If there is one core practice that supports deep emotional healing, it’s learning the VANS skills—Validate, Affirm, Nurture, and Set healthy limits. These four tools, central to Pia Mellody’s Post-Induction Therapy and the HOCI re-parenting model, help regulate the nervous system and repair the wounds of childhood trauma.

Why VANS Matters in Trauma Healing

Trauma isn’t just the event—it’s the aloneness during the event. Without emotional support, the nervous system copes through people-pleasing, shutting down, perfectionism, anxiety, or difficulty setting boundaries.

What was missing wasn’t strength—it was someone who could say:
“I see you. What you feel makes sense. You deserved protection.”

VANS gives you a structured way to offer yourself that support now.

The Functional Adult

We all carry younger emotional parts—fearful, angry, overwhelmed, or compliant. When triggered, these parts react from old pain. Your Functional Adult is the grounded part of you that can respond instead of react.

Practicing VANS strengthens this wise inner adult and brings safety and regulation to your nervous system.

The Four VANS Skills

1. Validate – “I see you.”

Validation reflects what you notice—tone, emotion, body language—and signals you matter. It reduces defensiveness and increases connection.

2. Affirm – “Your feelings make sense.”

Affirmation doesn’t mean you agree. It simply acknowledges emotional truth, repairing messages many of us heard growing up like “Don’t cry” or “You’re too sensitive.”

3. Nurture – Give what was missing

Nurturing includes compassion, reassurance, clarity, and protection. It teaches the body what safety feels like.
If nurturing yourself is hard, the Core Birthrights (worth, vulnerability, needs, joy, connection) can help identify where support is needed.

4. Set Healthy Limits – Boundaries protect peace

Boundaries include protective limits with others and internal limits with yourself. They prevent affirmation from turning into people-pleasing and keep nurturing from becoming enabling.

 Using VANS in Everyday Life

You can use VANS with:

• Children — modeling emotional safety
• Partners — strengthening connection
• Friends — offering empathy
• Coworkers — communicating clearly

As you use these skills with others, they become easier to offer to yourself.

 How VANS Rewires the Nervous System

Each VANS skill sends a message of safety:

• “I’m safe now.”
• “My feelings are allowed.”
• “I can respond instead of react.”

Healing doesn’t erase the past—it changes how your nervous system holds it.

 Bringing It All Together

• Validate what’s real
• Affirm what you feel
• Nurture what was missing
• Set limits that protect your peace

Healing isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence.

 Closing

If you never learned how to validate, affirm, nurture, or set boundaries, you’re not alone. Most of us didn’t. But you can learn now—and every time you practice VANS, you become the witness your younger self always needed.

Healing doesn’t happen because the past changes—it happens because you do.

To learn more or experience VANS in a guided setting, visit:

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