My Healing Journey: From Trauma to Self-Leadership

I didn’t know I had experienced trauma.

I got sober at twenty‑seven. Seven months later, I had an emotional collapse at the grocery store where I worked. One minute I was stocking shelves. The next, something inside me broke open.

I didn’t know what was happening. No one else did either.

A sober friend rushed me to a treatment center, where I spent the next twenty‑eight days. I never experienced anything like that again. But now, years later, I believe what surfaced was emotional pain I had been numbing for most of my life.

I remember hiding under a desk in a backroom office for hours, overwhelmed, emotions completely out of control. Something buried had erupted.

And I had no language for it.

When Thinking Replaced Feeling

During treatment, a counselor kept asking me how I felt about being there.

I answered by explaining what I thought.

He kept asking.
I kept explaining.

Eventually, he stopped.

I didn’t understand the difference between thinking and feeling. His question genuinely didn’t make sense to me. I had spent nearly three decades disconnected from my emotional world.

I stayed sober.

But I wasn’t healed.

Realizing My Childhood Wasn’t “Normal”

A little over two years into sobriety, I attended my first Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting.

People shared stories of violence, neglect, dysfunction, and abuse. Some wept openly. Others raged. A few of us told our stories calmly, almost mechanically.

That’s when I began to understand: what I experienced growing up wasn’t normal. It wasn’t healthy.

But I still didn’t consciously feel anything about it.

Inside, however, I was a ticking time bomb.

Impatience.
Anger.
Depression.
Fear.
Anxiety.

I hated myself.

My marriage was unraveling. I had been insecure and controlling from the very beginning. I wanted to act differently. I wanted to feel differently. But I didn’t know how to change.

After ten years together, I was terrified I was going to destroy it.

Desperate for Change

After reading The Primal Scream, I searched for a Primal Therapist but couldn’t find one. Instead, I joined a Bioenergetics therapy group in Vancouver, Washington.

Once a week for six months, we twisted towels, beat pillows, screamed into mattresses, and threw adult-sized tantrums.

It felt ridiculous.

But I was desperate.

I believed that if I could release whatever was trapped inside me from childhood trauma, I might finally be free.

And something shifted.

After ten years of insecurity and distrust, it simply stopped.

I wasn’t managing myself. I wasn’t trying harder. I wasn’t using willpower.

The suspicion was just… gone.

For the first time, I experienced internal change that didn’t require effort.

Loss, Codependency, and More Pain

Three years later, my wife died of a brain tumor.

I was nine years sober.

Despite the healing I had experienced, I was still deeply wounded.

Within days of her funeral, I entered the first of several disastrous codependent relationships. Over the next two years, I became involved with five women before marrying my second wife — someone whose wounds matched my own.

For nine years, I tolerated verbal assaults and emotional volatility. Eventually, I left. I was afraid that if I stayed, I might lose control and hurt her.

Now sober seventeen years, I felt more broken than ever.

Except for the Bioenergetics work, very little true healing had occurred. I was functioning. But inside, I was desperate.

Discovering The Work of Byron Katie

Then I found The Work of Byron Katie.

For the first time, I learned how to question my own thoughts.

The Work is a simple yet powerful process built around four questions that help identify and investigate stressful beliefs. Instead of trying to fix other people, manage my emotions, or control outcomes, I began examining what I was believing.

Over the next twelve years, I practiced The Work consistently. I attended therapy. I participated in personal development seminars. I read everything I could get my hands on. I continued 12‑step meetings and remained sober.

Slowly, steadily, something changed.

Not dramatically.
Not all at once.

But genuinely.

Developing the Capacity for Healthy Love

I committed to developing the capacity for a healthy relationship.

For twelve years, I dated cautiously. Aside from one four‑month disaster that reminded me how much growth I still needed, I stayed out of committed relationships.

When I met my current wife, I had been practicing The Work for eight years.

Apparently, I had healed enough.

We’ve now been together for almost thirteen years.

Internal Family Systems and Becoming “Self”

The same year I met my wife, I began seeing a few clients as a life coach while working full‑time to pay the bills. In 2015, I left my corporate job and committed to coaching full‑time.

After completing a one‑year coach training program, I unexpectedly lost my confidence. I returned to therapy, determined to understand why.

That’s when I discovered Internal Family Systems (IFS).

IFS gave language and structure to what I had sensed for years — that we all carry wounded parts, and beneath them exists something steady and whole.

Over the next three years, I became more aligned with what IFS calls the Self — the calm, clear, compassionate core within each of us.

I entered Level 1 training in 2019.
I became a Certified IFS Practitioner in 2021.
I continue doing my own IFS work privately, in therapy, and with fellow practitioners.

The healing didn’t stop.

It deepened.

Healing Is Not Linear

Each of us has a unique healing journey.

We are wounded in different ways.
We develop different survival strategies.
Eventually, those strategies stop working.

The pace of our recovery reflects the depth of our wounds and the intensity of the defenses we built to survive.

My path included sobriety, Bioenergetics, The Work of Byron Katie, therapy, 12‑step recovery, and Internal Family Systems.

Each step mattered.
Each step moved me closer to who I truly am.

If You Feel Broken

If you feel discouraged, confused, or fundamentally flawed, I understand.

I spent years believing something was wrong with me.

Stay the course.

Find a healing modality that resonates with you. Increase self-awareness. Question your thoughts. Get support.

Every step you take away from trauma is a step toward healing.

For me, those steps have led to an ever‑increasing experience of my true Self — calmer, clearer, less reactive, more connected.

And that journey is still unfolding.