The trunk phase asks two questions. What have you been carrying, and where did it come from?
This is where we begin naming the stories about worth, body, gender, identity, faith, and belonging that were written before you had any say. Much of what people carry is not a private defect. It is the weight of families, churches, cultures, and systems that were more comfortable when you stayed small.
Shame Resilience
Shame holds old beliefs in place. Shame resilience means learning to notice shame when it shows up, understand where it came from, and move through it without letting it make your decisions.
The goal is not to argue with shame or pretend it is gone. It is to see it clearly enough that it stops passing itself off as the truth about you.
Questioning What You Were Handed
I sometimes call this decolonizing work. In plain terms, that means looking at the cultural and systemic messages that shaped how you see your body, your worth, and your place in the world, and asking whether they were ever really yours.
Narrative therapy is useful here. We look at the story you tell about yourself, separate the problem from who you are, and notice whose voices are actually speaking in it.
If faith is part of your story, examining it does not mean you have to leave it. Some people keep their faith, some reshape it, and some walk away. The direction is yours to choose.