Going Forward: Survivors to Thrivers

Does our Survivors to Thrivers statement speak to you?
- Do you believe you have astonishing capacity and can manifest your full potential?
- Do you believe that you can reclaim your story, free from past pain, guilt or shame?
- Do you believe that we can, as a community, create a supportive place to encourage victims of trauma and abuse?

Please let me know how we can support you.
- We seek to provide encouragement through these posts and our blogs.
- We also provide individual guidance if you need support taking the healing steps.

Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]

Continuing to take advantage of spring's inspirational beauty, how does this quote speak to you?

I wonder... what if we didn't worry about how we are going to bloom. What if we opened up and turned toward the light?

I invite you to go out today and see what flowers "speak" to you.
- What is it that makes them so beautiful?
- What can you learn from them?

The Shift Your Reality Podcast seeks to encourage others to claim their worthiness and embrace healthy, life-giving practices.

Kubra Ozmen Ozguvenc and I bridged the time zone divide between the US and Belgium to have an incredible conversation about healing, hope and living a life of abundance.

I hope you will join us, link is in the bio.

Can you envision yourself being this butterfly?

Maybe you have just spread your wings for the first time and can feel the air lifting you upward.
- Breathe in that sense of lightness and freedom.
- Where will it take you?
- What awaits you and your beautiful journey?

What a wonderful opportunity to chat with Australia-based Madeleine Heather! Listen to get inspired to Reclaim You and Your Narrative! (link in bio)

Reclaim Me is a podcast where survivors of abuse and trauma can tell their stories freely, reclaiming their voice, reclaiming the narrative, and reclaiming control.

I started asking myself the "I wonder" questions when I was in my mid-30s needing to heal that little girl who was hurt so many years ago.

In some ways I had been inching through life as a caterpillar, functioning just fine but not manifesting my full potential.

I needed to cocoon; I needed to form a chrysalis of self-reflection and healing to transform into who I was meant to be.

I still need that cocoon at times, when doubt comes or growth is needed.

Have you allowed yourself the time to cocoon?
- What did it look like?
- OR, what IF you allowed yourself the opportunity?
- What would you want it to look like?

My answer beneath all of this is that I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

Many of us have wondered what happened to us as children.

The wounding can be from abuse that we have seen or experienced.

If we don’t heal those wounds, we carry them deep within us.

I hope this encourages you to begin or continue your healing journey.

Have you seen how being curious allows you to expand in your life?

It has helped me be creative and find answers.

In my 30s, I found myself asking, “I wonder what caused the panic attack in my workplace?”

I had never experienced a panic attack before. I asked myself, “What’s that about?”

Being open to exploring and not pushing this awareness down was a step into my healing journey.

When my daughter was little, I was her Sunday School teacher at church. The curriculum was called Godly Play.

We learned to ask the question: “I wonder.”

As an adult, I wish I had been taught to wonder when I was little.

What value have you found from being curious and wondering?

Continuing to explore the marvel of metamorphosis, here are a couple of things to ponder:
- I wonder if the caterpillar had any idea what it would become?
- I wonder if any thought was given to creating the chrysalis that nurtured the evolution?
- How are you like the caterpillar?
- What would you want to embrace?

As we enter the month of May and are fully in the season of spring, I invite us to think about what we can learn from the beauty around us.

The butterfly/caterpillar’s metamorphosis has always brought a sense of wonder to me:
- How can something so seemingly ordinary transform into something so beautiful?
- What have been your reflections on this incredible transition?

I invite you to read this month's blog, which further explores the possibilities of transformation. survivorstothrivers.com/blog