For over a decade as a life and mindset coach, I’ve sat across from countless clients who apologized for being “too sensitive,” wondered why they couldn’t “just get over” their anxiety, or believed their struggles were simply part of their personality. What broke my heart wasn’t just their struggle—it was how many had no idea they were carrying the invisible weight of trauma.
Over time, I began noticing patterns. The millennial executive who couldn’t set boundaries without feeling guilty. The Gen Z college student who dissociated during stressful conversations. The young parent who felt disconnected from their own body. They all shared something in common: childhood experiences that had never been named, processed, or understood as trauma.
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When Research Becomes Personal
I’ve always drawn wisdom from the books I read, but “The Body Keeps the Score” hit different. Dr. van der Kolk’s groundbreaking work on how trauma lives in the body provided the missing pieces I’d been searching for in my coaching practice—and in my own life. Suddenly, the research made sense of what I was seeing in my clients and what I had experienced myself.
As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I understood the confusion my clients felt. For years, I thought my memory gaps, low self-worth, and overwhelming shame were just “who I was.” It wasn’t until I began studying trauma research that I realized these weren’t character flaws—they were my mind and body’s way of protecting me from overwhelming experiences that I couldn’t process at the time.
My fascination with neuroplasticity and brain development through various courses I’ve taken has shown me that what the brain learns, it can also unlearn. The same neural pathways that created survival responses can be gently rewired for healing.
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The Silent Epidemic
The statistics are staggering, but they don’t capture the human reality: one in three girls and one in six boys experience sexual abuse before age 18. Yet many of these survivors, now adults, have never connected their current struggles to their past experiences. They live with anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, and a deep sense that something is fundamentally wrong with them—never realizing they’re dealing with unprocessed trauma.
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The Privacy Paradox
As both a coach and a survivor, I recognized a critical gap in the healing resources available. Most trauma recovery books and programs assume you’re ready to talk about what happened. They encourage you to “share your story,” join support groups, or process your experiences with a therapist.
But here’s what I know from my own journey and from working with survivors: many people aren’t ready to tell their story. And they shouldn’t have to.
Some survivors don’t have safe people to tell. Others aren’t ready to put words to experiences that still feel too overwhelming. Some have told their story and been dismissed, blamed, or retraumatized by the response. And many simply need privacy—a chance to heal on their own terms, in their own time, without the pressure to perform their trauma for others.
The question that drove me to write this book was: Can you heal from sexual trauma without having to tell anyone what happened?
The answer is yes. And that’s what this book is about.
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Tools for Private Healing
Over the years, I began compiling exercises and approaches that honored the need for privacy while still facilitating real healing. Body-based practices that help regulate the nervous system. Writing exercises that process trauma without requiring disclosure. Mindfulness techniques adapted specifically for traumatized nervous systems.
These weren’t just theoretical exercises—they were tools I used in my own healing and that I watched transform my clients’ lives. I saw people who thought they’d never feel safe in their bodies again learn to breathe deeply. I witnessed survivors who believed they were “broken” discover their resilience. I watched as people reconnected with parts of themselves they thought were lost forever.
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When the Words Just Flowed
I didn’t plan to write this book. It wasn’t on my calendar or part of some strategic business plan. One day, I simply sat down and started writing—and the words just flowed.
But here’s what I know to be true: those weren’t my words. God provided every single one. I was simply being obedient, showing up at my keyboard, and allowing Him to work through me. This book is His story of redemption, written through my fingers. I get to be the vessel, but He gets all the credit for the healing message within these pages.
I’ve always been fascinated by neuroplasticity and how the brain develops and heals. The courses I’ve taken on brain science, combined with my own healing journey and years of coaching survivors, all came together in those writing sessions—but not by my design. It felt less like I was creating something and more like I was uncovering what God had already prepared, like He’d been storing up these words inside me, waiting for the right moment to pour them out.
There were days I sat down not knowing what to write, and the words came anyway. There were chapters I didn’t think I was qualified to write, and God provided the wisdom. This wasn’t my strength or my expertise alone—it was divine inspiration meeting human obedience.
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Conversations That Changed Everything
I have three daughters, and over the years, we’ve had open and ongoing conversations about bodies, boundaries, safety, and healing. Those conversations shaped not just how I parent, but how I think about trauma recovery. They reminded me that healing doesn’t have to happen in silence and shame—but it also doesn’t have to happen on anyone else’s timeline or terms.
Recently, I was talking to a friend I’ve known for almost 50 years. As I shared about the book and my own journey, she said something that stopped me in my tracks: “How is it that I’ve known you for almost five decades and I had no idea?”
That moment crystallized why this book matters. Because even people who love us, who’ve been in our lives for years, often have no idea what we’re carrying. Not because they don’t care, but because we’ve learned to hide it so well. We’ve become experts at appearing fine while everything inside us is still fighting to survive.
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You Don’t Have to Choose Between Healing and Privacy
“Healing What Hides in the Shadows” was born from this realization: you can heal without having to tell your story. Your body knows what happened. Your nervous system remembers. And with the right tools, you can release what’s been trapped without ever having to speak it aloud.
This book is my love letter to every survivor who thought they were “just anxious,” every client who apologized for their sensitivity, and every person who has been told to “get over it” when their body was still trying to protect them from dangers that no longer exist.
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Hope in the Shadows
The shadows don’t have to define you, but they do hold valuable information. They’re not just places of pain—they’re also where your greatest strengths were forged.
Healing isn’t about eliminating your survival responses—it’s about updating them, honoring what they’ve done for you, and gently teaching your nervous system that you’re safe now.
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself, know that you’re not broken. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not making too big a deal of something that happened “so long ago.” You’re a survivor whose body has been trying to protect you, and now it’s time to help your body learn that the danger has passed.
Your healing matters. Your story matters. You matter.
And most importantly—you don’t have to carry this alone anymore.
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