You can feel safer without making your world smaller or becoming less powerful.
The woman behind the work
I am still becoming. That is the whole point.
I'm Gabby, a trauma-informed holistic life coach, wellness advocate, podcast host, wife, dog mom, and a real person who has had to learn how to build a life I do not constantly need to escape from.
The part of my story I refuse to make pretty
I did not have a childhood. I had responsibilities.
I grew up in a violent home where we did not have much food and we were homeless often. The adults were supposed to take care of us, but a lot of the time my siblings and I had to take care of ourselves, each other, and the adults too.
We had to grow up young. We got jobs young. We helped raise our siblings while we were still trying to raise ourselves. I learned how to watch the room, manage other people's emotions, stay ready for the next thing, and keep going even when I was scared. I never got the childhood people assume everyone had.
I was sexually assaulted when I was young, and again multiple times in my young adulthood. I experienced domestic violence. I have been married and divorced. I became a dancer because I needed to make ends meet, and because dancing became my ticket out. It was a way to make money and get somewhere else. It was also not easy, and I am not going to pretend it did not affect me.
I am not telling you this so you can turn me into an inspirational object. I am telling you because this is my life. It is messy, painful, complicated, and mine. What happened to me was not my fault. The life I build from here is my responsibility.
"I am not a before-and-after story. I am a whole person who kept going."
"My dog saved my life. He gave me a reason to stay when I did not know how to stay for myself."
The way out was not pretty either
North Carolina was the first place where I could start becoming someone else.
I left the domestic violence marriage and eventually left that whole version of my life behind. I moved to North Carolina because I needed somewhere safer. I needed space between me and everything I had been surviving.
Healing did not happen because I moved. It started because I finally had enough room to notice what had happened to me. I had my dog. I had people who helped me. I had a husband who has shown me that love can be steady, and I have had to learn how to receive that without waiting for it to turn into something else.
For the last five years, I have been doing the work. Not perfectly. Not in a straight line. I still have hard days. I still get triggered. I still grieve. But I also own my company, my home, and my choices now. I get to help women move out of the places that keep them trapped because I know what it feels like to wonder if there is a way out.
Doing it sober
I used alcohol to cope with what I did not know how to feel.
I am sober now, and I am not going to make that sound like a cute little chapter where I decided to drink water and became a better person. I drank to cope with the pain I carried. I drank because not feeling felt easier than feeling everything at once.
Now I have to meet myself there. I am still dealing with the pain that made me want to drink in the first place. Some days I have very little energy. Some days I want to lay around and exist. My body needs rest, and I am learning not to argue with it or give it some half-ass version of what it actually needs.
I am learning not to call rest laziness. I am learning not to work twenty-four seven so I do not have to think. I am learning how to take care of my body, my healing journey, my marriage, and the future family I want without repeating the generational trauma I was handed when I was born.
I do this every day, even when it is messy, because I want a life I can actually be present for. I want to be here for my husband, my future children, my work, my dog, and myself. I am not finished. I am choosing myself anyway.
"I am not trying to become perfect. I am trying to become someone I do not have to escape from."
Why I do this work
I am not here to save you. I am here to remind you that you are still in there.
I know what it feels like to be smart, capable, ambitious, and still stuck in survival mode. I know what it is like to want a better life so badly that you try to work your way into feeling worthy of it.
Nobody taught me how to regulate my body, trust myself, communicate, set boundaries, or stay present with pain. That was not my fault. Learning it now is my responsibility, and I am still learning.
That is why I do this work. Not because I have conquered every hard thing, but because I know what it feels like to be in the middle of it and need someone to say, "You are not crazy. You are not too far gone. You can learn a different way."
You can love your life and still tell the truth about what hurts.
You can build, lead, love, and take action without turning yourself into a machine.
If you see yourself here
You do not have to be finished to be worthy of support.
You can start with the podcast, read through my resources, or step into Sacred Circle when you are ready to be around women who understand the messy middle.
Learn about Sacred Circle