Hear from Gabrielle G.
Working with Penny as a C-PTSD career resilience coach for ten weeks using her eight-dimensions of wellness program, rooted in the principles of ikigai, has helped me have a holistic and focused approach to my career and personal life. The first few words that come to mind when thinking about Penny are warm, enthusiastic, energetic, organized, knowledgeable, current, adaptable, focused, eloquent, and passionate. The 8-dimensions of wellness program that Penny has created is a resource and framework of thinking that is invaluable for anyone with complex trauma.
I started working with Penny at one of the lowest points of my life after both serious personal and professional loss. During our initial consultation, the warmth and energy Penny showed me, gave me hope and the motivation to keep going. Through her attention and kindness, she quite literally gave me her positive energy. Some of the things that immediately struck me are how personable and compassionate she is, and how she uses her own life experiences to show up for others. In every session, Penny helped me dig deep into how my trauma was affecting my thinking and emotions, and how I could move forward intentionally to create a life that was more aligned with my inner self and values.
The flexibility of Penny’s 8-dimensions of wellness program enabled us to examine how thinking and emotional patterns of complex trauma affect fundamental areas of my life in a way that was organic and relevant to recurrent challenges.
Penny brings her cutting edge, personal expertise to navigating the world with complex trauma to each session and draws on her extensive knowledge of the current field of trauma work. In each session, Penny offered timely and exceptionally well-curated resources to supplement each dimension of wellness we were working on: including books, webinars, organizations, and contemporary experts that were relevant to our sessions.
Living with complex-post traumatic stress disorder is often confusing, lonely, frustrating, and isolating. Unlike PTSD, for folks with C-PTSD caused by habitual childhood trauma there is often no “before”. As adults, this makes navigating relationships inside and outside the workplace complicated, as our thinking patterns and emotional patterns are deeply wired in trauma. Penny’s intimate experience with navigating the personal and professional world with C-PTSD, brings a relatability to her services that can be hard to find in similar services, whether that be in talk therapy, life coaching, or otherwise.
I highly recommend Penny’s services for anyone looking for professional help working through the unique challenges complex trauma causes inside and outside the workplace. For people with C-PTSD, we often spend our time trying to translate ourselves to others. Not only does Penny understand this on a personal level, but also understands why and how this is on a neuro-biological level. Her understanding of the complex social and biological factors of C-PTSD are not only validating, but she has taken her knowledge to create a truly special program that empowers those of us with this invisible disability, to positively change our lives.
Penny is on the forefront of trauma-informed services and her genuine care and passion for uplifting others is nothing short of extraordinary. My deepest, heartfelt gratitude to Penny for transforming life’s challenges into empathy and kindness for others. She is truly a bright star!