Josh Trent on Why We Escape Instead of Rest (Part 1)Josh Trent on Why We Escape Instead of Rest (Part 1)
The Biology of Trauma™ With Dr. Aimie
Dr. Amy speaks with Josh Trent about a lifetime of tension, shallow breathing and drive that masked a body unable to rest. Together they examine how trauma shapes escape patterns, the role of breathwork in feeling emotions and the hidden grief carried by many helpers and high achievers.
28:33•28 Jul 2026
Rest or Escape? Josh Trent on Breath, Trauma and the Illusion of Safety
Episode Overview
- Rest and escape can look the same from the outside, but the body knows the difference based on whether it feels genuinely safe.
- Long-term clenching, shallow breathing and hypervigilance often come from early experiences in chaotic or angry homes.
- Breathwork can act as an entry point to feeling emotions and locating where they live in the body, especially for high performers who were never taught how to feel.
- Unhealed grief and trauma may be passed through emotional patterns, unconscious beliefs and environment, shaping how people cope for generations.
- Many helpers and practitioners hold significant unprocessed grief and, without awareness, may unintentionally retraumatise others or use work and social media as escape.
“"Newsflash y'all, there's no such thing as safety, except for the safety that you create."”
What emotional and inspiring tales of recovery are out there? This conversation between Dr. Amy and Josh Trent steps right into one: a lifelong struggle with a body that never truly rested. Josh talks openly about growing up in a tense home, with a "clenching" stomach and shallow breath that followed him for thirty years.
From being fired, putting his mum into a mental health facility, losing a partner and carrying serious debt, he describes life feeling like an MMA fight where "life just went boom, boom, boom"—yet this was also the point where his work in wellness really began. The episode is especially helpful for high achievers and helpers who can’t switch off. Dr.
Amy and Josh unpack why stillness can feel unsafe, how escape and rest can look identical from the outside, and why so many practitioners carry unprocessed grief in their diaphragm.
Josh explains how breathwork became his doorway into feeling, recalling the first time tears came during a session and saying, "this is what it's like to feel an emotion." You’ll hear Josh break down his idea of "emotional epigenetics"—patterns passed through generations via emotion, belief and environment—and why he sees healing as a kind of ongoing garden-tending. Dr.
Amy keeps bringing the conversation back to the body’s sense of safety, presence and authentic joy, challenging the cultural obsession with "good vibes only" and calling out emotional avoidance dressed up as positivity. The tone is candid, sometimes funny, sometimes raw, and very much aimed at people who are tired of coping by scrolling, working, or caretaking their way out of their own feelings. Dr.
Amy closes by offering a quick assessment to help you see your primary pattern when life feels like too much, reminding everyone that "we cannot change a pattern we cannot see." If rest feels foreign and your phone somehow ends up in your hand every evening, this conversation might nudge you to ask: are you resting, or just escaping?
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