You think to yourself, “I should be over this by now” after an argument with your romantic partner. They may think your emotions are coming out of nowhere, and maybe in a way you do too, but deep down you know it travels back to when you were a child – back to that time you may have felt invalidated, hurt, abandoned, confused.

Sometimes you’re fine. Strong, capable, seemingly perfect. You may be the best employee on your team at work. Maybe you’re the confident mother involved in the campaigns to better your community. Perhaps you’re the college student with a 4.0 GPA. But what they don’t know is that you feel like you’re drowning beneath the waves of your stress. You have a battle with your mind and your memories. Your relationships are turbulent. You struggle to understand how to love yourself. You feel tired. Jaded. Broken.

You have tried so hard to feel better. But you are left wondering how to feel better, how to “fix” yourself when these emotions have gone back to your earliest years. Perhaps you’ve even gone to therapy for your concerns, but it hasn’t seemed to make a difference. And that makes sense. Not all therapists “get it” when it comes to developmental trauma – that is, the multilayered, messy web of disturbing events that pile up throughout our childhoods. As a result, sometimes people will get the wrong therapy, and that makes them feel even worse because they feel so misunderstood!

What if I told you there is a way to feel hopeful, happy, and purposeful?