Do You Ever Wonder What Happened to You

If you’ve ever found yourself reacting disproportionately to a situation—snapping at a loved one, shutting down in a meeting, or spiraling into anxiety after a simple text—you’re not alone. Often, what feels “irrational” on the surface has deep roots. Beneath the conscious mind, the body carries the echoes of experiences we’ve never fully processed. This is the terrain of trauma, and while it may seem invisible, it’s anything but silent.

Trauma doesn’t just happen to us—it happens in us.

Even if we don’t remember the moment something changed—an unsafe childhood, a moment of abandonment, or a pattern of invalidation—our nervous systems do. Trauma embeds itself in our physiology, often outside the reach of language or memory. It becomes a felt thing before it’s a known thing. As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk put it, “The body keeps the score.” And so, as adults, we find ourselves trapped in survival responses—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn—long after the danger has passed.

This is where the Enneagram becomes a sacred mirror.

Each of us, from a very young age, learned a strategy to feel safe and worthy in the world. That strategy is what the Enneagram beautifully captures. But it’s more than a personality test—it’s a map of the psyche shaped by both our essence and our wounds.

A Type Two may have learned early on that love is earned through selflessness. 

A Type Six might have internalized the belief that vigilance is the only path to safety. 

A Type Nine could have decided it’s better to disappear than risk conflict.

These aren’t just personality quirks—they’re trauma-informed adaptations.

What’s powerful—and deeply healing—is when we begin to notice that these patterns, once protective, may now be blocking us from intimacy, clarity, and presence. The Enneagram helps us bring unconscious survival strategies into conscious awareness, while the body offers a direct doorway into healing. One without the other is incomplete.

So, what does integration look like?

It starts with listening.

When your body contracts in fear, can you stay with it long enough to ask, “What part of me is trying to protect me right now?” When your Enneagram type flares up in stress, can you pause and notice the pattern with compassion, not criticism?

Healing trauma isn’t about fixing ourselves—it’s about reclaiming ourselves. When we honor the body’s wisdom and use the Enneagram as a guide, we begin to live less from the wound and more from the wonder of who we are.

This work is slow, sacred, and beautifully human. And you don’t have to do it alone. I’d love to support you along the way. The most powerful therapeutic approach I’ve used is a combination of IFS (Internal Family Systems) and Brainspotting, a brain/body-based trauma modality that works much deeper than talk therapy.

If you often find yourself asking, “I wonder what happened to me?” you’re not alone. Let’s talk.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

P.S. Need a guide and a roadmap? Join The Practice, my online Enneagram group coaching program!

Introducing... my *NEW* WEBSITE

This week is super special for me.

For years, I've been dreaming of ways to serve you more robustly and impactfully in my work as a psychotherapist, executive coach, and Enneagram guide.

Yet, life isn’t always on our terms or timeline. For me, these last five years have certainly kept me on my toes—from becoming a mom at 40 and the glorious shift in focus that presented, to that whole Covid thing (remember?), and then a shocking breast cancer diagnosis shortly thereafter, followed by an arsenal of treatments and surgeries.

I’m a big believer that necessity breeds creativity, and boy, have I been needy. I love embracing my own frailty, becoming a student of it, and extrapolating the lessons that others might benefit from. In short, I love to find the cracks in my own experience and tease out the light on the other side in order to mine the unique beauty and potential in people, processes, and teams throughout the change process. After all, we have far more in common than we think.

So, I’m thrilled to launch my beautiful NEW WEBSITE, chock-full of opportunities to optimize your whole self: emotionally, spiritually, physically, relationally, and professionally, using the Enneagram. It’s been a long time coming!

It’s streamlined and updated for you to navigate the support you need, whether that’s in therapy, Enneagram couples intensives, team-building opportunities, 1:1 Enneagram coaching, memberships in the Practice, my keynote offering, book club, or my favorite…the Enneagram Mastermind Series here in Nashville.

It’s also an interactive site that announces my upcoming events, like workshops, new resources (book/podcast coming soon!), meditations, and other fun ways to stay connected to growth and Enneagram resources.

Y’all, I’m so grateful and excited for this new season of creativity, collaboration, and service.

So, head on over and see what you think! Let’s dream up some new ways to really flourish in 2025. I’d love to be your guide.

Love & Gratitude, 

Katie

In Case You’re Wondering What to do Next

When everything around me seems swirling and chaotic, I always return to the basics: what I know to be true.

I remember as a kid, when I’d get super discouraged, dramatic, or disappointed, my sweet Dad would take me on a date (which normally revolved around food, ice cream, and the like), and remind me of who I was. Not in a pep-talky kind of way—more of a recalibrating kind of way. My highly sensitive self would get lost in the clouds of great expectations and that harsh inner critic, and what I needed more than anything was to feel my feet on the ground.

My Dad knew that. Perhaps someone had done that for him somewhere along the way.

While I was clueless/terrified as to how to respond to my cancer diagnosis four years ago (this month) and the mash-up of emotions sheltering inside me as a result, I kept coming back to this: when in doubt, do the next best thing. Okay, okay, so I got a little inspiration from Anna in Frozen 2. I guess it’s proof that the kid inside you and me is, indeed, a truth-teller.

Though we may not be able to control our circumstances or the world spinning out around us, we can take responsibility for how we respond and choose to grow forward. In doing so, we directly impact our sphere of influence, big or small. By becoming better humans, we build a better world. By taking care of you, you create a greater opportunity for impact as you engage your family, friends, co-workers, and tribe.

I believe the first step to becoming better humans is to wake up to what’s happening inside. To develop greater self-awareness and self-knowledge. There’s a difference, after all! Self-awareness is being conscious of how you feel, think, and act. Self-knowledge takes it a step further and unpacks the “why” behind that awareness.

The Enneagram gives us nine (or 27, if you factor in subtypes) lanes that map out how we get lost in our ego, or false self. It carves out the self-knowledge as well, providing us with the “why” behind our often exhausting pursuits.

Painful experiences in life wake us up from life’s unconscious slumber. They invite us to quit pressing the snooze button and start living in wakeful presence. It’s an opportunity to change the world around us by doing the next best thing—whether that is reaching out to a friend in need, speaking kindly to yourself, donating to a worthy cause, responding instead of reacting out of fiery emotion, practicing self-care, or hugging your child a little longer at bedtime.

It’s about revisiting the classics we may have skimmed through in human school.

Let’s get back to the truth of what we know, my friend. By taking care of you, you’re focusing on what you can control. When we build on a firm foundation, we can create a beautiful, soulful tomorrow.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

P.S. Need a guide and a roadmap? Join The Practice, my online Enneagram group coaching program!

I Wish I Had Known This at 25

What piece of advice would you give your 25-year-old self? Sure, she may not have listened, but like any loving parent, you do what you can to steer your children in the right direction. That headstrong seeker was only doing her best. And yet today, you have matured into the expansive space of perspective and more balance. I know you have a lot to offer your younger, stubborn self.

Me? I would have a spirited come-to-Jesus about how to relax into the unknown, one brave and wobbly step at a time. I’d tell her that having all the answers isn’t half as important as asking honest questions.

Specifically, I’d love for her to understand what it means to have a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed one—less either-or and more both-and.

As a recovering perfectionist, I’ve been all too familiar with what it means to have a fixed mindset—you know, the way of thinking that is rigid and narrow. It’s all about pass or fail, win or lose, good or bad, black and white. It’s rooted in judgment rather than curiosity. It’s refusing to take myself on a brisk 20-minute walk because I didn’t have enough time to do my hour-long high-intensity workout.

Here’s another example. You have your six-month review at work. Your boss gives you high marks in several areas but points out one specific necessary improvement in your performance on a big project. A fixed mindset self-criticizes, labeling your performance as a failure. A fixed mindset disregards the praise and zeros in on the area of improvement. A growth mindset celebrates the positive feedback and understands the value of constructive criticism for future success. A growth mindset sees life as a slew of peaks and valleys all leading to necessary learning and expansion. It looks at life as an experiment, not a performance.

A growth mindset is the petri dish that breeds resilience. A fixed approach creates inflexibility, closing us off from abundance and opportunity.

This isn’t about glossing over reality. It’s about softening your approach to the inevitable ebbs and flows of life and enjoying yourself a bit more along the way.

Spend some time this week pondering this:

What area of your life could you stand to soften into? Is it your relationship with food, your body, parenting, or work? Is it your self-care? Whatever it may be, I believe a great way to find out is to pay attention to our self-talk, that often nagging inner critic that rages on involuntarily.

Write it all down.

I love what Tara Mohr says: “Where we think we need more self-discipline, we usually need more self-love.”

What if you can't be fixed?

I had it all wrong.  

I thought if I could do self-help perfectly, I’d be well on my way to confidence and a sense of personal freedom.  If I could will myself into the knowledge and experience of self-love and acceptance, I’d have arrived.  There might even be a red carpet and some Valentino couture involved.  

After all, I used perfectionism to my advantage for years, why stop now?  Why not transfer that buttoned up effort to the pursuit of self-acceptance and love. With just enough muscle, I knew I could fix her. 

Spoiler alert:  no matter how many affirmations or bubble baths or self-help books are had, the “am I enough?” ballot’s still out.

Oh, I went gangster with it, too—you know, the “fixing homework.”

I’d recall all my limiting beliefs about myself, write them down, cross them out, and slap ruby red lipstick on them—with feeling. 

“I’m unloveable.” 

Er…I mean:

“I’m the greatest thing since (gluten-free) sliced bread and have every reason to deserve love now.”

Sounds more like an SNL sketch to me.  It also sounds reactionary and surface-level, not genuine or believable. 

Good news!  

You’re not meant to be fixed; you’re meant to be understood.

We can’t will ourselves into loving relationship with ourselves, or anyone else for that matter.  Humans aren’t math equations.  We’re messy, complex, and perfectly imperfect.  

The self-esteem quick fix is much like pumping a poor chicken chock full of toxic hormones to go further at your local Publix.  It may seem full of juicy possibility in the moment, yet it probably has long-term health concerns.

So why doesn’t self-esteem work? 

Because it’s based on the way we view ourselves to the degree with which we like ourselves.  Sounds benign, right?  Sure, until circumstances change.  What happens when we fail to get that promotion, call back, book deal—or can’t get the weight off? 

The temporary illusion of self-esteem takes a nosedive into a muddy puddle of shame.

Typically, if we depend on circumstances to prop up our self-worth, there’a hard and unexpected fall coming just around the corner.  

There’s more.  

Self-esteem can be divisive in an effort to “one-up” those around us.  Let’s revisit our earlier limiting belief turnaround. If I replace it with a pep talk that tells me “I’m the greatest thing around,” I’m puffing up my ego (which operates from a place of shame instead of belonging) and pitting myself against the world in an effort to prove myself, not lovingly be with myself.

So, what’s the solution?  If I can’t perfect self-esteem, what am I supposed to do?

Ten years ago, I picked up a book called Self-Compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself, by Kristin Neff.  It has changed the way I relate to myself and others on every level.  It’s also called me into a more caring dialog with myself as opposed to the harsh, striving one that’s been so violent and intrusive for decades.

Rules without relationship breed rebellion. 

If I’m constantly inflicting rules on myself instead of trying to relate to myself, I’m on the fast track of self-sabotage.  

• Self-compassion is relational, not circumstantial. It’s based on the awareness that the human condition is frail at best yet capable of resilience.  

• Self-compassion is cultivated like any relationship—over time.  It fills in all the holes self-esteem leaves gaping. When we fail to live up to our expectation, self-esteem prompts two extremes: negative self-talk or puffed up ego, (even…gasp…narcissism).

This is not the case with self-compassion.  It comes flooding in when our insecurities, flaws, and shortcomings stare us back in the mirror.  

• Most importantly, self-compassion binds us together in the reality of our human experience.  It doesn’t divide, puff up, or need to isolate.  We see ourselves through the lens of “imperfect—yet still enough.” 

When that brutal inner critic pipes up, self-compassion says, “Hold on. I see you. I understand your pain. And I am here with you.” 

Her voice is firm and tender.  

She doesn’t wait on the clouds to pass or the proverbial sun to shine. She speaks her truth in the broken moments. You’ve known her cadence a long, long time. Then you met fear.  It drowned out the love.

You know what?  

Your birthright is love, not fear. Just as you learned scarcity’s luring language, you can also unlearn it. Birds don’t soar because of effort or willpower.  They do so by surrender—and risk.  

It’s time to work with—not against—the choppy current of life’s wind.  

Alone?  Not in a million.  You’ve got a bold little guide waiting inside to illuminate the path.  She was born ready.