Trauma-Informed Coaching from Someone Who's Actually Been There and Made It Through
Aunastasia holds a PhD and has worked as a social worker and mental health therapist for over eleven years.
When she talks about trauma-informed coaching, there's a quiet depth to her understanding—not just from professional training, but from her journey as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who has built a meaningful life.
Because she has walked this road, she knows how hidden wounds shape daily choices: how success and finances tangle, how trust can vanish, how even healthy shifts can revive old defenses.
Even if the odds may once have been stacked against you, they do not get to declare what comes next.
The Reality We Don't Talk About Enough
The numbers are heavy but important: over 42 million Americans are survivors of sexual abuse, with CDC research showing that at least one in four girls and one in 20 boys experience childhood sexual abuse.
Trauma not only impacts a single aspect of life; it also reaches all spheres.
Your relationship with money, your ability to trust, how you sleep at night, and whether you believe you deserve good things.
A Different Foundation
Numerous coaching strategies are goal-oriented, mindset transformational, and emphasize breaking through blockades, all practical strategies that respond well to most people.
Trauma-informed coaching takes it a step further: realizing that not all obstacles are mere thoughts in your head, but a defense mechanism your nervous system created to keep you alive.
Once your body and brain have been conditioned to sense threat at all times, conventional ‘push-through it’ methods can be crushing or even counterintuitive.
Trauma-informed coaching acknowledges these patterns and does not fight against them.
Aunastasia brings both professional expertise and lived experience to this understanding.
She's done the inner work herself and understands what sustainable healing looks like in daily life.
How Trauma Shows Up Everywhere
Childhood sexual abuse has a way of weaving itself into multiple aspects of life:
Financial patterns: Trouble bringing money in or celebrating it, undervaluing what you offer, or self-sabotaging the moment things start to pick up.
Relationships: Scanning the moods of other people, having difficulties drawing strong boundaries, walking away at the moment when trust starts to build.
Physical wellbeing: Constant stress, flare-ups of autoimmune disease, disturbed sleep, or being forced to live inside a body that does not feel like a home anymore.
Emotions: Persevering anxiety, low mood, moodiness, or gentle buzz of alertness, which saps your strength.
Spiritual life: Doubting your value, questioning everything outside the ongoing routine, or having the overwhelming pain of feeling lonely.
Learning and performance: Perfectionism that paralyzes you, impostor syndrome, even when you actually win or freeze when you reach almost the goal line.
Daily coping: Burying big feelings under work, substance abuse, bingeing, scrolling, or anything else that quiets the volume for a moment.
Aunastasia has walked through every one of these storms. She has built a steady income, formed honest connections, earned her PhD, maintained her sobriety, and carved out daily habits that keep her well.
Her journey shows what can unfold when we get the right tools and support.
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Her Approach
Aunastasia's coaching method centers on several elements:
Safety first: Creating an environment where your nervous system can begin to relax and open to change.
Root understanding: Digging beneath everyday habits to spot the hidden triggers that keep you stuck.
Strength-based: Recognizing that survival itself demonstrates incredible resilience and resourcefulness.
Holistic perspective: Money, relationships, movement, work, spirit, and learning all fit together. Fixing one usually nudges the rest.
Individual pacing: Real change runs on its own clock, not the deadline someone else hands you.
This is coaching, not therapy, but it is heavily informed by the research and the principles of trauma and treating it therapeutically.
Research and Real Life
What many survivors already sense, current studies now back up: trauma leaves marks on the whole person, not just single memories or angry outbursts.
The World Health Organization has recognized says early abuse ripples through families and whole communities for decades.
Aunastasia's work with childhood sexual-abuse survivors, especially her look at how COVID shifted patterns in Michigan, has added depth to that picture.
She combines academic knowledge with personal insight to create approaches that translate into real-world results.
Organizations like RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) offer additional resources and support for those seeking help.
The Work Itself
Aunastasia's coaching process is designed to be both thorough and accessible:
Initial connection: A quick 15-minute chat to hear your goals and map the roadblocks.
Pattern recognition: Together, we sift through the hidden habits and stories that seem to influence your current situation.
Strategic action: We work together on small, actual actions toward those dreams, all the time keeping your nervous system safe.
No matter what you are aiming to do, be it starting a business, healing a relationship, returning to school, building wealth or simply constructing a life that somehow fits you and is your own, the work adapts itself to your very specific plans and circumstances.
Ripple Effects
When survivors heal and start building lives that fit, that ripple travels far beyond one person.
Relationships become more authentic.
Children grow up seeing different possibilities. Communities benefit from the wisdom that comes through transforming difficult experiences into strength and service.
Aunastasia witnesses this ripple effect regularly in her work.
Moving Forward
And when you read this and realize a murmur of recognition—maybe you think your story of survival can be the start of something greater, then pay attention to that feeling.
It may be your inner voice that knows that recovery and establishing a quality life are truly possible.
Moving forward as a victim of childhood sexual abuse to becoming a coach and researcher holding a PhD., Aunastasia demonstrates that the past is not a predictor of what is possible in the future.
Her efforts stand as both expert support and undeniable proof of the power every survivor carries within.
The road ahead does not forget what happened, but it can change the way those experiences affect the rest of your life.
Working with Aunastasia
At Defying the Odds, Dr. Aunastasia helps the survivor change every sphere of life.
In her integrative coaching, sustainable healing occurs as various aspects of life are treated as components of a significant whole.
To get an idea of what is possible in your life, just a conversation is all it takes.
Book your individual 15-minute discovery call and find out what is possible when you can work with a person who really knows how you can make it through.
Reach out to learn more about retreats and coaching.
FAQ
Will I have to dig into the raw details of my trauma?
Just what you are willing to give. You direct all the dialogues and select what flows in and out. It is not about retracing difficult moments but more about the direction you need to take.
How does this differ from therapy?
There is a tendency in therapy to have a longer time spent dealing with the past and closure of emotional wounds.
Coaching is goal-oriented; it deals with the future, so you can create the form of life you want.
What to do when I am not ready for some big changes?
You begin where you are, and you proceed at a pace which appears to you to be not only practicable, but secure.
Can this help with practical concerns like finances or career?
Yes. The traumatic experience can influence our relation to success, money, and professional achievement. Processing these patterns usually causes visible changes in these aspects.
