Cinnamon & Rose

Thriving after Trauma
Instagram

Hi there! My name is Colette and I work, first and foremost, with survivors of family and domestic violence through Root Cause Therapy (RCT), Emotion Code, Chakra work, and energy work, in a safe, welcoming, non-judgemental space, so that they can begin healing from abuse and start thriving.

…

After leaving family and domestic violence, you’ve taken steps to start rediscovering who you are and rebuilding your life, finding little bits of beauty amongst the ruins. But you weren’t expecting it to be this hard.

The light at the end of the path seems so close, yet so far away. Along the path? Shadows, fear, and anxiety about what is to come.

You may find yourself:

  • Having flashbacks, body pain, and becoming triggered out of what feels like no-where, which is keeping you feeling overwhelmed, stressed, hurting, and exhausted;
  • Staying small or silent for fear of angering, annoying, or pushing away the people around you;
  • Feeling unable to make decisions, or trust that you can even make a decision, because every decision feels like the wrong one;
  • Wanting to let all your feelings out and scream, cry, yell, laugh, but you’ve heard so many times that you’re too dramatic, hysterical, and/or overemotional, or that you’re being manipulative, that you won’t do it. Or maybe you can’t, no matter how hard you try;
  • Wanting to go for a new job, start a business, take up a new hobby or make new friends, but you’ve been made to feel worthless, unimportant, and like you can’t do anything right so many times that you wonder whether there’s even any point, and you end up sabotaging yourself;
  • Wanting to put yourself out there and start dating again, but the thought of dating another person fills you with anxiety: how do I tell the difference between the good ones and the ones that will hurt me? What if the good ones are all gone and this is as good as it gets?, and/or;
  • Asking yourself: Do I even deserve to be happy and have good things in my life?

But you know that there must be more than this.

And you want it. Badly.

  • You want to find your way through the shadows and fear.
  • You want to trust yourself and rely on your intuition, senses, and memory.
  • You want to see the world and the people around you for what and who they are.
  • You want to love and be loved.
  • You want to rise above everything weighing you down and thrive.

You’ve tried to tell yourself that reacting and responding the way you are isn’t rational. You’re not in that situation anymore: you should be doing things differently.

Perhaps you’ve gone to therapy, or learned some coping mechanisms, and have become aware of your patterns. You can catch them after they start and use various techniques to manage them. But repeatedly doing that is exhausting. Time-consuming. Sometimes you just avoid the triggering situations altogether to avoid the stress, even if it heavily inconveniences you, because you just… you just can’t that day.

Let me tell you a secret: it’s not your fault that you’re struggling. You are not a failure because you got out of an abusive situation and didn’t quickly start thriving.

What’s happening is that, even though your trauma occurred in the past, your mind and body think you are still living it in the present. As a result, your mind and body are running in survival mode.

This helps you when you need to survive. But once you start moving from surviving to thriving, it sabotages you instead.

I understand this all too well, because I’ve lived it.

  • I’ve experienced physical, mental, emotional, sexual, social, and financial abuse. I’ve experienced coercive control.
  • I know what it’s like to have someone gaslight me, cast blame on me unfairly, twist my words, and tear down my self esteem and self worth.
  • I’ve experienced what it’s like to have lies told about me, and have experienced attempted character assassination.
  • I’ve used coping mechanisms to manage triggering situations, and have avoided situations to avoid triggers, even when it was detrimental to me.
  • I’ve felt weighed down by the world, drowning in stress and feelings of hopelessness and despair.

And yet, I’m still here and on the path of thriving.

Because thriving after abuse isn’t a destination: it’s a journey of ups and downs, and evolving goals, needs, and desires. For such a journey, I believe in facilitating healing from mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual/energetic perspectives.

Root Cause Therapy combines timeline and somatic therapy to release trapped emotions and physiological responses from past trauma, so that your mind and body can stop living within that past trauma, and move forward down the path of thriving.

But more than that, it can help you uncover the truth and stop your trauma memories from gaslighting you. These memories hold all the things your abuser(s) made you believe about yourself, and shining a light on the truth will help set you free, so you can reprogram your thoughts and beliefs.

I want to make something very clear though: Not all of your survival patterns will necessarily be outdated. And I refuse to gaslight you into releasing survival patterns if you still need them. Survival patterns do not count as limiting if they are helping to keep you safe and alive.

Sounds good? Amazing.

If you:

  • Identify as Female or Non-Binary;
  • Are a survivor of family and/or domestic violence/abuse;
  • Want to stop just surviving, and start thriving, but feel like you can’t move forward;
  • Are in Australia (or can work around ACDT/ACST), and;
  • Are either open to, or excited to, engage in energy work that brings the magic to your healing (Chakra work? Tarot? Altars? Spells and/or Rituals? You name it, we can probably do it).

Then I invite you to journey with me into your past and future, so we can heal your trauma, and create the life you desire!