Leah's story (Melbourne, Australia)

What losing my whole immediate family from drugs taught me about life...  

When I was three years old I went to foster care for the first time. When I was four my mother went to prison for dealing heroin. My father was a violent alcoholic and drug taker as well. I grew up between foster homes and moving back and forth between each parent’s home.
 
When I was eleven my 14-year old brother was murdered by my mother's heroin dealer and 9 months later my sister committed suicide overdosing on heroin. She was my brother’s twin.

​I was admitted to hospital myself several times as a youth for taking my mother’s pain-killers attempting suicide as I faced homelessness and a life of desperation.
 
I was then taken into the care of a guardian, a member of my family, where I experienced abuse. My mother finally passed away at age 51 when I was 18 and then my father at age 46 when I was 20.
 
I have 2 brothers still alive, one with mental illness (including PTSD) and one with chronic drug addiction. All of my immediate family members were also sexual abuse sufferers. All of them experienced significant trauma.
 
I am the only one who stands without addiction. Why I share this story is because drugs taught me something deep about life. The devastation drugs caused my life, gave birth to a deep and very real passion within me to help heal not only myself but others.
 
To help people overcome pain, suffering and trauma naturally and without drugs became a burning desire. The pain that I experienced, I have used as fuel to overcome adversity and help others do so without forming addiction.
 
I became a Holistic counsellor, natural therapist and author of several books including The Sacred Psychology of Healing -Secrets to awakening the Mind-Body Potential, Self Care Medicine, Heal Yourself and Moving Beyond Pain. Putting my energy into helping other people through these works has brought me a lot of peace.

​My passion is helping people overcome pain naturally in all of its forms because I know suffering, I have lived it and have been there. In the course of my own pain I developed numerous illnesses and had surgeries that were a result of the internal pain becoming physical.
 
I discovered a universal truth as I left the dark world I had been born into. I saw that all things in life carry their opposite and comprehending that became truly empowering.  It helped me understand that I had lived a life that was not me, and now could use that experience to live one that truly was me.
 
I learned to use my lessons and even the worst parts of my own life experiences as steps on my way rather than allow them to haunt me, or stop me. Obstacles became obsolete as I learned to look at them like bugs on a windscreen that need not distract me from the direction I was heading in. The voice and the vision on the inside became louder and more profound than the voices and opinions on the outside that saw so little for my future. Because I saw great meaning and purpose for me, it began to happen!
 
I learned to go within so I could rise above rather than feel that I was without. This is where I found my riches. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain and persisted every day with my mission of refining my vision, goals and plans for the future. It was in doing this work that I discovered that planning was essential in imagineering the future.
 
I chose to focus on becoming a master of my own life using the worst of my experience as compost to give me a deep drive to live the opposite way. Like an arrow held back by the archer, the more weight behind my struggle, the greater I saw I could fly towards my goals. I look at my life now as a journey that provided me great resistance training to build strength in character. A strength and wisdom that I learned through pain that cannot be taken away. There are two things that can never be taken from us...our love and our wisdom.
 
Since choosing this new life, I have immersed myself in personal development and have focused on learning as much as I can about health and wellbeing.  I have spent my whole adult life deep in study and following dreams of authoring, writing and sharing so that I may leave a legacy.
 
Since becoming a mother and having the opportunity to bring up my child in a loving nurturing environment my life has shifted dramatically again. Giving her all of the love I didn’t experience as a child and watching the grace and natural light in her eyes is a profound gift to witness.  It has healed something deep within being part of this relationship and helps me see the natural human beauty underneath all of us if we are given a chance to live in an environment of love and not fear.  Seeing my daughter delight in life fills me with the greatest sense of gratitude and completion.
 
If I can use my scarred experience in the first part of my life to shed light on what is possible for others, that makes me feel alive and makes it all understandable. Through simple, small and consistent changes, I have been able to transform my scarred story. My main message is that it is often just above the darkest grey clouds that the highest mountain peaks rest. All we must do is persist, be brave and keep going.
 
I hope that in learning my story, you can awaken the healer within you. To understand it is truly possible to overcome any pain and suffering in your own life. There are so many healing alternatives that can help you overcome trauma and suffering naturally without forming addiction.
 
I have done it. And so can you!

​Love Leah x

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