Heroines Journey Stories to Inspire You
Enjoy these true Heroines Journey Stories of ambitious spiritually-driven women who secretly hungered for more love, fulfillment and joy in life. Each knew she was meant to do more and to be more, but didn't know how (or if!) she could achieve them. Each woman discovered power she never knew she had, regained freedom to be more of her True Self and finally began fulfilling her Soul-level work through the course of our work together. I hope they inspire you on your Heroine's Journey!
Lisa's Heroine Journey Story
Prior to starting with me, Lisa* felt STUCK in big ways in her life. She laughingly said she had been in mid-life crisis mode for ten years!
She had been doing things to make improvements, so she could have more love and connection with her husband, peace with her family, personal fulfillment, and a career with more income potential, meaning and fulfillment. In fact Lisa had put her considerable knowledge, talents, skills and effort into creating a more fulfilling life. She had been in conventional counseling, holistic life coaching, gone through specific trauma treatment and had tried business and executive coaching. Yet Lisa still felt stuck.
Lisa wanted peace. She wanted love, emotional connection, and enjoyment with her husband and family. She wanted a meaningful career that drew upon her talents and interests. Mostly, Lisa wanted out of the repeating patterns of struggle she felt trapped in.
And frankly, she wanted all of this now!
That was when she found me (she believes she was led to me by the Divine.) In all the personal and professional growth work Lisa had done prior to finding me, she had not focused on healing from her childhood trauma. That is where we began our healing work, starting with her challenging relationship with her mother. As we worked together to heal these injuries for Lisa, the changes she so deeply wanted started to come into place.
As we talked at the completion of her programs about the changes in her life, Lisa was so happy and excited because she feels she has finally achieved her heart’s deep Desires. The conflict and struggle with her husband is gone. They are closer and both enjoying their marriage like they never have before.
The cycles of conflict Lisa experienced with others are also gone, and others don’t violate her boundaries anymore. She is able to enjoy experiences and mutual interests without other’s people stuff and bad behavior upsetting her, including some really big challenges with her husbands’ family.
Lisa left a well-compensated tech position with a major research university that was emotionally and spiritually draining, to launch a business that uses her interests, artistic talents and unique skills. Her business is fulfilling and provides her time and freedom to do other things she enjoys, while providing a significant income.
As Lisa reflected, she said the significantly increased happiness, love, peace, self-confidence and direction, fulfillment and meaning she now so gratefully enjoys came as a result of the work we did together.
In Her Own Words
Lisa wrote, “If I had not worked with you Debra, I would still be stuck where I was before. I would still be having frequent conflict with my husband and others. I would still be personally unhappy, and in a boring corporate position that paid well, but was deadening to my soul. I don’t think anything would have shifted without working with you, since I had been stuck for decades."
"I know I would not have the peace and happiness I do now, or have it so solid that negative events in the world do not alter it much.”
Our work together has made such a difference in Lisa’s life that she states:
“Working with Debra is so much better and faster than traditional methods, it is almost shocking! You can talk until you are blue in the face about your negative feelings and reactions, and it changes them a little. Working with Debra just deletes them completely.”
Helene's Heroine Journey Story
Helene* was a rancher in her early 50’s when she called me. She was running a multi-million-dollar per year operation through family necessity. In her heart, Helene was a musician. She gave up her heart's Desire and a very promising career as a singer when her father demanded that she come and help on the ranch. As the oldest of only girls in her family, it was always her job to step in and help her parents and her sisters.
She was really good at it. Helene cared about her family, her land, her animals and her employees and they were thriving. Helene however, felt like she was dying inside. She was in a deep mid-life crisis, and her body was telling her in increasingly loud ways that some things needed to change.
She also felt compassion and a desire to help, along with intense ambivalence, guilt and obligation. Her father couldn’t run the ranch by himself anymore (even though he still tried) and there was no one else in her family to take over part of her responsibilities. She truly did feel like screaming, and the stress, plus emotional and spiritual pain were intense.
As we worked together, Helene discovered the origin of her family role and how it had been passed down to her through her father’s side for 5 generations. She discovered and acknowledged the patterns of emotional boundary violations and abuse that were part of this generational pattern which also defined her father’s life ~ he too gave up a dream as a younger man to run the family ranch. Crucially, we also found the hidden element of her family generational pain and trauma, when we found the corresponding pattern of the women in her family not nurturing and emotionally protecting their daughters and standing up for them in their desire to gain an education, and choose their own path in life. Working together in her Heroine Within program, Helene was able to heal and be freed from the childhood trauma in her own life, including these family generational trauma patterns, and the ways that her dreams and self-direction as a woman were stolen from her. As a higher expression of her family role, when Helene felt she had reached a point of completion in her own healing of childhood trauma, Helene chose to serve as a catalyst and instrument in healing and releasing this pattern from the emotional and spiritual matrix of her family line.
There were challenges, with her father particularly, when Helene made changes in the way the ranch was managed. Through the work we did, she was empowered to reclaim her self-direction and move forward with her own life again. She hired a ranch manager to take over some of her responsibilities, and reclaimed time for personal interests and self-care. She began dating for the first time in years, and expanded her circle of friendships, neither of which she had time for in the past. Her high blood pressure, and pre-diabetic status decreased. She lost weight, and as the stress and emotional pain were relieved she looked years younger. Helene also felt happier, and more fulfilled than she had been for years.
With her parents’ passing the ranch was sold, and the generational pattern of the oldest child in her family sacrificing themselves and their dreams in unhealthy ways for the family has been released. The proceeds from the sale of the ranch provided the financial means for Helene, her daughter and her sisters to live well, thanks to Helene's stewardship and care.
Helene’s new heart's Desire was to start a children’s non-profit, providing piano and voice lessons for children who otherwise would not be able to have them. Proceeds from the sale of the ranch provided the seed money to start. Helene is joyously happy and deeply fulfilled in her new musical home, as she helps children pursue their dreams through music.
Yvonne's Heroine Journey Story, Part I
Yvonne* was coping with many life transitions, including going through a difficult divorce when she began working with me. In addition to healing and moving through the transitions in her life from her divorce, Yvonne also felt restless and dissatisfied with her professional life. She Desired a career that would pay well while supporting her to have freedom with her schedule as a busy divorced mother. And she also Desired a career that would make a difference for others, but she wasn't clear about what that was.
Yvonne’s divorce was especially difficult for her because it triggered the early childhood separation from her mother that Yvonne experienced. Yvonne felt this separation acutely in her body, and in non-verbal body memories. It made her divorce especially terrifying for her, even though it was her choice. To fully heal and move forward after her divorce, Yvonne and I worked together to help her heal from her childhood trauma of abandonment by her mother.
As Yvonne was able to heal her childhood trauma and move forward after her divorce, the clarity Yvonne sought came to her. From the benefit she saw for others of sharing her own life story, she determined to help others through her gifts as a writer, to tell their stories of transformation and transcendence. Today, Yvonne has three New York Times best sellers to her credit. She is now expanding her ability to make a difference by coaching other authors to transform the world through writing their stories of personal triumph and transcendence over tragedy or personal trial.
Isabella’s Heroine’s Journey Story
Isabella* felt stuck and like she was living a double life. She was stuck in her career, and most troubling to her, she was stuck in her marriage. She was a busy professional in the healing arts and had reached all the professional goals she set for herself by her mid-forties. And when she contacted me, Isabella felt surprisingly bored and deflated. “Is this all there is?” was the question that ran continuously like a loop in her mind.
She deeply wanted to serve more people in her work, in a way that was more lasting and transformational and that brought deeper healing, but she didn’t know how to get out of the daily routine of seeing clients individually as quickly as possible. She wanted to create something new in her business that was more women-centered, and not production- medicine driven.
And then, there was Isabella’s marriage. She had married her childhood sweetheart when they were both young. They had children together, and over time, she felt that she chose to grow, while her husband did not. They still shared some common interests, and their children, but she felt they were in vastly different places than when they married, with vastly differing views of life and what they wanted from it. She had offered many ideas to change things, including couples’ counseling, with no positive response from her spouse. Isabella felt she had become her husband’s mother, rather than the life partner she envisioned and passionately committed to, when they began married life.
Yet, for many complicated reasons, Isabella felt she could not leave or end her marriage. Then a long-lost friend and soulmate from years ago came back into her life. Isabella knew he was the partner in life she yearned for now, yet she still felt she could not leave her marriage. So she felt doubly stuck and trapped.
That was when she contacted me.
In our work together in SOULShift, Isabella learned how to connect with the Desires of her heart in a new way that brought them tangibly into her body. She learned to ground these Desires into her daily life and walk in the world in such as way as if they were already achieved. She discovered the meaning and message of her Soul’s discontent, which was how deeply she hungered for freedom for full Self-expression in her profession, and freedom and equal partnership in marriage.
Isabella also discovered the injury that held her back and kept her trapped in her work and in her marriage. This was the shift that changed everything for her. In a dream, she saw herself as a child in a cage. The cage bars were made up of words: phrases she heard her mother say, things she was taught in her church growing up, and beliefs she absorbed through growing up in a small Southern town. She also saw herself dismantling the cage and breaking free from it, from the inside. In our work together, we discovered that these beliefs and the cage they formed, were anchored back 4 generations in her mother’s family, to a time when a great-great grandmother gave up her dream and her personal freedom for marriage. This grandmother was still grieving the loss, and so had never fully crossed through the veil at the time of her death.
After assisting this grandmother to heal from her traumatic losses, and move completely through the veil into the light, Isabella and I worked together to find, heal and release her from the cage of words that was keeping her trapped. Now as an adult, she was able to examine the unconscious beliefs and emotional limits she had absorbed in childhood, even the deeply engrained cultural beliefs, and the beliefs and emotions she had taken on from her mother prior to birth.
Through this work, Isabella was able to genuinely heal and free herself from the cage of words, and in doing so, reclaim and live her dreams for deeper professional satisfaction and contribution, while creating a new partnership of equals. Today, her business has transformed and is flourishing, as she helps other women find greater freedom and empowerment through their personal health choices. She found a way to kindly end her marriage and is joyfully co-creating a new loving partnership with a man who shares her values, visions, goals, and dreams for life now.
Isabella’s life and work changed forever because she made the shift her Soul asked of her. She is deeply fulfilled, recently remarried and deeply happy in a soul-satisfying relationship and is making her Soul’s highest contributions through her unique work in the world.
Olivia’s Heroine’s Journey Story
There was a subtle yet very real sadness about Olivia*, that was present with her all the time. No matter what she was doing, or how happy she appeared, or stated that she felt, the sadness was always with her like a gray shadow that accompanied her everywhere she went.
Though she wasn’t aware of it at the time, others could see and feel it in her presence, and it was clearly present in her eyes. When you looked directly at her, it was there, that shadow in the background of her inner world.
Olivia started seeing me when her daughter disclosed that she had been sexually abused by an extended family member. This revelation of abuse shocked the whole family, and most especially Olivia. Her outwardly happy, busy and involved family life came crashing down, as they all responded to what happened to Olivia’s daughter. She was part of a very family-centered, and close-knit group, and found a lot of satisfaction in her family life. Her primary identity and sense of fulfillment came from being a wife and mother – a good wife and mother. Olivia blamed herself for what happened to her daughter. In addition to supporting her daughter to heal and healing her own grief, anger, sense of violation and betrayal of their family by someone they knew and formerly trusted, Olivia also felt a deep and difficult-to-release sense of guilt and blame. Experiencing this and experiencing her difficulty in moving through it even with time, was what helped Olivia see her own deep sadness.
As Olivia described it, this was a sadness that was deeper than what she felt for her daughter; this was a sadness that had been with her all her life, and she was just then seeing it for the first time. It puzzled her, because she could not identify any outward reasons that would explain the sadness, apart from her daughter’s abuse. Yet she knew this was a different sadness from a different, more long-standing source.
Olivia came to realize that to heal and be free to do everything she wanted to do as a wife and mother, and help her daughter and family heal so they could regain what they had lost and then move forward with their own lives, she needed to heal more deeply herself. She came to realize how much of a burden and constraint the lifelong sadness had been for her – how much it had held her back and stopped her from fully showing up in all the ways she wanted to – how the deep sadness had stopped her from fully living.
In our work together, the SoulShift came for Olivia when the hidden source of her deep sadness was made clear: 5 generations back on her mother’s line, another outside family member had abused another girl, and a great-aunt suspected it and did not take any action to stop it or protect her niece. For remarkable and compelling reasons, Olivia believed that she had been that great-aunt in the previous life. While this was a hard connection for Olivia to see, she had the courage to face it, because she also was shown that healing this wound from the past was part of what she, her daughter and her entire family needed to heal and truly be released to move forward with their lives now.
Together, I guided Olivia to heal and release the regret, guilt, powerlessness and deep sadness that she carried forward from that life into this one. We guided that part of Olivia’s soul that came into the previous life that was still traumatized and still earth-bound, to heal completely, so she could cross fully into the Light, and be joyfully reunited with her loved ones from that lifetime. This was profoundly exciting and liberating and joyful for Olivia!
She also wanted to make amends to her niece from that lifetime, so together, we helped her niece complete her healing from the trauma, that had also kept her earthbound, so the niece too, was able and ready to cross completely into the Light, and join the joyously celebrating family group on the other side. Then Olivia was able to regain all the parts of her Soul that were fragments from the previous lifetime, that were intended to be a part of Olivia’s life now.
This work not only changed, it transformed Olivia’s life.
The deep sadness in her eyes and in her energy was gone, and everyone could see a radiance, glow and joy about Olivia that had never been there before. Because she experienced this herself, Olivia was able to be a passionate advocate and believer in the full and complete healing for her own daughter, who with time and work was able to completely heal and move forward with her own life. Olivia was able to be a source of support, strength and encouragement for her other family members as well, as they worked through their own healing processes, including healing for one additional daughter and several nieces who had also been sexually abused by the same family member. This lifetime, Olivia was able to find and hold the balance between a willingness to forgive for the abuser, with appropriate, prudent boundaries to protect other children in her own and extended families.
Because of the deep healing work she had done, which began with the SoulShift of discovering the hidden source of her previous deep sadness, Olivia became the leader she was born to become in this lifetime. She was able to do in this lifetime what she could not in the previous one. She discovered and is living as her Highest Self and fulfilling her Soul’s Highest Calling for this life.
Today, Olivia’s daughters are both thriving personally and professionally. They both have told me the sexual abuse of their childhood is a distant memory that has faded into the background, and they rarely think about it, and feel no lingering effect or constraint because of it. They are happy, they are free, they are joyful, and they are fearless in pursuing their dreams!
Olivia radiates happiness and joy that draws people to her. She exudes a light and a high vibration, and has served in increasingly larger capacities and roles of leadership within her community, amplifying her gifts and belief in the power and potential of others to change, to grow, and to heal, to become their Highest Selves, and fulfill their Soul’s Highest Callings, just like her.
Kimberly’s Heroine’s Journey Story
Kimberly* divorced her husband, and deeply wanted to be remarried – to him.
They had tried conventional couples’ therapy, Imago work, working with their church minister; they had tried ignoring their painful patterns, they had tried living apart. They tried everything they could think of and then some, and they still couldn’t seem to get out of the fundamental painful patterns they were in in their marriage. So they divorced.
And yet, Kimberly and her ex were great friends. They enjoyed time together as friends, they were great co-parents. They spent major holidays and even traveled together as friends with their children so they all could continue to enjoy family vacations together.
Neither of them were dating others, even after 3 years post-divorce. Needless to say, it was confusing for Kimberly (and her children!) and she definitely had not moved on with her life.
And yet, every time she or her ex even began to broach the idea of remarriage, the emotional “ghosts of marital craziness past” showed up just as strongly as before, and all the old painful, push-me, pull-you crazy patterns were reactivated. Kimberly was beside herself with exasperation, frustration and pain when she reached out to me. Through the deep work we did with SOULShift, Kimberly learned the essence of what she wanted, that prompted her desire to remarry her ex-husband. What her Soul hungered for was the quality of the love they felt for each other early in their marriage. This love made Kimberly feel completely safe and completely adored – just as the early stages of falling in love typically do.
For Kimberly, this filled a deeper need, because she was adopted as an infant, and lost the crucial pre-birth bond with her birthmother, and never had a secure early childhood attachment with her adoptive parents (who were great!) As an infant, she never felt completely safe and completely adored, at the center of her parent’s universe. Kimberly’s intense desire to remarry her ex, was really about filling her childhood unmet need for secure attachment. This kept her insecurely partially bonded to him, just like many adopted children remain partially bonded to their birthmothers, many years later. Her ex had a reciprocal part he played in this dance, that partially filled some of his needs, too. Taken together, this kept them locked in a state of insecure, semi-attachment, that neither of them could end, yet neither of them could fully and completely step into, in a securely formed marriage – so they both remained half in and half out, 3 years after their divorce.
The SOULShift turning point came for Kimberly through healing her birth wound, and the significant traumatic loss and grief she still carried as an adult, from being separated at birth from her birthmother. Through this healing process Kimberly was able to finally experience her birthmother’s love and adoration for her, that made her feel secure in coming into this lifetime. Then she experienced her birthmother lovingly and securely entrusting her beloved daughter to Kimberly’s adoptive parents, who securely received her with similar love and devotion. The joy in this sacred experience for Kimberly was palpable, even in doing this work via distance.
While more healing was involved for Kimberly on her Heroine’s Journey, today, she remains friends with her ex. They still are great co-parents together of their 4 children. They don’t take joint family vacations or spend holidays together anymore.
Today Kimberly is happily remarried – in a new secure partnership, where she and her beloved share a reciprocal deep love and abiding adoration for each other. Through the SOULshift that Kimberly realized, she is freed from the painful ghosts of the past and is co-creating the deeply joyful and emotionally close secure partnership in marriage her Soul hungered for, a few years ago.
Professionally, Kimberly discovered her gifts in the healing arts, and is joyfully engaged in helping others.
*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of clients. All images are representative only.
