Nothing Is Wrong With You: The Severance Cycle in Adoptee Healing

adoptee healing Mar 19, 2026

In this episode, Julie Brumley shares a framework foundational to her work with adoptees: Not because something is wrong with you… but because your body learned a different cycle. Drawing from the Satisfaction Cycle (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen), she explains how attachment unfolds through attunement and safety. But for adoptees, that cycle is often interrupted. From that disruption, Julie introduces the Severance Cycle, a pattern she developed to describe what happens when connection is broken before we have words. This isn’t just theory. It’s the lived experience of so many adoptees. And when you understand it… everything starts to make sense.

⏱ Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction: How early body memories affect trauma and healing
00:27 - Adoptees’ patterns of receiving and adaptation
00:53 - The body's response from conception: body memory starts in the womb
01:51 - How trauma affects brain and body development in utero
02:46 - Development of the heart and brain during early pregnancy
03:16 - Sensations versus stories: What early body imprints mean for adoptees
04:01 - The significance of the early attachment and stress responses
06:06 - The satisfaction cycle: how healthy attachment is supposed to work
07:02 - The baby's natural rhythm: push, reach, take, and settle
08:30 - The importance of attunement for the satisfaction cycle to succeed
09:27 - Recognizing whether this cycle was experienced in your own body
10:48 - The severance cycle: rupture, recoil, reluctance, rejection, resistance
11:09 - Description of each phase and its emotional impact
12:28 - How the severance cycle disrupts choice, connection, and context
14:16 - What is lost in severance: early choice and connection, and understanding of the world
15:38 - The impact of rupture on the primal wound and lifelong grief
17:34 - The polyvagal theory and its relation to survival responses
18:42 - The body’s tendency to choose familiar danger over safety
19:13 - How healing begins: creating safety and relearning trust with the body
20:34 - Rebuilding connection through self-regulation and safe relationships
21:34 - The power of context: reinterpreting past pain in the present
22:42 - Recognizing patterned behaviors: nothing is wrong with you, your body learned a cycle
23:12 - The work of restoring the original rhythm: safety, reach, receive, rest
24:02 - Invitation to upcoming retreat for experiential healing
25:25 - Encouragement to notice bodily responses and cultivate curiosity over fixing
26:21 - Resources, community, and hope for adoptees on the healing journey