My passion for helping women heal did not begin in a classroom. It began in my own story.

My parents divorced when I was young, and at thirteen years old, I was being sexually abused by my uncle. At fourteen, I ran away from home to escape the abuse and became homeless.

At fifteen, pregnant and alone, I stood on a bridge looking into the dark water below. I was prepared to end my life and the life of my unborn child. I believed I had no future and nowhere left to turn.

I have also been the wife and mother sitting at home with three children, wondering whether their alcoholic father would return with enough money to pay the rent or buy food—or whether everything had already been lost through drinking and gambling.

These were not stories I heard from someone else. I lived them.

At twenty-eight, I divorced the father of my children and found myself raising three children alone with no formal education. After years of trauma and abuse, I was filled with fear, insecurity, and self-doubt.

My former husband refused to provide support. He told me that he hoped I would starve and that our children and I would become homeless.

But I determined that his words would not become our future.

I worked three jobs. I returned to school. I earned my real estate license and eventually built a successful career that allowed me to support my family. From the outside, it appeared that I had overcome my past.

But success did not automatically heal the trauma.

Even while building a better life, I continued to struggle with feelings of insecurity, fear, and unworthiness. I had changed my circumstances, but the wounds of my past were still shaping the way I saw myself.