HSP Retreat: Healing Infant Neglect | Sadie’s Story

Healing Unconscious Pre-verbal Wounds

Sadie (a pseudonym) is a 40-something highly sensitive introvert and a licensed counselor. She used breathwork at a HSP retreat to address profound, pre-verbal trauma stemming from infant maternal neglect that traditional talk therapy could not reach. By bypassing the cognitive mind to process early childhood somatic memories, she replaced long-standing, unexplained emotional insecurity with a sense of core safety. This case highlights how pre-verbal trauma can manifest as a persistent sense of emptiness in high-achieving individuals, requiring a body-mind-spirit healing approach for lasting healing.

What You’ll Discover in This Story

• The Limits of Talk Therapy: Why somatic, body-based breathwork accesses deep-seated cellular trauma and armoring where traditional verbal processing hits a wall.
• The Somatic Language of Grief: How allowing the body to shake, tremble, and vocalize grief acts as a physical and spiritual detox for stored trauma.
• The Tender Heart of the Father: How the Holy Spirit repurposes painful psychological memories—like the “Still Face”—to bring lasting emotional healing through Christ.

Here is the account of Sadie’s first weekend Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) Breathwork Retreat, told in her own words:

Traditional talk therapy is a beautiful tool, but as a licensed counselor, I know firsthand that deep-seated, pre-verbal infant trauma hides in places words simply cannot reach. When trauma strikes before we have language, it bypasses the logical mind and embeds itself directly into our nervous system as defensive bodily armoring and unconscious shame.

Hoping to heal lifelong patterns of intense sexual shame and generalized unworthiness, I began spiritual counseling with Benita Esposito. One and a half months later, I attended her Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) Breathwork Retreat. Benita frames breathwork not as a mere somatic exercise, but as an experiential spiritual healing technique—a sacred space where the body and the Holy Spirit collaborate to bypass intellect and unlock the physical shell of stored pain.

What unfolded over two breathwork sessions was an intensely visceral experience that liberated me from the anguish of maternal neglect and enfolded me in the protective love of God.

Breaking the Bondage of the “Still Face”

Surrendering to the Movement of the Spirit

During the breathwork sessions, I focused on my goals while simultaneously remaining open to going in a different direction if that was where the Holy Spirit or my body led me.

Almost the entire time, I felt compelled to move my body in ways reminiscent of previous bodywork I had done to heal trauma on a cellular level. I let my limbs and my core shake and tremor, physically pushing out negative energy that had been trapped in my nervous system for decades.

Session One: The Lioness and the Throne Room

In the first breathwork session, I saw a stark symbol in my mind’s eye: a heart that was largely covered in thick, black darkness. As the breathing deepened, a dormant part of me awoke. I felt very fierce and angry, like a lioness. I wanted justice for the emotional bonding denied by my mother during my infancy.

The anger eventually softened into peace and comfort. At the end of the session, I saw myself sitting in my heavenly Father’s lap on His throne in heaven. He held me closely while I cried, finally allowing me to mourn the profound loneliness and rejection I felt as a helpless infant.

Immediately following this session, during the guided imagery, I met with Jesus on a beach. Resting together in a hammock felt profoundly peaceful. He handed me a symbol: a bright turquoise music note. It signified to me that He loves my singing, especially when it is done in love to Him or His people.

Session Two: Symbols of Maternal Neglect

The second breathwork session brought a progression of heavy, grieving images. I felt a deep sense of sorrow throughout the entire session, making sounds of wailing, moaning, and keening—a form of vocal mourning practiced by ancient communities.

As my body continued its shaking movements, the first image appeared: my mother’s breasts. I wept bitterly over them being taken away from me. Next, I saw a baby walker, a symbol representing all the time I spent confined in mechanical devices rather than being held securely in my mother’s arms. Then came an image of a large crib filled with toys, symbolizing the dark, lonely, scary nights I spent away from her. Finally, a large black question mark appeared, capturing the lost, confused, and unattached state of my infancy.

The Mirror of Shame and the Butterfly of Grace

Suddenly, I saw the expressionless face of my mother. It looked exactly like “The Still Face Experiment” video by Dr. Edward Tronick that Benita had shown us earlier in the retreat. It illustrates the devastating psychological impact on a baby when a mother fails to emotionally bond. Seeing that blank face was terrifying. I realized my mother had looked at me that way much of the time.

The vision shifted, showing my own face completely expressionless. I had coped by shutting down and imitating her.

Then, the imagery morphed into a cartoonish, disfigured face—black with fat, squiggly blue lips, one eye missing, and the other a swollen, squiggly red. This distorted image stayed with me for a long time. It mirrored my deepest core wounds: feeling ashamed, ugly, unworthy, discarded, and rejected.

Jesus met me on the beach again in the guided imagery that followed. This time, He gave me a butterfly with vibrant pink and orange wings. It was a beautiful representation of the Holy Spirit and His absolute delight in who I am.

The Fruits of Somatic Healing

A Holy Detox

The physical toll of the HSP Breathwork Retreat was real. My muscles were sore from the intensity of the somatic movements, and I developed cold symptoms that lasted for about a week after the retreat. Because no one else in my affectionate family caught a virus, and because Benita had warned us of a potential physical detox, I knew my body was finally releasing a lifetime of stored stress chemicals.

The Lasting Freedom

In the three months since the retreat, the results have been life-changing. I have noticed a definite decrease in both sexual shame and generalized shame. My self-esteem has lifted, my negative self-talk has quieted, and I feel a newfound confidence in social interactions.

Most beautifully, the reduction in sexual shame has brought harmony to my marriage. I am much more comfortable with physical intimacy with my husband and experience far less emotional reactivity. I no longer require heavy emotional coddling before or after making love. Instead of the old, familiar shame during sex, I now feel a deep sense of peace. There is still work to do, but I am incredibly pleased with the profound progress made during my very first retreat.

Lake Chatuge & Blue Ridge Mountains, the HSP Breathwork Retreat venue

Stepping Out of the Shadows and into Wholeness

Sadie’s courageous journey shows us that our bodies remember what our minds try to forget.

You do not have to spend your life running on empty, hiding a painful sense of isolation behind a successful exterior. If you are a sensitive introvert who is tired of the endless struggle to feel safe in your own skin, you do not have to heal alone. God uniquely created your sensitive nervous system to experience profound joy, peace, and connection, rather than chronic survival.

A Note to HSP Men

Sadie’s profound breakthrough reveals how infant neglect can leave behind an invisible emptiness that high-achieving professionals carry silently for decades. This pre-verbal trauma heavily impacts sensitive men, too, who often feel an unexplainable emotional void but face intense cultural pressure to intellectually minimize their pain or hide behind a capable work ethic. Although my in-person mountain HSP Retreats cater solely to women, it is my joy to help highly sensitive men locate the roots of this hidden despair. Through private online sessions, I provide a safe space to process early childhood survival patterns and restore a deep sense of core safety. I also host Virtual Resilience Intensives where HSP men connect to quiet an overstimulated nervous system and unfold their God-given gifts. If you are ready to stop trying to think your way out of a body-based wound, I invite you to contact me to explore these private sessions and virtual gatherings.

👉🏼 I invite you to connect with me to begin your transformation and experience the power of HSP Breathwork Retreats. Come find the safety to dissolve old protective coping strategies, claim your true identity, and freely express your Radiant Authentic Self, just as God created you to be. Download your application here and I’ll contact you within 24 hours Monday-Thursday.

About Benita A. Esposito

Healing, Growth & Mastery

“Chief Trail Guide” for Highly Sensitive Introverts on the Hero’s Journey to the Authentic Self.

Benita A. Esposito is a breathwork practitioner, ordained spiritual counselor, and life coach who has spent over four decades helping highly sensitive individuals evolve into their Authentic Self. Operating globally through her online practice, she specializes in guiding clients into the somatic and deep spiritual healing territories that logic alone cannot reach. While she also maintains a licensed clinical psychotherapy practice restricted strictly to residents of Georgia and North Carolina, her global ministry focuses entirely on non-clinical spiritual counseling and transformative life coaching.

As the author of the Amazon bestseller, The Gifted Highly Sensitive Introvert: Wisdom for Emotional Healing and Expressing Your Radiant Authentic Self, Benita designs emotionally nurturing environments where HSPs can safely unpack deeply stored emotional blocks.

As a grace-filled Christian, her work is guided by the Holy Trinity and firmly grounded in her extensive background in body-mind psychology. By surrounding each deep healing session in prayer and invoking the unconditional love and healing of God, she acts as a compassionate, grounded facilitator—helping participants melt away self-defeating survival patterns to express their Radiant Authentic Self.

When she isn’t conducting virtual sessions or hosting intimate, life-changing retreats at her home overlooking Lake Chatuge and the Blue Ridge Mountains, Benita recharges her own nervous system in the natural world. You can find her tending to her flower garden, capturing the beauty of nature through her camera lens, or rowing across the peaceful lake near her home.

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Disclaimer

Benita A. Esposito, M.A., is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Georgia, a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (LCMHC) in North Carolina, and an ordained minister and spiritual counselor through the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person (AIWP). While retreat participants enter into a formal client relationship for life coaching and spiritual counseling, the workshops, virtual intensives, and retreats offered through this website are strictly educational, coaching, and spiritual in nature. These services do not constitute psychological diagnosis, clinical treatment, or traditional psychotherapy, and do not establish a psychotherapeutic therapist-client relationship. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or require clinical mental health treatment, please consult a licensed professional in your local area.

Photo credits

• Lake Chatuge landscape photos: Benita A. Esposito
• Butterfly (edited): charl-durand-YIKz32N-JIU-unsplash
• Benita’s photo: K.Boyer Photography

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