My Story
I was so deeply lost.
I was so deeply identified as a victim that I couldn’t see a path forward. The only thing I knew how to do for a while was just wake up every morning. I had two small children, crippling anxiety and depression, and a broken heart full of dreams that I had no idea how to move towards.
It wasn’t always like this. I had been a worship leader and a performer, singing for thousands of people on big stages, and I had dreams of so much more. I have always wanted to sing, to pursue music and express myself through art for as long as I could remember. There were signs of stress, anxiety, and overwhelm as I navigated my adulthood and pursued them, but I didn’t know how to face them, so I ignored them. It wasn’t until a series of panic attacks upended my entire life that I realized that avoiding my pain wasn’t going to work.
9 years ago, I began the journey of healing. I was in therapy, coaching, and reading books every day trying to figure out how to clear the fog and calm the fear, but for awhile, I was just treading water. I was circling around and around my pain, but not resolving anything. I had heard that you needed to “feel it to heal it”, so I thought my ticket out was in feeling as much of my pain as possible. This only left me in deep disregulation, completely frozen and struggling with terrifying dissociation.
I know darkness really, really well.
I did find safety, slowly. I found the right support (something I will teach you how to do, if you need it), and I began to come out of the black hole I had found myself in, but I was still struggling with identity, and missing the vibrancy I had experienced years earlier and still hoped for.
It wasn’t until someone asked me a question that would honestly change everything for me:
What would I want to say is true for me 10 years from now, if anything is possible.
It bugged me. It intrigued me. It lit me up to even think about it. “What would I say is true for me? I didn’t know I had a say in my future.” I felt a spark of empowerment at the idea that I could design my own life but skeptical and honestly, it didn’t seem like it was a productive way to heal all this anxiety and depression which was my number 1 goal at the time. It felt frivolous, like wishful thinking, or escapism.
I asked my trauma therapist about it, and she said “YES. Courtney, dreaming is imperative for healing.” People ask me about pivot points all the time, and while there have been many, I will always point to this one. That moment, that reframe, her confirmation of what I had already felt a spark of truth around changed the course of my entire life, and gave instant purpose to my healing journey. It clicked: OH. You can’t heal if you can’t dream.
From that point, I was no longer trying figure out what was wrong with me, I was trying to figure out what was IN BETWEEN me and the things I dreamed about. I began answering that question, “What are 10 things in 10 years I’d love to say are true about myself…and whats between me NOW and those things actually coming true?” I began to dream again, and finally, I begin to truly heal.
That’s when my own personal journey of transformation begin. I barely recognize the near constant panic and depression I used to live in, but I have deep compassion for that girl. Now, although life is still full of variables and challenges, technically, there is a capability and hopefulness that only grows every single day. And even more than that, there is color and joy and momentum towards all that I’ve always dreamed of building. Relationships are so much deeper, stillness and relaxation are safe, creativity is sustainable, and the gift of knowing that there isn’t anything I can’t handle as I move forward is not one I take for granted.
What’s more, the things I began to write down a few years ago, the things I wished were true about my life, I am currently living in so many of those things. I have seen them come true, and I am being invited to dream even bigger.
It’s a miracle that I’m here today, but it is not a mystery. Healing is so possible, and my hope is that everything that I offer reminds you of who you truly are, helps you heal what’s in the way, and returns you to your creative power, once and for all.
I now help people of all walks of life do this exact thing, to move from surviving and problem chasing into true life creativity. This is what I want to help you do as well.
I want to help you find your way home.