When Your Past Becomes Your Power: My Journey with Post-Traumatic Growth

When Your Past Becomes Your Power: My Journey with Post-Traumatic Growth

For the past few birthdays, I've skipped the parties and cake in favor of something deeper—ceremonies, experiences, moments that actually shift something inside me. This year, I gifted myself a solo mountain experience with Jess from Somatic Nature Therapy Institute, someone whose work I deeply trust.

I went to the mountain with intention: to examine my past—who I was, how I got here, the traumas and triumphs, all the ups, downs, and messy in-betweens. I needed space to lay out my whole story, to see how it all connects. Not with blame or shame, just honest witnessing of the journey that brought me to this moment.

On the side of that mountain, under a moonless sky, my life spread out in metaphor around me. I woke, I dreamed, I slept. And in that liminal space, I downloaded decades of experience—every version of myself that had to exist for me to become who I am today.

And here's what surprised me: I loved those parts. All of them.

I saw the strength it took to survive the darkness. I recognized the relentless effort I put into understanding myself, even when it would have been easier to stay numb. Every moment I struggled through was a lesson I learned from. Those lessons inform how I move through the world now. I know things—not intellectually, but in my bones. I can feel and innately understand how to navigate situations that once knocked me flat.

This is post-traumatic growth.

It's a framework that allows us to hold our past, examine it without flinching, and connect it directly to the person we've become. The lessons of the past become guideposts for the future. By understanding where we've been, we arrive at a deep, embodied knowing of who we are.

Usually, this process involves forgiveness—of ourselves, of others, of circumstances. We hold close our child selves, the parts that were lost, hurt, abandoned, or left behind. We gather all those fractured pieces and bring them home.

We come full circle to hold ourselves in loving kindness.

We arrive.

Post-traumatic growth isn't about pretending trauma didn't hurt. It's not toxic positivity dressed up in spiritual language. It's the honest, hard-won recognition that we are both our struggles and the strength that carried us through them. Every dark moment forged something in us—resilience, compassion, wisdom, boundaries, power.

When we can look back at our shadow parts, our hardest times, and find meaning and strength there, we unlock something profound. We stop being victims of our past and become students of it. We mine it for gold.

And that gold? It lights the path forward.

So here's my invitation:

What if your trauma isn't just something that happened to you, but something that shaped you into exactly who you needed to become?

What if every struggle was preparing you for this moment—the one where you realize you've been strong all along?

What if the darkest parts of your story are actually the foundation of your power?

This is the heart of post-traumatic growth. This is the work we do in circle, on retreats, in ceremony. We don't bypass the pain—we honor it, learn from it, and let it become our superpower.

You've survived 100% of your worst days.

Now it's time to see what that survival made possible.