From Survivor to Creator
I’m a survivor of narcissistic abuse and chronic childhood emotional neglect. I’ve walked the path of loneliness, being haunted by the shame that never seemed to end, chasing love that no one ever seemed to be able to give me.
My childhood home was riddled with verbal abuse, violent fights, silence and denial, and gaslighting. Emotions were not allowed. Obedience equaled love. Complaining was sin.
Deeper than that was the emotional neglect. There were only two appropriate emotions: Sorrow for your mistakes and Happiness. Anything else meant something was “wrong” with me.
This created highly tuned abilities in me to anticipate peoples’ reactions, plan around them, and please them. I also became deeply skilled in avoiding myself, shaming myself, and discarding myself.
All Of This Was "Normal"...
To me until I started seeing how other parents treated their children. I saw homes where the parents listened to their children, respected what the felt, and even played with them.
That was huge to me. Their parents were interested in who their children were, not just in what their children did that pleased them.
The kids could express themselves without anxiety and expressed so much more happiness than I could relate to.
As I grew into a teenager and moved out of the house, I began to get hints that I was missing something critical in my upbringing. I really struggled with intimacy and love. Love was scary to me, and connection with others felt deeply threatening and overwhelming. I thought that was all normal until I started seeing how my friends felt safe and secure with love and with sharing it and expressing it.
This rocked my world as I began giving myself permission to see if my parents were actually a problem. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t the problem, but how I was raised.
This is where I began to discover what codependency really is, how narcissistic abuse happens, and how a survivor can come to know who they really are and live from that in love.
Healing Isn't Fixing
I remember when I learned this in my first few weeks working with my first mentor, Robert Woo Du-an. “We don’t fix emotions or people.”
This blew my mind. “My feelings didn’t need fixing?”, I thought to myself.
This question started a burning curiosity in me that is a raging fire of discovery today. I wanted to know how one heals it if isn’t about fixing.
This taught me some crucial truths about healing codependency and abuse that I found (and continue to find) missing from mainstream therapies.
These truths started to teach me how to navigate the territory of healing and thriving.
You see, most therapy uses a map and tries to help you walk up a mountain with it. This is akin to a blind person teaching you how to drive.
But when you work with an experience driver who knows the experience of driving, you get expert skills and insight into driving.
The same applies to healing. My work with Robert began to show me why past therapists, books, and courses had not worked. They were using a map with no experience of the territory. This inspired me to master the territory.
Then I did.
A Question: Do You Want to Help Others?
Robert Woo Du-an asked me this question a few months into our work together. I was making quick progress and mastery of the tools and my own growth. I was also intrigued, but concerned. I wasn’t a therapist. I wasn’t traditionally qualified to be helping others. I was, though, drawn to help others have what I was getting: healing and relief.
I could see how people were suffering in therapy, lost in their own pain, and coping. Just like I had for over 20 years. So I said yes to that question.
That began my mentoring profession. I quit my IT administration job of 5 years and stepped into the field of assisting survivors in their healing.
What Qualifies Me to Mentor In This?
This is a question I’ve asked myself several times over the past decade of mentoring others in their healing. It’s a question that lingers because I take my work and your healing seriously and responsibly. I want you to have tools and processes that work and for you to experience the healing you deserve.
I don’t have a degree in psychology. I’m not trained as a therapist. I’m not certified from a life coach school.
Yes, I have training. But more than that, what I teach GETS RESULTS. Isn’t that what you’re here for?
MY TRAINING:
I am trained in shamanic-based emotional healing practices (including mindfulness, inner child work, and identity retrieval). I have training in EFT and the Sedona Method. I am also trained in relationship fundamentals. Training in codependency and narcissism and trauma bonding.
This training is a total of 4 years of dedicated work and 6 years of on-going education through workshops and study. I trained under Robert Woo Du-an (www.sevenhawks.com) and Robert Bilton (retired relationship therapist in Manitoba, Canada).
I learned a variety of skills, including:
SHAMANIC TRAINING WITH WOO-DUAN
Here’s A Breakdown of My Training With Robert Woo Du-An (January 2008 – January 2010):
- Space, Flow and Presence in the Emotion and the Body (being mindful of one’s experience)
- Tapping into the Body’s Sensations to Gain Insight into What it Needs and Wants
- Tapping into the emotion, the body sensation, and listening/calling forth the message it has for me
- Creating Safe, Clear Spaces for Emotional Closure to Occur
- Resolving Trauma through Proper Space, Connection, and Intuitive Awareness Practices
- How Freeze and Stuck Emotion Create Trauma and how to “Thaw” Those Frozen Feelings
- How to Meet and Nurture the Needs of the Inner Self
- Navigating the Symbolism of the Subconscious Self and Reprogramming Beliefs and Limits
TRAINING WITH ROBERT BILTON, Ph.D
Here’s My Training with Robert Bilton (August of 2008-January 2011):
- What Compatibility Is and How It Works
- Conflict Management – Building Understanding in Place of Being Right
- Tapping into the emotion, the body sensation, and listening/calling forth the message it has for me
- Core Codependency Traits, Habits, Impulses and Core Wounds that Drive It
- Knowing One’s Self
- Building Connection in Conflict and Difference
- Boundaries, How They Function, and How They’re Created
ON-GOING TRAINING
Independent Training (Current):
- The Nature of Real Love (Greg Baer’s Work)
- Complex PTSD (Pete Walker’s Work)
- Tapping into the emotion, the body sensation, and listening/calling forth the message it has for me
- Codependency & Narcissism (Melody Bettie, Jonice Webb, Lisa Romano, Ross Rosenberg, Darlene Lancer, and Jasmin Lee Cori’s work)
- Domestic Abuse (Patricia Evan’s Work)
- Trauma Work (Peter Levine, Pete Walker, Tara Brach)
- Neurological Sciences and Learning (Mark Waldman, John Assaraf)
- Relationships & Sound Relationship House Theory (The Gottman Institute)
- Non-violent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg’s Work)
- Alternative Therapies: EFT, The Sedona Method, The Work by Byron Katie, and Access Consciousness