One of my biggest dreams is finally coming true!

In 2007, I sat in a room with two other women who had bravely signed up for my very first Beyond Surviving group! Back then, the program wasn't anything like it is today of course, as it was just a little baby of an idea and I was still unsure of whether or not what I had to offer would make any difference for these women.

As I witnessed them share about the trauma they had experienced, willingly take the guidance and tools I was offering, and day after day transform their lives, I remember the flutter in my belly as I realized, "Sh**! This works for other people, too!"

In a flash, I saw myself in a room full of women who were talking, healing, connecting, laughing, crying, and being freed from the trauma they had experienced.

Fast forward three years, I was wrapping up my work with a client who burst out, "When is there going to be a Beyond Surviving retreat?!" It took me right back to that vision in 2007, and I said, "I don't know, but it's definitely on my mind and something I want to do someday."

Year after year, I continued to foster this dream, imagining it, holding space for it, recognizing my fears about doing it, waiting for the right partner and timing...

Now, here we are, 2020 right around the corner, and my dream is finally coming true!

This coming February, I will be partnering with my friend, Ashley Easter, to present the Emerge: Unleash Your Empowered Self Retreat.

This retreat is open to all women, and is focused on unleashing your empowered self whether or not you’ve experienced abuse. What a great opportunity for you and the women in your circle to receive empowering coaching from experienced coaches, practical tools you can take home with you to better your life, and much-needed self-care and sisterhood time.

During this 3-day women's only weekend, you will be empowered to:

• Understand the body/brain stress response system and how activation interferes with your capacity to be connected and present with yourself and others
• Learn to unlock your inner guidance system - your intuition - so you can follow your path to freedom and success
• Develop a deep capacity to feel all of your feelings so you are not constantly flooded and overwhelmed
• Reclaim your empowered self so you emerge with a clear vision of the good enough, strong enough, wise enough, beautiful enough phenomenal woman you are

And that’s not all! You’ll also experience:

• Beautiful luxury meeting spaces
• Beach access, excursion, and relaxation and self-care time
• Sisterhood Happy Hour (on us!)
• Subversive art and craft self-expression session
• Sound healing
• Guided meditations and grounding skills
• And more!

We are calling in 15 aligned women to join us for this powerful experience 
(5 of those spots are already taken!)

Early Bird Registration
Closes January 23rd

Learn More & Register Here

It's been 13 years in the making, but I count that as divine timing since I was born on December 13th!

For me, this is one of the biggest moments when living Beyond Surviving feels really real and meaningful and powerful. Dreams can be illusive. It can be hard to hold onto them in the face of setbacks. And yet, with some grit and determination and optimism and patience, we can arrive exactly where we've always hoped to be.

I truly hope you will consider this opportunity as a way to invest in yourself and your healing so you to can take further steps to making your own vision for your life a reality.

To dreams coming true,

P.S. For the men....It is definitely my intention to create a retreat for you all too! For now, I hope that you will consider sharing this with the women in your life who you would love to empower! Download this masterclass on Achieving Your Dreams: 3 Mistakes Survivors of Sexual Abuse Must Avoid. Read about the 7 things to keep in mind while pursuing your dreams. What dreams are you ready to see realized?  BOOK OF THE MONTH Based on a true story of 1 of the 1,000+ victims of the unprecedented Pennsylvania sexual abuse exposed in the recent Grand Jury Report, which exposes systemic abuse over more than two decades across six of the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses. This award-winning book explores the devastating effects of abuse in one man’s life in an effort to help readers begin to count the cost to the victims as well as generations of loved ones impacted by this scandal. Denial received an endorsement from Jay Exum, a former Assistant United States Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, who prosecuted child sex abuses cases for more than a decade: "Denial is the story of how sexual abuse plays out over the course of a life. It does so honestly, without either soft-selling things that are dark and difficult or exploiting extremely emotional content for cheap sympathy.” READ MORE HERE! UPCOMING EVENTS Early Bird Registration Closes January 23rd Learn More & Register Here December: Grief As survivors of childhood abuse, all of us have suffered multiple losses that need to be worked through for us to recover. Learn More & Register Here

Riding the Tidal Waves of Trauma

In this final piece, our guest blogger this month shares some powerful tips for riding the waves of feelings that arise on a healing journey.

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When I remember parts of my childhood trauma, it has a crispness and clarity to the colours, sounds and smells like it all happened yesterday.  Emotionally it comes in waves.  Sometimes the waves are small and I can keep surfing.  Other times, they are tidal waves that threaten to crash for weeks on end but usually, these days, just dissipate into a calm normal. 

At 46, I’ve learned what these waves are and I've learned how to treat them.  I see them, I remember, I ramp up the self-care and most importantly, I accept that they are a part of who I am.

There are 3 key ingredients to my transition from recovery to recovered:

1.   Self-care Routine – this must be number one on the daily for me.  If I take my vitamins and minerals, exercise, sleep enough, eat right, don’t drink too much, listen to inspirational material, spend time with my hobbies (singing, painting, gardening [oh geez  I sound exciting ! hahaha]) I believe I minimise the intensity and frequency of uncomfortable triggering by at LEAST 50%, more like 80% I’d say.

2.   Boundaries – that’s boundaries with myself and for other people.  I make sure I spend a certain amount of time on my studies, with my daughter (if she lets me – she’s a teenager now), because it is a definable way that I can tick a box saying “you’re doing OK”. Boundaries for other people is more or less for me knowing when and how to say “no” or “how about this?” and letting them own their reaction for my choices, and congratulating myself for making a choice based on my needs and wants (which are still inherently considerate of others) and being proud that I can even know what I want.

3.   Lastly, a big one.  Bigger than forgiveness, bigger than anything.  Letting go of the idea that I could ever be the person I might have been without the abuse. 

My abuse started as a tiny baby.  There was no “unabused version” of me to draw from.  In that way it could have made it easier for me to let go of something that was never really there.  I did examine myself and looks at my potential and drive, intelligence and creativity and be angry about how much I COULD have done with that had I not been in bed under the covers, or hiding out.

Realising that the way I was built was special, changed me.  I had a bunch of tools, kinks, gifts and impediments unique to me.  The unrelenting neurological pathways and the addiction to cortisol, the heightened emotions, no stable short or long term memory, talented and productive one minute, nowhere to be found the next, the desire for nothing but intense conversations, saying I love you too much, my passion for the painful truth; make me an interesting, but not easy person to be around. 

How was I going to turn this pile of rusty spare parts and diamonds into a masterpiece?

I have been consciously working on myself as a project since I was 19.  With no real identified goal that I could picture, I fumbled along experimenting with religion, drugs, schools of psychology, jobs – all searching for what made me feel real.  I didn’t think of it in terms of being authentic but that was exactly the feeling I was looking for.  I found glimpses and I followed them, but it never lasted.  I went around and around in circles for a long time too.  I tried on anger, pity, fear, sadness, disgust but they just seemed to attract all the things I was trying to avoid. Eventually I studied my relationships because they taught me what parts of me needed healing.

The biggest challenge, and this is probably the same for everyone, has been my role as a Mother.  Experiencing what it is to love a child so unimaginably deeply and grappling with how anyone could ever let harm befall them.  I’ve also had to tussle and brawl with myself in those all too frequent moments of realisation of when I see my own mother in my words and actions.  Perpetuating a cycle was never an option for me and my love for my daughter has been the catalyst for my most difficult changes. Learning to forgive myself quickly is good.  Trusting my instincts.  Getting up when I don’t want to and choosing kindness over anger.  These changes have all been really, really hard.  My worst nightmare was that she would hate me, but she doesn’t.  Now, I am pretty sure I’ve done a good job.  She is healthy in every way, self-aware, sets boundaries and she’s ready for the world. She only really needs me to love her, to be authentic, to be a reliable soft place and make sure there is food in the fridge and this I can do.

I’m now in a relationship that I hope sticks.  He’s kind, smart, funny and gentle and he seems to love me just the way I am.  He’s the first person I’ve told about having CPTSD and I am sure that his acceptance helped me find purpose in all that pain.

Finding that purpose helped me to take another step back from my own experience as an observer.  Now when I have flashbacks, or nightmares, or I just feel scared for no logical reason, I wonder “How can I use this experience to help others with CPTSD”.  So now, I write blogs, and in January 2020 I’m launching a podcast, YouTube channel and Facebook page dedicated to providing information to people with CPTSD, creating a community with ideas on treatments and hopefully pathways for healing.

Rachel Grant was the first person I found when I started googling CPTSD.  She gave me this opportunity to take a brave leap that I hadn’t taken for a while.  It has taken me 4 or 5 months to complete this blog and I have had tears in my eyes the whole time.  It hasn’t been easy.  I want to thank Rachel.  Her openness, understanding and acceptance of that first email I sent reaching out; and then her support and encouragement, not only in this blog but as a guest on my podcast. 

Every time you cry or scream or be silent - own it and give yourself a high five for being brave.  When it doesn’t feel brave, hug yourself for allowing yourself to go deep and be vulnerable (which is also brave by the way)

The bits, gadgets, screws and gizmos, joy, pain, anger and grief that make up who you are can be pulled together and shaped into whatever you like.    Just keep on building.  And you are definitely not alone.

My Doctor Abused Me...and I Couldn't Do Anything About It

This week, our guest blogger continues her story, exploring how trauma she experienced at the hands of medical professionals, a powerful moment of healing, and the turning point when she finally got that she deserved to heal.

Contains graphic imagery

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Between the ages of 15 and 28 I dissociated a lot.  I also depersonalised and derealised but had no idea what was going on.  I wonder sometimes, especially after watching United States of Tara, whether I have D.I.D.  I had clearly defined personalities that appeared like a second skin depending on my situation.  Some of these personalities or facades, I was completely conscious and aware of the fact I was wearing this “skin” and observed it like watching an actor in a play.  With other personalities, I lost time, sometimes huge chunks, like months, but I always put it down to a poor memory, which I definitely have.  For example, I can’t remember anything bar two or three moments from my high school years.  It’s almost as bad for the better part of my 20s.

One thing I do remember, is when I was 19, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer that rapidly moved to Stage 3.  The cancer was all over my uterus and cervix. The Doctor that took my pap smear abused me, rubbing my clitoris, labia minora and majora and fingered me in a sexual way.  It would not surprise someone who has been abused before that I did not realise at first, my mind was on the horrible freezing cold metal speculum still inserted and that he eventually wound up way too wide.  I never said anything to him or anyone else about this.  Why would I? At this stage, I had consciously accepted that there was something about me that made people do things and it was therefore my fault that they did them.  If at all possible, I should give it away, before they could take it, though this was not the case with the doctor.  I thought you were safe with doctors.

Between the ages of 19-23, I was in and out of hospital.  I had several colposcopies, biopsies, a treatment where they used a hot metal rod like a soldering iron to burn away the bad cells, drugs and I think chemoradiotherapy.  It is all a big blur really except for one vivid memory.  To set this up, I had met my oncologist at the hospital for an update.  At this point no treatment was working and some even seemed to accelerate it so they started talking about doing a hysterectomy.  I didn’t really care.  At that time, children were the last thing I wanted.  Being a mother conjured up nightmare images for me and there was nothing about it that appealed.  I stayed in the hospital that night and had an extremely bizarre experience which I will try to explain.

I laid in bed watching TV then my vision slightly changed almost like the lights were turned up a lot brighter.  From inside of me, my stomach and lungs I could feel a vibration like I had swallowed a ringing mobile phone.  It wasn’t unpleasant and slowly over an hour or two it got slightly stronger but covered my entire body.  I lay on the bed feeling this way for what can only be described as “forever and one second at the same time”. The only change in this stage was a burst of intensity in the light and the vibration at one point but I don’t know how long it went for at all.  It was after this burst that I finally went to sleep.  

The next morning, I had another colposcopy so they could determine when I should get booked in for the hysterectomy.  Instead, they discovered, using a tiny camera projected on a TV screen, that the cancerous area had dramatically reduced, like by a third.  I was left in the examination room for an hour while they checked back on previous records to verify the change.  It was real.  No one knew why.  They told me to come back in a week, it had halved again and within 6 weeks it was completely gone.

At this time, I did not remember that weird vibration experience, or link it with the disappearance of the cancer until many years later.  I have my own opinion about what happened there, and no one else has a better explanation, so one day I might write about that in more detail, and more openness.  

I do know that the experience of having a wholly toxic reproductive system (as a result, at least in part, for its malicious and devastating treatment) and its inexplicable, freakish and possibly theurgic transformation into one that could create life had a deep subconscious effect on me.  I had been getting counselling since I was 18 to help me heal my past.  I’d had CBT, ACT, scream therapy, laughter therapy, kinesiology, past life regression, shiatsu, acupuncture.  I worked as a corporate bitch in I.T.,  was a professional musician (something I equally loved and hated but didn’t know why), and did a Diploma in Energetic and Spiritual Healing where I studied religions from all over the world and their medical and healing modalities.  

I absorbed information, ticked boxes and more importantly I think, I created a list of questions a mile long.  At that stage, I did have something of a framework that I built from slices of everything I had currently learned.  It was super complicated and beyond my ability to verbalise, but I felt it and I Knew it and it gave me a path to walk along. I had most of the pieces Geppetto would have needed to create a realistic marionette.  My strings were pulled by everything I had learned, including the trauma, but now I held a big, fat, shiny pair of scissors.  It became my project to self-actualise.  And the best thing about that was, it did not feel like a selfish act.



Read Part 4: Riding the Tidal Waves of Trauma

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The Abruptness of Traumatic Bullying

In this next installment, our guest blogger this week speaks to the shifts in her life that led to loss and then bullying and how these abrupt experiences set her on a self-destructive path that also masqueraded as control. She also explores briefly the impact of trauma on identity.

Contains graphic imagery

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Mum and Dad got divorced when I was 9.  They told us kids on one of the best days we’d ever had.  Nan and Pop (who I loved) were visiting, and we went all together as a family to a park and had a picnic.  It was so much fun.  When we got home, they sat us down at the dining room table and Dad told us, “Your mother and I have decided to separate”. 

I BURST out laughing then tried to hide it which made me giggle more. (I used to do this weird uncontrollable laughter at the most inappropriate times thing.  I grew out of it when I was in my late 20s).  My mother didn’t look at me disapprovingly, so I knew that whatever was happening was bigger than any of us. I didn’t cry about the divorce until I was 19. 

For a year or so, Mum planned to move us somewhere else and in the meantime, I was busy with surviving my neighbourhood, playing softball, avoiding abduction, singing at a school thing at Sydney Opera House and spending every second weekend with my brother at his new job at a Dog and Cat Kennel.  

He promised to pay me $5 a weekend for “Poo Patrol” for 30+ dogs morning and night which he never did.  He humiliated me constantly and I couldn’t get enough.  This is also a time, the only time, I can barely think about, let alone talk about.  I’ve spoken the words once to a therapist, just to tick that box, otherwise that part of my life is a memory, forever securely wrapped in chains and clear cellophane.

Two years later, we (Mum, me (11), my sister (7) and brother (16)) moved to the country.  I was excited about it. I started a new school, I made some friends, got really good grades and participated in sport and musical theatre. Year 7 and 8 at high school was the most stable and happy I’d ever felt.  

Without notice, on the second day of Year 9, Mum changed my school to one closer to home.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to my friends as it was well before the days of the internet.  It was an abrupt halt to those friendships, and I never saw most of them again.  

Anyway, my NEW school was in a town that was primarily populated by one family and relatives thereof, and from the moment I stepped inside the school grounds I was bullied to the point of a suicide attempt.  I remember sitting in the quadrangle alone while “fellow” students picked up small rocks and egged each other on to throw them at me, one stone every 5 seconds or so for the whole lunch hour.  They weren’t big, or even really hurt that much, though I suspect the cortisol and adrenaline had my nervous system occupied with deeper tasks than measuring the pain inflicted by gravel at 40kms an hour.  I sat still, like it wasn’t happening except I was postured to protect my eyes and I never said a word.  It stopped when the bell rang, and I’d get up and go to class. No one ever did anything to stop it.  

Another thing I remember was when a group of girls came up to me, super friendly and asked me if I wanted to come and share some junk food in the English Room.  I said yes, but was confused and hopeful, and I followed them there.  I sat up on one of the school desks, trepidatious but smiling in a friendly way then BAM a red-hot poker hits my face, BAM another and another.  They took turns slapping me, punching me or whacking my face and body with hands and a rolled-up magazine.  I did not see this coming and I was too shocked to defend myself.  I was at least a foot taller and certainly more athletic than any of them.  This was a real breakdown point for me.  

When it was over, I went upstairs to a teacher’s room.  My English teacher was in there and I told her what happened.  She let me stay in the room for the rest of lunch.  I called her 20 years later to thank her and she remains one of the most significant saviours in my life.  But after that, I gave in and gave up.  I thought, if you can’t beat them, join them.  So, I started to drink, smoke pot and have sex because they told me too.  I was mincemeat in a plastic shopping bag, but as a teenager seeking social interaction, at least I wasn’t alone anymore.

I started a journal and used to write in it every night.  It is the only thing that stopped me from really taking the suicide plunge.  I left my journal by accident out on the kitchen table one night and true to form, not respecting my privacy, my mother read it.  The next day she said, “I read your journal last night”.  I was scared of her reaction to my illegal, unsafe and unseemly behaviour but all she said was “I can’t believe after everything I do for you that you have the gall to complain that I ask you to make me a coffee”.  I told her it wasn’t the coffee, but that it feels like that is all she ever says to me.  This was, predictably, followed by an ear-splitting rant about my inadequacies and her “hard-done-bys”.  

I must take a moment here to mention that there were a couple of times my Mum went out of her way to protect me.

As a mother, I came to understand that every second of every day was about protecting and preparing your child.  As a sole parent, I understood how hard it must have been with 3 kids to try to cover all the bases, especially with her level of self-awareness and paradigm.  

This time, at this school, was the worst period of my life.  I was seriously lost, completely depressed and everyone around me, including my family as usual, were gunning to stifle any sign of happiness I could muster.  I was rewarded for isolating.  And it was at this time I started self-harming, I made one 75% attempt at suicide and I also started secretly acting out in ways I don’t want to discuss.

After losing my virginity to a lovely boy when I was almost 15, I went nuts!  It’s textbook promiscuity, and self-medication.  I would go out on a Friday and Saturday night and get as drunk as possible and have sex with whoever.  I started smoking pot too, a lot of it, I dabbled in Amyl Nitrite and was pretty sure a few joints I smoked were laced with something or another, but I didn’t care.  

I’d thankfully changed to another school at this point and if I was having sex, I felt in control.   After a few years the rush of conquering another man grew dull, I started to feel shame, disgust.  I was called a slut and a druggo, but they also liked me, thought I was funny, and happily let me flit in and out of their cliques.  I believe these brief and cyclical connections were some of the first I had to build an identity upon, not having an untraumatized identity to start with.


Read Part 3: My Doctor Abused Me...and I Couldn't Do Anything About It