision you made without knowing?
Forgotten at the Ballpark
I was seven, maybe eight.
It was a summer evening in North Carolina. The kind where the sun stretches its arms long into the night and the air hangs thick like wet cotton. I'd just finished a little league game, cleats crusted with red dirt, glove still in my hand.
Everyone else had gone home. The cars pulled out one by one. The parking lot emptied. And I was still there, standing on the curb, heart in my throat.
I remember the stillness. The eerie way everything quieted down when the lights clicked off above the field. My legs felt frozen, but my mind raced.
Did they forget me?
Did something happen?
Am I supposed to walk home?
Is it safe?
It probably wasn’t more than fifteen minutes before someone pulled up. I don’t remember if it was my mom or dad. I don’t remember what they said. I only remember how it felt.
Alone.
Forgotten.
Unimportant.
That moment didn’t break me. But it planted a seed. Not just of fear—but of meaning.
The Story That Sticks
That ballpark moment didn’t stay on the field. It followed me for decades.
It whispered into my relationships. It knotted itself into my gut anytime someone pulled away. It showed up in my pride—the part of me that never asked for help, that always tried to be needed, useful, impressive.
If I’m useful, they won’t forget me.
If I’m perfect, they’ll stay.
If I don’t have needs, I won’t be a burden.
I didn’t call it trauma. I didn’t even remember it clearly. But it became the source code for who I thought I had to be.
And that’s what this article is about.
We’re living in a moment where everything is being called trauma. But most of what keeps people stuck isn’t trauma.
It’s drama.
More specifically—it’s the dramatized story you unconsciously told yourself when you didn’t have the tools to process what was happening.
We call this MUD: Misguided Unconscious Decisions.
And you can’t talk your way out of it.
You have to rewrite the meaning.
You have to clean the MUD.
Real Trauma vs. Everyday Meaning
Let me be clear before the comment section lights up: real trauma exists.
PTSD, abuse, loss, violence—these things change your brain and body. They leave measurable imprints on the hippocampus, on cortisol levels, on the HPA axis and immune system.
But not every pain becomes trauma. And not everyone needs trauma healing.
We’ve confused emotional friction for trauma. We’ve made every wound sacred and every reaction clinical. But sometimes what’s holding you back is not a wound. It’s a decision.
A decision made in a high-stress moment.
A moment that didn’t make sense.
A meaning your nervous system grabbed onto and never let go.
What Is MUD, Really?
MUD happens when you go through a difficult experience—often in childhood, but not always—and make a snap judgment:
“I’m not safe.”
“I’m not wanted.”
“Love hurts.”
“I can’t trust people.”
“I have to earn everything.”
“I should never ask for help.”
You probably didn’t speak these thoughts out loud. You might not even be aware you have them. But they’re there.
That’s why we call them Misguided Unconscious Decisions—because you didn’t have the knowledge, maturity, or perspective to see the situation clearly.
So you filled in the blanks with fear.
The decision got buried, but the energy stayed alive. It seeped into your identity. Into how you saw yourself. Into how you treated your body, your relationships, your dreams.
Trauma vs. MUD: Cement vs. Clay
Trauma is like cement—hard, dense, and immobilizing.
MUD is more like wet clay—sticky, shapable, and full of old impressions.
The good news? You can reshape it.
But you can’t use logic to dissolve MUD. Because MUD lives beneath logic.
It’s stored in your breath, your body, your posture, your reflexes. It’s in your reaction when someone pulls away. The tension in your voice when you feel dismissed. The way you hold your breath when you walk into a room, bracing for judgment you’ve never questioned.
And here's the thing: MUD is metabolic.
Quantum Metabolism and the Biology of Belief
You’ve heard of the ACEs study—Adverse Childhood Experiences. Researchers found that the more ACEs you had, the higher your risk for depression, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, cancer, and obesity.
Why? Because your story becomes your chemistry.
Unresolved stress patterns—especially those born in childhood while the brain is still in theta wave absorption mode—get baked into your physiology.
Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
Adrenaline. Cortisol.
Blood sugar spikes. Hormonal imbalances. Digestive shutdown.
Your thoughts become feelings. Your feelings become patterns.
Your patterns become symptoms.
This is the heart of Quantum Metabolism:
Your biology is not just what you eat or how you train—it's what you believe.
And beliefs born in MUD tend to be wrong.
The Rewrite Process: How Healing Actually Happens
So how do we clear MUD?
Not with more talk. Not by overanalyzing. And not by bypassing through mindset hacks or psychedelic highs.
You have to change the story where it lives:
In your nervous system.
In your breath.
In your subconscious.
At Next Level Human, we use a method called DEEP—Depth Enhanced Emotional Processing.
It starts with breathwork. But not the calm, meditative kind. We use fast, rhythmic, intense breathing to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system. Think 20 accelerating double inhales followed by humming exhales. It floods the system, then drops it.
From chaos to calm.
The body opens. The subconscious unlocks.
Then we drop into the rewrite. Not through imagination—but through dimensionalized self-dialogue.
You don’t just “see” the memory.
You meet the version of yourself who lived it.
You sit across from them.
You listen. You feel.
You ask what they needed.
You tell them what they didn’t know.
And you change the damn story.
Not erasing it—editing it.
You learn to say:
“This wasn’t a punishment. It was an initiation.”
“This didn’t make me weak. It gave me a gift.”
Then we rewire the emotional signature using the body. Movement. Music. Stillness. Breath. Humming. Sound.
Finally, we retrain the nervous system. You choose new behavior. New response. New action.
Rewrite. Rewire. Retrain.
In that order.
Every time.
A Personal Example
Let me show you my MUD map.
I had a loving but emotionally unpredictable mother.
A father who was solid, strong, but taught strength through stoicism and financial stress.
And a brother who teased me, bullied me and fought me with fists and words.
From that, I decided:
Love = responsibility.
Safety = self-reliance.
Asking = weakness.
I must prove myself.
I must never be a burden.
I became emotionally attuned, hyper-competent, conflict-hardened.
Never too needy. Always ready to serve.
But secretly, I was seething. Longing. Craving. Resenting.
Until I stopped trying to fix the symptoms—and rewrote the source code.
I met the little boy who was left at the ballpark.
I sat with him. I told him he mattered.
That he was never forgotten—not by me.
That was the start of the rewrite.
What’s Your Rewrite?
Here’s your invitation:
Next time you feel stuck or triggered or spiraling in reaction—
Don’t ask what happened to me?
Ask:
What did I decide about myself in that moment?
Is that story still true?
Would I choose that belief again?
You are not the memory.
You are not the mood.
You are not the MUD.
You are the storyteller.
And this chapter can change everything.
PS: If you’re ready to stop hacking symptoms and start healing the unconscious stories driving them, check out my Next Level Human coaching. This isn’t therapy. This is identity alchemy—designed to help you rewrite, rewire, and retrain your nervous system at the level where change actually sticks.
👉 Click here to begin your Next Level Human rewrite