We recently connected with April Bowden and have shared our conversation below.
April, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I have always struggled with mental health. I come from a long line to addiction, sexual abuse and despite all effort’s to run and hide from this reality that maybe just maybe I was a hurt human. A child trapped in a woman’s body. I had become sexually active at 12, started drinking at 11 and cutting myself around the age of 14 using harder substances by 15 and my worth was rooted in sex and masterbation was the only way I knew how to calm my nervous system and had become the only coping skill I had. I would have windows of success in life to be thrown down and in 2020 I hit a rock bottom with nowhere to go and nowhere to look other than in the mirror, In that mirror there was a monster.
At this point in time I was coping with drugs and prescriptions that had quit working. My husband was killed in action in 2013 and from 2013 till that bottom I was just lost. Medication could no longer be my solution. Like many who have had a lot of trauma and loss I was also obsessed with ghosts and anything not here not on earth, something larger or some kind of answer, substances that cut me off from source and the answers. In the worst of my addiction towards the end I walked around with a pendulum. I had no idea God was going to use that silly little thing to help me identify what was going on in my inner world. I grew to believe in prayer, prayer is how I have overcome my mental issues, now working the 12 steps I owe my self awareness to that program. Awareness does not always help however, not when you have suppressed memories and pain stored in the body that you can not identify to release as well as subconscious programming running the show. This part of my journey was all prayer and where I will usually lose my left brained fellows it was intuitive.
Mind you if I use substances of any kind I am cut off from this gift, my first experience I had that I can remember, was the night my husband was killed. I woke up and called my mom and told her something was wrong. I already knew what it was in my heart because Josh had come to me in a dream. He came into my room and told me he was sorry, he also told me I had to be strong. A few hours later the notification officers were at my door.
The year’s that came after were spent in heavy addiction, the moment medication and drugs were out of my system, these understanding just a little at a time came in like something inside me was teaching me some stored will larger than me wanted to change to awaken me and to be better and had the map to do so. Insight’s lead me to many modalities. Integrating new ways of thinking and being the first habit was obviously my relationship with substances then death, life itself, down to my parenting and how I parent. It all arrived in perfect timing for me to integrate as if it were beautifully orchestrated.
You would imagine after such an experience I would just be healed completely but the mind and body are a beautiful thing and healing happens slowly as the year’s pass. In all of my pain God had taken me to my purpose. I soon saw that triggers happen 3 year’s in recovery and I still get emotionally tangled, I use that beautiful pendulum to muscle test where the mind and body energy is trapped and use a modality as a Energetic Allergy Healer to release the belief, or resistance within myself and others. Sometimes These intuitions come in as just thoughts that need to be cleared by a higher power that are trapping a mind in a situation or pattern. Sometimes it’s abuse the ego has hidden from someone’s awareness and mine that needs to be dealt with to bring the mind to the moment where we can experience life as it is fully un spelled by the darkness of our mind’s that hold the keys to freedom to create something new, our ability to create outside of our original programming. Today I’m no longer that abused little girl but she still lives within me and I love her everyday, I try to build her new house with love, laughter and free will, adventure and safety, something she never had. I hope as I heal and grow I can use my gift to help other gold star spouses and of course my beloved friends in recovery to release the past and become the author of their current reality.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
On my workbench in 2024 I have got a lot of insight on relationship control patterns. I plan to make that my focus. There was not a lot of separation in my mind with love and abuse. This is something I had to pray and be shown unhealthy dynamics. Coming from a broken home as I have healed I really see where there is disconnection on the importance of mom and dad both being healthy and whole working as one. If you grew up in a unhealthy dynamic you have no separation, nor do you know how to co create anything outside of what you grew up and saw between the ages of 0-8 so my program’s I plan to roll out are heavily on identifying those pattern’s and training our minds to react and give it a new script. So we can step into healthier habit’s starting with our partner’s.
I plan to continue my work with food allergies, in my world allergies make the craving. With the help of EAH I myself have not had fast food or anything cooked outside the home in over a year. I believe more than ever as a collective we need to treat the causes. Medicine is great and I am grateful for how far we have come. A lot is preventive and it all starts with habit. Feeding our bodies what it actually needs to support life.
Coming later this year I also plan to build a program focused on clearing allergies that play into addiction. I would ideally like to work more in recovery center’s clearing trigger’s in group settings. With this modality we can clear color, smell’s, people places and thing’s so I hope to do more large group settings in my community. I am also adding to my education this year and will be able to add EMDR to my practice. It was very hard for me to take off the label of Widow and Gold Star Spouse to make a new life from what I knew. I hope to work on PTSD for client’s and help them move forward into the present with joy away from old timelines.
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?
Willingness has been key for me. I had to open myself up enough to be willing to learn something new and the ability to try thing’s outside of the box. Willingness to be open to a new way to live ,think and be. I still have to ask for this willingness everyday. We are ever evolving, growing. I have to remain willing and surrender to this life at all times. In that willingness and surrender life becomes a beautiful adventure. Stay fluid and open
If you’re early on this journey of self discovery and growth. Keep it simple, don’t try to do too many things at once for me in recovery. I had no mental home to recover and return to. My whole foundation was broken. One thing at a time, even if you have to burn down the whole house. identify one thing and change that once you have one stable pillar go on to the next. I had to learn new coping skills, new sexual ideas, new ways of speaking, new ways of eating to just pay my bills. I did not fix these things overnight. Let the light inside you show you how with prayer, meditation and willingness anything can be overcome.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Oh wow I love this question, there is a book and it had a huge impact on my life. That book was the Celestine Prophecy By James Redfield. The most impactful part of the book that I myself was Divine. That one insight changed everything how I treated myself and my fellow man. It shifted my view on my own self worth, just that one belief that I myself was truly worthy of more than I was ever given in my life and how I was to move forward for myself and those around me. It impact’s how much love is truly available to us just from a belief. That one insight changes everything and opens so many door’s within yourself of awareness and an open connection to a higher power who truly does love and absolutely heal’s. It broke the idea that I needed someone else to go to this source. The rest of the series helped me understand many shifts and changes I experienced and still experience today.
Contact Info:
- Website: trinityenergyhealing.com
- Facebook: Trinity Energy Healing
Image Credits
golden hour photography and my beautiful Son Kaden Bowden did the interpersonal photos graphic’s we’re all made by me using canvas
