Erica Bonham: the Nervous System & Trauma in the Body
Episode Overview
In this episode, therapist and EMDR trainer Erica Bonham makes the case that trauma doesn't live where we think it does — not in what we know, but in what the body has stored, patterned, and organized around long before the thinking mind gets a vote. Erica and Ana talk through what it actually takes to build a nervous system with more capacity: not bypassing what's hard, but developing the physical ability to stay present to it, one breath and one contraction-and-expansion at a time.
What We Cover
Why trauma "doesn't care what we know" — the difference between cognitive insight and what's actually stored in the body, and why knowing a boundary is healthy doesn't mean the nervous system will let you set one
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn as physical survival strategies, and what a body stuck in a low-grade, functional freeze can look like day to day
Toning the vagus nerve as a literal physical practice — the same logic as building a muscle: it takes consistency, not a single good session, and it can be trained through yoga, breath, tai chi, or running with intention
A concrete grounding exercise: hand on the belly, attention two inches below and behind the navel, searching for the still point beneath the surface waves — and why she starts every practice in the lower body before the heart
How generational and ancestral trauma gets passed down, including research on epigenetic trauma transmission, and Erica's own work with EMDR and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy around patterns from her adoption that predate her own memory
Her EMBERS framework — Energy, Mind, Body, Emotions, Reaction, Senses — for tracing whether a pattern in the body is actually older than the person carrying it
The difference between breathwork used to build genuine capacity and breathwork used to bypass a feeling — and the research suggesting that "breathing through" anger can make people less assertive, and "breathing through" guilt can make them less likely to make amends
Why nervous system regulation isn't a retreat from injustice or collective struggle, but the physical groundwork that makes it possible to stay present to it without collapsing or shutting down
What actually happens in the body — the bracing, the defensiveness — when a word like "racism" or "patriarchy" enters a room, and why that felt response is more honest than the story told about it afterward
About the Guest
Erica Bonham, LPC, MA, is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado, a certified EMDR clinician, consultant, and trainer, and the founder of AVOS Counseling Center in Arvada, Colorado. She specializes in somatic and attachment-focused EMDR, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and nervous system regulation, with a practice focus that includes the LGBTQ community and trauma related to racial and social injustice, abuse, and spiritual harm. She is the author of Always Enough, Never Done: Volume I: Heal Your Nervous System, Turn Wounds Into Wisdom, and Cultivate Your Inner Badass, and a nationally sought-after speaker on trauma, embodiment, and collective healing.
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