We recently connected with Healing Hope and have shared our conversation below.
Healing Hope, so great to have you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our readers and so let’s jump right into one of our favorite topics – empathy. We think a lack of empathy is at the heart of so many issues the world is struggling with and so our hope is to contribute to an environment that fosters the development of empathy. Along those lines, we’d love to hear your thoughts around where your empathy comes from?
The conditions that allowed me to develop my empathy were being a transracial adoptee at birth, growing up with a younger brother on the Autism Spectrum, experiencing mental health challenges from a young age, surpressing my sexuality until my 20s, finding my biological mother and siblings only to be crucified for my parents’ “sins”, and experiencing prolonged childhood sexual abuse at the hands of several trusted adult men in my life. One of the strongest feelings I remember from childhood is constantly feeling “othered” and I can see that that is because of a combination of the conditions listed above. My adoptive parents decided to be open about my adoption due to information they received during the process. They gave me a scrapbook with information about my biological parents and sisters that let me know my biological mother is white and my biological father is Mexican. That was the last discussion of my race until I was in high school applying for scholarships because I pass for white. At home, my adoptive father was a typical Boomer husband. He made me and my adoptive mother feel bad about our bodies and didn’t try to make things easier for her, especially as my younger brother was getting an Autism diagnosis. He did his best to live through me in my softball career and didn’t begin to have a relationship with my brother until he mentioned suicide at the age of 7. At school, I did my best to make sure that kids didn’t feel alone because I knew what it was like to go home to unsafe people. I never wanted anyone to feel like they couldn’t fully be themselves around me because I was constantly conditioned that I could never be myself. I heard stigma about the BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities from my adoptive father, at school, in my neighborhood, in the Catholic church, and from the adults my family spent time with. Even though I was able to make friends, I could never tell anyone what was really going on at home because I was dissociating from the sexual abuse and was constantly groomed to not question adults, especially parents or those involved in your “faith”.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My empathy hard launched me into my career as Healing Hope. My 5th grade teacher predicted what my classmates and I would do with our lives as adults. In my case, she predicted that I would be a social worker which I tried to fight as I got older. I went to college and got a degree in Organizational Management but after graduating post-COVID I struggled to find a job in the corporate world. I knew I always wanted to be my own boss, so after experiencing an accident that left me out of work I decided to go into business with my soul sister and started a Holistic Wellness company.
Growing Pains Healing Co. was born out of a major spiritual awakening that both my business partner and I experienced separately, but together. For me, it all started with finding an integrative holistic therapist. I sought her out because I was experiencing memory issues on top of my mental health challenges and worsening anxiety-induced diagnoses such as Fibromyalgia, IBS, and Scalp Psoriasis. The first things she said to me were “You have everything you need in order to heal yourself” and “I don’t want to be your therapist forever. If someone has had the same therapist for more than 3 years, it’s not working”. Those things resonated with me immediately because I had never heard them in my previous experience in traditional talk therapy and CBT throughout my childhood. She started treatment with her own style of developmental therapy that aligns with when the 7 main energy centers of the body (also known as chakras) develop. She said, “everything starts at the Root chakra” which is developed from inception to the age of 7. I had some fuzzy memories of that time so she told me to seek out my birth story and talk to my adoptive parents about that time of my life. Connecting with my biological parents and hearing their sides of my birth story made sense, but I did not resonate at all with what my adoptive parents shared. She incorporated energy healing (also known as Reiki) sessions as a part of my treatment which helped my soul come back into my body. I didn’t realize until those sessions that I had been dissociating so much that it was affecting my body through numbness and tingling in my limbs. Within just over a year of her style of therapy and Reiki sessions, I began to unlock my suppressed memories. I had been protecting myself from 2 decades of mental, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of several trusted adult men in my life including my adoptive father and his best friend. Once these memories resurfaced, I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD and I could see how everything turned out the way it did. I understood that I was living a lie for a long time and had been groomed to keep the illusion alive. Those memories allowed me to see that I had been living for others – not myself and my body had been signaling that I was not safe for all of those years. My therapist graciously taught me how to harness the power of Reiki for myself as I began to experience something I call, “Physical Trauma Memories”, where my body was physically releasing memories of abuse that I experienced. As hard and scary reliving those experiences were, Reiki allowed me to stay grounded so I could make sure my body no longer held onto these memories. All of my diagnoses started to get better and that was how I knew I was on the right path. I wanted to share that power with other survivors of complex abuse because I had been told for so long that there was no way for me to get better and that I’d experience the terrible pain and turmoil for the rest of my life. In the second level of my Reiki training, I met my soul sister who later became my business partner. She had been having her own spiritual awakening while I had been having mine and we quickly became the family that we both needed. She wanted to share her power and testimony with the world too so between her ability to connect with others, my business generator mindset, in combination with our spiritual gifts, we birthed Growing Pains Healing Co. to empower resilient communities through Holistic Wellness.
We focus on resilient communities (2SLGBTQIA+, BIPOC, Women, Mental Health Warriors, Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence Survivors, Trauma Survivors, etc.) because as 2 Queer, BIPOC, Women, we understand that these communities have been left out of the systems that have been created and are told that there’s nothing that can be done in order for them to reach a life without pain whether it’s mental, emotional, or physical. I love what my company does because there’s nothing like seeing the look on someone’s face when you validate their experience and feelings. There’s nothing like letting creating a space where someone feels safe enough to let it all go. There’s nothing like being able to empower and educate people on the 8 Dimensions of Wellness and share local wellness resources with them. Our mission is to bring holistic wellness to those that are seeking it. We offer Transformational Packages that include Reiki sessions, Ancestral Healing, Tarot Readings, Intuitive Guidance, Mental Health Coaching, and connecting clients to natural healing resources. Plant Medicine ceremonies can be added to your experience as well. A majority of our services can be provided virtually; however, Plant Medicine ceremonies and Nature Connection sessions are conducted in person. Growing Pains Healing Co. will also begin offering Reiki I and II classes as well as different support groups this year. We’ll also be out in the community with Place of Love and Light a 501-c3 Nonprofit here in Charlotte, NC that allows people in the community to try out holistic wellness services that are available in the area.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Developing my sense of self, spirituality, and knowledge of how the mind and body work together were the most impactful areas of knowledge in my journey.
My advice to folks that are early in their journey is to understand that no one is going to care more about you than yourself. Learn everything you can about yourself, your likes/dislikes, triggers, glimmers, anything that helps you understand why you are the way you are and why you do the things you do. I did this through journaling and going back to my childhood to process, learn, and eventually reprocess where I developed a lot beliefs that were instilled into me about myself. The next step of learning about myself was developing my own beliefs specifically with spirituality. I learned that it is actually one of the 8 Dimensions of Wellness because having an idea of what you believe in (or don’t) is important for you to stand comfortably within yourself. In my case, I knew I experienced trauma from growing up in the Catholic church and that the whole idea of worshipping a hateful straight white man didn’t sit well with me. My therapist helped me understand that the higher power that some people call “God”, I call the Creator and the Universe. Journaling, meditation, and meeting like-minded people were tools that helped me get comfortable in my spirituality. Then I was able to go in deeper to understand the human experience and body. I’ve learned about the way that emotions affect our bodily systems and that helped me understand where they live when we suppress them. I connected with my body through breathwork, yoga, and Reiki sessions. I read books and found resources that could educate me properly. The combination of developing these areas of knowledge has empowered me and given me the confidence I thought I could never achieve.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
When I feel overwhelmed (which happens pretty easily with CPTSD hahaha) I try to slow things down. I’ll start by lighting some incense and doing some breathing exercises to calm my nervous system down. Once I get the physical responses to subside, I’ll go ahead and journal to get my thoughts out of my head. I’ve done a lot of work in order to not have any expectations with journaling so usually when I’m overwhelmed it comes out as a literal brain dump. After I get the immediate thoughts that are swirling in my head out of my head I do my best to prioritize and rationalize them as best as I can. I’m able to realize that when I’m feeling overwhelmed, it’s usually because my inner child is showing up, so by depersonalizing her, I can show up as the adult Hope to say, “that’s not reality, here’s what is, and here’s our plan to get through this”. That wellness tool is considered to be Inner Child Work and the technique is reparenting yourself. If the combination of those things aren’t working, then I go outside. I’ll find a tree to connect with and do some breathwork. If I’m able to, I’d really prefer to be by some water and ground myself with breathwork while sticking my feet (if not my whole body hahaha) in the water.
I also use dance, creative writing, painting, drawing, and coloring as outlets for myself. My advice for others, is do whatever you need to do in order to calm your nervous system down, even if it’s not considered normal or “socially acceptable”. Like I said before, no one is going to care about you more than yourself so find what works for you and stick with it despite what anyone thinks or says.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://healing-hope-108475.square.site/
- Instagram: @healinghope333
Image Credits
Tacora Woods
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