From a young age I’ve been resourceful. I adapted as best I could to very challenging situations and came up with ways to get my needs met in some capacity or to overcome limitations.
Stress, Trauma and Addiction are very limiting. They limit us to survival mode and hold us back from thriving.
Resources are what support us in life – food, shelter, warmth and money are the basic resources that we need to survive physically. What we are discovering at a rapid pace now, through an increasing mental and emotional health epidemic, is that physical resources outside of ourselves are not entirely enough to have a reasonable quality of life. We also need inner resources or resources that come from inside of us. This is what most of humanity is missing and it has thrown us greatly off balance, which is why we are seeing a world outside of ourselves in utter chaos.
For centuries we have avoided and suppressed the fact that, a huge facet of being human is that we have a system of emotions and that emotional system is actually a very powerful and positive inner resource that we have, which is designed to help us survive and thrive in our physical world. We have been taught to fear, suppress and avoid our emotions by systems we perceived to be more powerful than us and by doing so, immense personal power was given away and the resources inside of ourselves which are designed to help us thrive were denied.
Denying this huge part of us has been detrimental to our wellbeing and quality of life. It has caused us immeasurable pain and consequences and have limited humanity to a point that we are seeing play out in the world right now. But the tide is turning and that is where recovery comes in. Recovery comes in the form of personal development and emotional growth. We need to take the focus off everyone else for a while and work on ourselves individually, which in the longterm will greatly benefit everyone around us anyway!
My recovery from trauma began when I started working on my personal development in 2008 and it has been a journey of curiosity that opened my mind and heart. For nearly 20 years, I have been reading, researching and gathering resources that would further my growth, recovery and wellbeing.
In June 2022, I wholeheartedly embraced sobriety and that’s where recovery truly took effect. I knew that as long as I was still using alcohol to numb my emotions, I was prolonging pain that I had avoided for most of my teenage and adult life.
In June 2023, I was given the most wonderful opportunity, to teach Personal Development to people in recovery from addiction. I had already laid the foundation of my personal development curriculum with previous years of research and coaching experience. While teaching personal development and with hours of discussion, engagement and vulnerable sharing of the most difficult elements of living with the limits that trauma brings about (addiction being only one element) my work took on a life and transformation of its own. This led to the creation of my Resourceful Recovery programme.
Resourceful Recovery is a personal development programme, designed specifically to support people in recovering from addiction, trauma and stress. It is a programme that is evolving all the time, as I learn and grow and as my experience grows through working with people in recovery.
In the Resourceful Recovery programme, we look at many themes within the realms of personal development. Personal development gives us many new lenses and ways to build our self-awareness and change how we view and understand ourselves and our life experiences. From the beginning, I teach new tools and skills to replace outgrown and ineffective coping mechanisms, through providing you with many resources (inwardly and outwardly) in order to empower you on your recovery and healing journey.
Stress Recovery
A huge focus is put on Stress Recovery as chronic stress and being stuck in survival mode is probably one of the biggest impacts for anyone who has experienced varying levels of trauma. We take an in-depth look at what stress is, what the deeper roots of imbalance are, how to peel back the layers of stress and how to attune to and support your nervous system with time and a stress recovery practice.
Emotional Development
We take an in-depth look at emotional development and the vital importance of emotions as a human being. We look at where we have been lacking skills for generations and why. I will teach you how to develop emotional management and regulation skills that have the potential to lead you to a much more peaceful and comfortable life experience.
Life Skills
We look at the skill of meeting needs and the balance of meeting our own and others. We will look at how we can set healthier boundaries for ourselves and make small manageable changes that over time will lead to measurable growth. We will look at the innate intelligence of the mind and body and where possible, begin the vital re-connection between the two.
Authentic Identity
We will begin to build a bigger picture of who you are authentically, utilising the mind and body as your foundational guides. We will look at rebuilding self-esteem and confidence. We will look at the parts of us that we may have rejected over the years due to feeling not good enough and how we can embrace those and the important information or growth they have always held for us.
Interdependence
We will look at relationships and where patterns of dysfunction have lead us down a route of co-dependency – an imbalanced way of relating to others that brings about much conflict and doesn’t meet our needs effectively. We will look at what healthier relationships and connection require with ourselves and with others (inwardly and outwardly).
Progression
When we start exploring who we are authentically, we begin a journey of reclaiming the intuitive traits and talents we were born with. We explore creativity, fun and purpose – the things that make life enjoyable and rewarding. We will look at creating an expansive vision, long beyond established recovery and healing – a vision to structure goals around if you so wish.
At present, I teach this programme in-person in workshop format however I can make it accessible online as a one-to-one or group programme and if you would like to find out more about this please email [email protected].
I also offer one-to-one recovery coaching sessions, where we can explore elements of this programme or whatever you need to support you on your recovery journey.
Sessions are €65 an hour but I offer discounts to people in receipt of social welfare payments or that have limited resources. To find out more about me or for more information on my qualifications – please click here.
