Healing Through Relationships
The foundation of our story
We met in the Fall semester of 2014. We were sitting in an abnormal psychology class where the professor was attempting to put eating disorders into a one-size-fits-all box during his lecture. We fiercely disagreed and our voices joined in expressing our concerns with the content of the lecture.
In January of 2015, we both found ourselves in the same nutrition class. We both discovered during class that we shared the dream of treating eating disorders. So naturally, we went on a coffee date to Starbucks.
During this time, we were both still sick and suffering in the trenches of our own eating disorders and trauma. Some could say, we were at our own “rock bottom”. It was there that we unknowingly experienced the power of connection in healing.
From that point forward, we walked shoulder and shoulder to where we sit today.
Darby found herself seeking a different approach in healing trauma because traditional approaches were not helping. She enrolled in a 16 week trauma program (which she ended up utilizing for 2 years). During this time, she found EMDR as a new and complete therapeutic approach. Her therapist at the time recommended participating in a somatic based trauma group where attachment trauma was approached in a normalizing and non-shaming way.
While Darby was listening to this discussion on attachment trauma, she realized the therapist leading the group was not only describing Darby, but also Michaela. This is where Michaela learned that she, too, had extensive relational wounding/trauma (after writing a 10 page paper in grad school about how she was securely attached, and firmly believing this to be true).
This is where everything about our therapeutic approach changed. After this time, we immersed ourselves in advanced trainings such as EMDR and Natural Lifemanship to become specialized in treating trauma and relational wounding.