Everything that has ever happened to us affects how we perceive, understand & react to the world around us - including traumatic events. This spills into the way we move our bodies, feel in our bodies (or don’t), use our voices (or don’t), set boundaries (or don’t), approach our work/life balance, how we handle money and more. This also affects the way we step into building our business. Business building is triggering as fuck. And without accountability, we are destined to get caught in the same loops that were created as a defense mechanism from what we have experienced before.

But as adults, these stories don’t have to be true anymore.

Typically when we talk about trauma, people think of extreme instances of sexual, physical or emotional violence. While this is true, there are MANY more ways we receive messages from the world around us that it’s not safe or okay to be ourselves. In my journey, I have come to define trauma as anytime we are shown it’s not safe to be our whole Self.

Kids making fun of you in 4th grade giving a presentation could have created a fear that followed you into adulthood - and that’s why you still might avoid going live on your business IG page.

Having someone you love act aggressively towards you when you ask them to pay you back might cause you to act small around asking for money any time at all (even when it’s long overdue).

Your parents might have always had enough money but constantly acted like money was an issue & they constantly lived in fear around it, or maybe the financial rug kept getting ripped out from under you as a kid, and you mirror those same behaviors as an adult.

One time a client yelled at you & left you when you made a boundary or raised your prices, so now you have the story that this is what happens when you stick up for yourself.

This Work is here to navigate to the root of these behaviors & take our power back so we can stop these cycles & finally quit the over-giving/under-receiving people pleaser paradigm.

Trauma informed work isn’t just about making space to air out & take ownership over the big shitty things that have happened to us, to me, it’s about reexamining every single part of our lives, how we define ourselves & our choices to make sure we are operating from our power. And not from fear.

As a DA & SA survivor, the kind of trauma informed spaces & mentorship I needed evolved as my healing journey did.

First, I needed to be slowly coached into finding my agency physically in my body & my voice. I was so numbed out that I couldn’t even feel if something was or wasn’t okay for me. I would call checking out of my body more comfortable & felt like I was safer there, not realizing that leaving my body was leaving it susceptible to whoever was around me. After learning what was & wasn’t okay, I then had to learn how to use my voice. And also that there wouldn’t be any negative consequences for me using my voice. I had to learn that it was safe from a very basic level. I first discovered this work in Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher Training, working with underserved populations in prisons, women’s shelters. As I learned through my own healing, guiding others through this work helped me understand & integrate my own practice even deeper. I continued to explore this work in bodywork training, energy work education, somatics, Core Energetics & more.

The first 3 years or so of my exploration, I needed lots of space, hand holding & double checking from my mentors to avoid triggering past events. Because in the beginning, a trigger would throw me off for weeks or months at a time. As my relationship with myself grew stronger & I learned it was safe, I was able to actually begin stepping into my triggers on purpose with guided help to uncover new layers of myself hidden under old defense mechanisms & thus, more understanding & empowerment of myself. As my relationship with myself grew, I was able to safely navigate pushing myself out of my comfort zone to grow & to try new things. This also meant stretching to new limits in what’s possible in terms of freedom, building a business around being myself & financial freedom.

Business building is not for the faint of heart. We get triggered on a daily basis - but it is actually THROUGH our triggers that we get to all the places we want to go (instead of avoiding them). Over the past 10 years navigating through my own journey of liberation through different healing arts, as well as work with dozens of clients, I’ve learned that we are are actually the only ones standing in our way. And without learning how to take ownership & agency over every single part of our lives, we will remain a victim & remain stuck.

This program has plenty of space for feelings, but it is designed specifically for those who are far enough along in their healing journey that they are ready to take ownership over making every single one of the stories that don’t have to be true anymore, untrue. We’re here to create brave spaces to safely navigate (& even celebrate!) triggers & write the ending to our own story.