THE DEEPLY PERSONAL PART

As a friend once said to me . . . I’m sure it was in fun . . . 

They don’t make violins big enough!

I was born on the Canadian prairies where, they say, you can sit and watch your dog run away . . . for days. (My grandparents were homesteaders in Alberta.) A one-room schoolhouse is where I spent my first three years of school.

But that isn’t what you came here to read, is it?

Mine was not a happy childhood.  All the themes and patterns were set early: a traumatic childhood that included a sledding accident at age four that left me in a coma and memories of being rescued a year later from a fire a fire that destroyed our home and business.

Exposure to domestic violence and nighttime threats of murder-suicide were a constant in my childhood. Adult traumas included PTSD from resulting from an attack at knife point, and a sexual assault that ended my marriage when my youngest child was five days old.  Accidents, a painful divorce, single parenthood, gaslighting, loss of the successful business I had co-founded 9 years earlier, work and personal betrayals, lawsuits, financial fiascoes, relationship failures, four-year on-the-job sexual harassment, the untimely death by cancer of my best friend /colleague/admin support, and an accident at my gym that resulted in a debilitating 9-year bout with Fibromyalgia. (Had the t-shirt and the disabled parking pass.) 

Perhaps like you . . . and so many of my clients . . . I suffered in silence for many, many years after the rape and the later sexual harassment because I felt no one would believe me. And I didn’t trust anyone with my secrets.

Out of shame. I underwent years of various conventional therapies. (Earning me the right to judge them totally ineffective!)

Thirty years, three psychiatrists, several psychotherapists and energy psychology practitioners later, I was still not happy.

In search of relief, I spent over $125,000 on various energy psychology methods, training courses, seminars, conferences, and certifications.

Things were fine, I thought, until my thriving Asia consulting practice collapsed along with the economy in 2007-2008.

The financial failure of my business brought up the old emotional scars and created a year-long state of paralysis and self-doubt.

Until I saw Dr. Norman Doidge, M.D. interview on PBS about his book, The Brain That Changes Itself.

The discovery of neuroscience changed my life. And now it can change yours.