These photos are of art that a survivor created during the workshop Befriending Your Feelings. This woman, in her fifties, has complex trauma beginning in early childhood and continuing into adulthood. She has shared experiences of neglect and child abuse while with her family and child sex abuse while in the foster care system. As an adult she experienced intimate partner violence with her husband. She was first referred to services through a counselor at one of our partnering health clinics. For years she was severely isolated, she seldom talked or engaged.
We began meeting with her at the health clinic and overtime she began engaging more. Our county is very rural and extremely long. Transportation is difficult from one end of the county to the other. We arranged and provided financial assistance so that she could have transportation to participate in AWBW.
This was a huge step for her, to venture out of her comfort and safety zone. Her healing since attending AWBW has been profound and she states that she is continuing to heal through every workshop.
She said, “I am in the process of allowing and welcoming my feelings. I realize that I am afraid of my anger, afraid of what will happen if I allow it, but I am willing to explore it.”
It is an honor, as an AWBW facilitator, to witness such beauty.
