Origin Story

We’ve all been there. The breaking point.

Some of us remember it because it was so dramatic it took the wind out of our sails all at once.

Or it destroyed everything we had spent a lifetime building.

For others, it’s been a progressive descent into despair, loss, confusion. 

For me it was the place where the life I had known ended.

It happened without warning, with no self-resourcing skills to heed the red flags and correct course in time. And because you can’t unsee what you finally saw, it was irreversible.

How do you deal with the dark? 

With not knowing whether the dark will ever end? 

I didn’t know. I just knew that good things sometimes happen in darkness, below the surface. I had taught my daughter Ondine about it when she planted beans in kindergarten. Ondine, by the way, means “little wave.”

She had to wait for her beans to grow. She couldn’t dig them up by poking little holes in the dirt with her fingers to check. Because seeds only grow in darkness. So all she could do was sit them on our window sill in their cute little paper cup and watch over them. All she could do was water them and let her beans be, hoping they’d reach for the light in their own time.

I thought about darkness a lot…

The darkness enveloping me. 

There are so many quotes about night and light, rainstorms and rainbows, and of course, the moon and the sun. But my grief filled so much of my body that I couldn't relate to any of them. Of course I knew tomorrow was a new day and that most likely, the sun would rise. But I also knew I would still be in darkness. 

What if the sun rises and still, we can’t see the light? 

What if there's a stunning rainbow outside our window, and the dissonance between what's happening in the sky and how we feel inside is pulling us further down? What then? When we are in darkness, we may not feel like being told about the light. 

When we are in darkness, all we may want and need is for someone who cares to sit in the dark with us, right there, where no light can enter …

Not  trying to dig us up …

Not forcefully nor gently exposing us to the bright light. Not showing us what we need fixed. Because we’re not broken. Even when we feel we are. And fixing from someone eager to save or care-take is actually the last thing we need to heal.

When I finally found help to resource myself, I began the work of self-healing. I didn’t know if I’d ever see the light.

There were no guarantees. Only evidence-based tools that I knew had worked for others based on the research. I hoped they would work for me too. And so I got to work. 

I did the work and still daily, I do the work of self-healing. A lifelong commitment to myself and the dozens of women survivors I serve. Walking the talk so I can serve well.

I’ve now come to realize that we all reach for the light in our own time. We find it within ourselves. Someone else shares it with us and that time, we’re ready to take it in. Or we create it. When it’s time, we gather our strength and we find it or it finds us and we can finally see it, even from afar. Maybe that's what I've been feeling all along when reading all these quotes about moons and suns, that:

The opposite of dark isn't light…

The opposite of dark is growth. The opposite of dark is learning the tools to release our body, mind, and heart from our past so we can allow healing light to flow freely through all our wounds & scars. New growth. New skin. A little wave of hope.

That’s how Little Wave Coaching was born…

As a survivor of developmental, childhood, and sexual trauma for the past three generations of women in my family, I want to live and model what self-healing can look like, so that trauma finally stops with me. I want my daughters to see that finding our own light is possible, even if it feels we never had it, so that when we do, we can each in our own way, support others as they find theirs.

So Welcome to Little Wave Coaching! 

I hope what you find here will guide and comfort you as you walk your own brave recovery path. Remember to give yourself Time, Space, and Grace. Be Patient with your wounds. You deserve to Heal. Whether we end up working together or you’re just visiting and hanging out for a bit, I’m so glad you’re here! ❤️