STORYTELLHER

As a child, I was abandoned by my mother. This left an indelible mark on my worthiness: if my own mother didn’t want me, what could I be worth? I lived with this subconscious belief clouding my life’s experiences for decades. Not that you would have known any of this if you’d met me back then. I hustled, doing great work behind the scenes, and made my bosses and colleagues look wonderful—as long as they didn’t notice me, I was happy. Or at least happy enough. It was in this energy and with these beliefs that I attracted a husband who abused me. One day, I found myself behind three locked doors and on the telephone with 911 as my then-husband crashed around downstairs, tossing furniture and throwing crockery. How had I gotten to this point? I didn’t know, but I vowed at that moment to escape—and finally dug into the trauma that had brought me to that low point. As I wrote and spoke about my trauma, something incredible happened: extreme healing. Leaning into the worst moments of my li