From Hiding to Healing: How Telling My Truth Became My Brand
I didn’t know I was hiding.
Not in the way you might think. I wasn’t in the shadows. I wasn’t running away. I was showing up—to workshops, to healing circles, to business events. I was building a brand. I was doing what I thought was the “work.”
But something was always off.
Deep inside, I knew there was something more powerful, more true, more real inside me. But I couldn’t touch it. Couldn’t access it. Because I was still hiding.
And what I was hiding from was the truth of my own story.
The Truth I Refused to Tell
I was raised in an environment where abuse wasn’t just physical, it was emotional. It was energetic. It lived in every glance, every withheld word, every passive-aggressive moment between my mother and me. It shaped my relationship with my sister. It shaped my sense of safety. It taught me that being seen was dangerous.
So I learned to perform.
To show up with light. With love. With messages about alignment and frequency. With healing modalities and heart-centered language. But I wasn’t showing up with the truth.
Because that truth was painful.
The truth was:
- I was abused.
- I was silenced.
- I was taught to protect my abusers.
- I was conditioned to hide.
Even as I began building a brand, even as I called myself a healer, I was still hiding. And I didn’t even know it. I thought I had done the work. I thought I had moved on.
But I hadn’t owned the truth. Not publicly. Not deeply. Not soulfully.
And because of that, I couldn’t fully step into my power.
Enter Darrell Stern and the Stern Storming Method
It didn’t feel like marketing.
It felt like soul excavation.
Working with Darrell Stern wasn’t about slogans or SEO or social media templates. It was about asking one terrifying, liberating question:
What is the truth of your life?
That question shook me.
It cracked me open.
And at first, I resisted. I fought it. I told myself: “People don’t want to hear about my trauma.” I told myself: “This is too dark, too raw, too messy.”
But something deeper in me said: trust.
Trust the process. Trust the pain. Trust the truth.
And so I did.
And when I finally told the story of what really happened—what I went through as a child, the abuse, the manipulation, the shame—everything shifted.
From Trauma to Testimony
I stopped trying to be a brand.
I became a voice.
I stopped marketing a product.
I started sharing a purpose.
That’s the magic of truth-telling. It doesn’t just heal you. It magnetizes others. Because when you speak the thing no one else dares to say, people listen. People feel you. People trust you.
Telling my story was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. But it was also the most liberating. Because that story was mine. And it had been buried for too long.
I wasn’t just hiding the truth. I was hiding my power.
And now?
I’m building a brand that comes directly from my healing. A brand that says: “You’re not alone.” A brand that doesn’t offer empty promises or superficial positivity. A brand that speaks directly to the women, especially the mothers and daughters, who have lived through generational abuse and don’t know how to break the cycle.
What Hiding Cost Me
Hiding cost me my voice.
Hiding cost me my authority.
Hiding cost me clients, relationships, clarity.
Most of all, hiding cost me myself.
And let’s be clear: Hiding isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it looks like light and love. Sometimes it looks like saying the right things. Sometimes it looks like having a pretty website and a spiritual Instagram.
But if you’re not telling your truth—if you’re not building your brand on who you really are and what you’ve really lived through—then you’re building a mask. Not a mission.
Building a Brand on Truth
With Darrell’s help, I began to restructure everything. My message. My offers. My story. My voice.
I stopped filtering.
I stopped editing myself.
I stopped trying to sound “professional” and started sounding like me.
Because my real clients? They don’t want a mask. They don’t need a guru. They need real.
They need to know that their pain isn’t shameful.
They need to know that someone has been there and survived it.
They need to know that healing is possible.
Not perfect. Not clean. But possible.
And now that’s what my brand offers.
To the Other Healers Still Hiding
If you’re still hiding, I get it.
If you’re still afraid to share the story of your abuse, I get it.
If you’re still crafting content that you think your spiritual friends will like—instead of what your soul is screaming to say—I really get it.
But hear me: There’s a deeper power in you.
And it’s not in your light. It’s in your truth.
It’s in the messy, dark, raw parts of your story that you’ve never dared say aloud.
That’s where your real brand lives.
That’s where your real clients are waiting.
The Power of Being Seen
Darrell Stern didn’t give me a marketing plan.
He gave me permission.
Permission to be messy. Permission to be real. Permission to stop performing and start telling the truth.
And from that truth, everything bloomed.
New programs. New content. New clients. A new level of confidence I didn’t even know was possible.
But most of all?
A new relationship with myself.
For the first time, I felt seen. Not because I was projecting a brand, but because I was revealing my soul.
And when you’re seen like that?
You can never go back to hiding.
Final Words: Truth Is the Brand
If you’re a healer, a coach, a guide—and you know deep down that you’re still hiding, let this be your sign.
The world doesn’t need more noise. It needs your truth.
Not the polished version. Not the one you think will sell.
The real one.
Because that truth is the thing that heals.
And when you tell it, you give others permission to heal too.
That’s not marketing. That’s medicine.
And it’s time you gave that medicine to the world.
Thank you, Darrell. Thank you, Stern Storming.
For helping me stop hiding.
For helping me come home to myself.
And for showing me that the truth really does set you free.