From Surviving to Serving: Turning Trauma Into a Mission of Impact

Welcome back to the Impact Makers podcast. I am Melissa Deely,

and I am Billy Adme, and this is where one spark can create infinite impact. We are really excited for our guest today, Miss Kelsey Bowmaster. Welcome to the show, Kelsey.

Thank you so much for having me.

We are very excited to have you here today, sharing your story, Kelsey. And I just want to introduce you a little bit to the audience, and then have you share your background. Kelsey is an integrative health practitioner, somatic breathwork practitioner, yoga instructor, personal trainer, and founder of Better You Health Coaching. After spending years navigating her own healing journey, she has been rebuilding her health, discovering the power of mind-body healing, and Kelsey has now made it her mission to help others reclaim their health and transform their lives. So let's dive right in, Kelsey. I love how you worked really hard on your own healing journey, and now you are helping others. However, let's just dive right in and talk about that healing journey, where you've come from over here on what we call Victim Island, to now living in your power over here in Solution City,

yeah, it really started back in my childhood. I had a very unhappy childhood. I would say my whole life has been a lot of big T traumas, a lot. And so, as I was getting older, teenager in college, I was starting to have all these health issues. I would have like IBS to the point where I eat something. I didn't know if I'd have to run to the bathroom or if I wouldn't go to the bathroom for four days. So my gut was a wreck. I had low thyroid. I would break out in random skin rashes. The worst was when it was like around my eyes. It was just my whole body felt like it was falling apart. My anxiety was through the roof. Depression, insomniac-you know, all of it. What really? I also had this really somatic reaction happen in my body, where my right side of my body would lock up, so I wouldn't be able to sit at a computer and use a computer, I couldn't do any fine motor movements like changing earrings. If I got stuck in traffic driving a car, my whole body it would look like I was tweaking out on drugs and I was totally sober. And it would look like I could not control my nervous system, and doctors couldn't explain it. So as time went on, I did become an integrative health practitioner. I really wanted to get to the root cause of why my health was so out of whack. Like, what could possibly be going on, going wrong? Because anytime I would go to conventional medicine, just for example, they diagnosed me with some sort of bacteria in the eye, so they gave me erythromycin, which actually made the rash worse. So I kind of gave up with conventional medicine. I was just so frustrated, and I was tired of feeling so sick that I was digging into other forms of medicine or natural healing. And after learning everything I was learning, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna work on the gut. I'm gonna do all this stuff, and I would get better, but then I would relapse, and I would get better, and then I would relapse, and I was like, okay,

something's not right. There's still a missing piece, and as part of my practitioner book club, we read the book The Body Keeps the Score, and after reading that book, it was like an aha moment. Like, oh my gosh, this is me. Like, this is trauma and emotion stuck in my body. From that moment forward, I made the intention of getting to the root cause of my physical ailments and going down that trauma route. My intention was to start with ayahuasca. It was a plant medicine because I had heard really good things about it for trauma. Like, and I saw a documentary, and I was like, "Oh, this might be the answer. Well, I was also warned that you want to be careful. Women get taken advantage of. You really want to make sure you trust the people there. So, feel like a year, maybe even longer, went by, and then all of a sudden, I get an email for Empolga, and I had never heard of it. I had no idea what it was, but it was talking about trauma, and I was like, "We don't even know what this is, but I'm gonna go do it because that's my personality. I just kind of say yes to everything. And what was that that

you just said? What was it called?

Iboga, I B O G A.

Okay.

So if you've heard of ibogaine, ibogaine is one alkaloid out of the tree bark. Aboga is the whole tree bark. So I. Signed up for this retreat, and I show up to the retreat, and they're like, "Wait, you've never done any other plant medicine, and you're starting with this one. That is like, I mean, yeah, I'm here. You're like, okay, but it's like the toughest one you can do, right? But it really matched my personality, like very masculine, very like just heal, and so it was the really the perfect setting for me, and during that ceremony, I had to relive all of my childhood trauma. It wasn't just seeing it; it was feeling it. It was hearing it-the auditory hallucinations of hearing my mom tell me, you know, you never should have been born. You'll never amount to anything. You can't do anything right. You suck. You suck. You suck. You know all of the negative things that you can think of. Hearing this again, I mean, it was like living a nightmare. Really, it was so hard. But at the very end of the ceremony, all of a sudden, this lightning bolt appeared, and I just knew it symbolized the emotion and trauma stuck in my body. And at the very end, the lightning bolt broke into a million pieces and shot out my body through the bottom of my feet, and I never felt it again. And it's completely left. So after that, I cried for 36 hours. Then I went through an anger process, and then you know I went through the whole grieving process after the ceremony. But what really, it really opened my mind to like, holy cow, there's so much to the trauma healing piece. So after that point, I was like, okay, what else is there? How can I figure out my purpose? How can I? What else can I heal? Like I have so much sexual trauma. I have PTSD from an ex boyfriend who threatened to kill me, took a knife to me, locked me in a parking garage. Like just so much held in my nervous system, and what I would explore, I explored astrology. I made an

appointment with an evolutionary astrologist just to figure out like my purpose. I worked with hypnotherapy. I did. I would read tons of books on trauma and nervous system. I mean, I was doing all the things. I did end up trying experimenting with ayahuasca as well, which was healing in itself as well. This past year was really my intention. I kept making the intention of healing sexual trauma, and it got to the point where I was Having nightmares of rape and murder, so my PTSD symptoms were very rampant, and I found myself not even able to stay alone. And so I'd have to stay at my mom's house in her basement because she lives like five down from where the townhome I'm staying in, but still, I couldn't. I've never put my name on a house yet. You know, I've like always lived in fear and have always been kind of like in hiding because again, he had threatened to kill me, so that was like stuck with me. That's something that I just held onto with breath work, so what brought me to breath work was I decided to try it. I really realized, you know, after becoming a yoga instructor, just how healing, like slowing down, really was, because I was a pro at burnout and pushing my body to the limits. Being an elite athlete as well. Like running was always my therapy, and I was like, "Oh, well, if I'm running, I'm fine. If I'm running, I'm fine. And this is another example of where I really broke through a lot of limiting self beliefs because in high school, I sat down and quit during my track meet, and a boga during that first ceremony, I did showed me exactly why I did that because it was my parent. My parents, like I didn't believe in myself because my parents didn't believe in me. They didn't encourage me, so I kind of gave up at that point in my life. Fast forward, I can't remember what year it was, but I ran the Iceland Volcano Marathon, took second for females. I ran the Petra Jordan Marathon, took third for females.

So it's like I like completely broke through that limiting self belief. And so when I realized that too, I was like, "Well, what else can I do? What else can I break through? You know, like it's always like I'm very competitive, so it's almost like a game to me, right? Like, how much can I enjoy this journey of like just breaking through all of these limiting self beliefs that I've been carrying around in my body? But coming back to breath work, I had done a few sessions, and I was like, "Oh, this is so good! Like. So calming. Sometimes I cry a little bit, like some tears come out. That's really what it was to me. I was like, "Oh, I never have an emotional release. It just doesn't work for me that way. It just doesn't work that way. So I went into my somatic breathwork training. This was in February of this year, with that same mindset of like, "Well, I'm not going to have an emotional release, and it was just the the synchronicity of all the events that followed just blew my own mind. Where I felt so divinely guided, and it really just strengthened my relationship with God. And I was like, like I was meant to be here, and this is I am living my purpose. I am on my journey. So what happened was at this training, the first day we end the training with a somatic breathwork session, and I felt this contraction in my heart. It was just it happened behind my heart too, in my back, and at that point, I was like, "Oh, well, that's weird. Like it was just a little contraction, and I just kind of blew it off. The next day, I was talking to another lady at the same training who does what I do, functional medicine labs. But then she and she started in conventional medicine, but she also does energy work on the side as well, and she is psychic, reads people, so I'm talking to her about these dreams I'm having because I tend to have really prophetic dreams as well. Like they give me tons of signs, they tell me messages. I view it as a gift from God. Like I

get all these intuitive meanings from these dreams, and so I'm talking to this lady about this, these dreams I'm having about this certain guy, and they won't stop. And I see him, and I know what he's doing, and I know where who he's with. With this, like it was just this like toxic situation in my life at the time. I'm like, I don't even care anymore. Like, why am I still dreaming about him? Like, I want it done. Where is this coming from? So I asked her, and I was like, "Do you think this is a karmic connection, or is this some sort of like, where is this coming from? Why won't it stop? And she asked me if she could read me. I said yes, and she goes, "It's tied to emotion stuck in your heart. She goes, "And it's dating back to 2017, and I was like, "Well, that's really weird. Because yesterday I felt something in my heart. 2017 is the year that me and my psychotic ex broke up, but I couldn't afford to move out, so I was still living with him. And that's when he would like come home from work, wasted. Throw water on me in the middle of the night. Like I just had this complete nervous system rash from him, and he this this breakup and all this toxic stuff happened in 2017. So she said that, and I was like, I thought I was over that. I thought I moved past that. Well, the next day of training, we had to practice hands-on touch techniques, and I'm partnered with someone, and it was the simple act of just sticking my hand out. All of a sudden, I'm in tears, and all these memories from 2017 were coming back, and memories of him telling me how horrible I was in the bedroom, how I just like all of this stuff where he just degraded me, constantly put me down, kind of like my childhood. And I guess I held on to that, and I truly believed that for the longest time.

And so, just the act of like sticking my hand out for some reason triggered all these memories, and I'm bawling, and the facilitator comes over and is like, "Do you need to take break? And I was like, "No, I'll just, I'll be fine. I want to keep going. And the next day was the last day of training. I had to receive a breathwork session, and during that session, my whole body like shook so like it was shaking uncontrollably. My I always wear my whoop strap. Burned 500 calories in like a 20 minute shake session. Like it was insane. So I'm like shaking uncontrollably. My head goes back almost like an exorcism, and I was just bawling. And it took forever for my body to come back, but I realized from that too. I had never talked to anyone, not even my therapist, about what my ex had told me. All those things he said in the bedroom, which only compounded on other sexual trauma. So it was just, it was so healing. And ever since then, I haven't had nightmares of rape and murder. I haven't like I've actually have a very healthy sex life, so it feels like I've just broken through all of these barriers that I felt like were just oh I'm just broken. I'm just broken. That's just the way it is. I can't fix this. So it's been very yeah. Powering. I'm just. I feel like I'm on cloud nine most days now,

and I that thank you for sharing your story so vulnerably. And I love how you know you started in the physical body, like so many of us do, and you had relapses, and so you kept looking, you kept searching, and you realize that it's not just about healing the physical body; that we have to also heal the emotional body, the mental body. And you just kept following the breadcrumbs, and that's led you to where you're at today, where now you have healed your physical body and your emotional body of all that stuff down negative emotion. You've healed from all the those limiting beliefs, and then that's brought you into such beautiful alignment with your spirituality, with your relationship with God, with knowing that you are living your mission, which allows you to be in this place of joy and over here in your power in Solution City, versus where you've come from, which was very much over here on Victim Island after all that you've gone through in your life, and because I know you, I know that you are even in that place of healing where you can look back on it with gratitude because it's got you to where you're at here today, and that you wouldn't be who you are today if you hadn't gone through that.

Yes, and I do think that is a very important part of healing too is being able to have that, still have that sense of gratitude just for your past, like where your journey. You know, I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't gone through all that.

Now, Kelsey, I was really fascinated by your story, and you know, unfortunately, you we've heard that so many times, right? I mean, I was a police officer for 20 years, so I have seen all kinds of trauma in people and things that they go through. And what I noticed as you were talking about, you know, your journey from victim knowledge to Solution City, a lot of the stuff that you know you were dealing with over here, it's our thoughts, right? We mentioned this before we even started. We think about all these things, right? And that's just you know. Then it shows up in our body, right? Because that's the only way our higher bodies are like new. Pay attention to me too. I'm up here, right? We're not just you only pay attention sometimes when it shows up, as you said, with your physical symptoms. And you know, plant medicine. And you know, I just want to say to the audience, like, if you're considering plant medicine, make sure you go to someone that is trained properly. And there is a lot of people out there that are doing these so-called journeys. And if you're not in a good place, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, it can actually cause more harm. So I just want to put that out there for sure because there is a lot of talk about that. And what Melissa and I say in our school is what plant medicine does is just what we do in a different way, which is get below the critical faculty and access the unconscious, right? The unconscious mind is where all those programs, all those limiting beliefs, everything that you were saying from your childhood, from all that trauma, and it's all lives there. And we can't think our way through it, right? We can't, you know. And we love talk therapy, and again, I speak about this all the time. That as a cop, I had to go to therapy, and I hated it because I felt worse because I had to talk about all the horrible things that we had to see. And now I know that talking about it doesn't actually change it.

Right? We want to shift it into go under where where the program actually got installed at the unconscious level. That's where you need to reprogram it and release it. And I'm sure you you've heard like we love timeline therapy for that, because when I was listening to your journey, I was like, "Oh God, that sounds so hard, right? Like all this stuff that you have to go through and relive all these. It's it's it's really taxing on our bodies, and that's what I love about timeline therapy. Is it's just it's just going to the root and it's talking about the learnings, right? Kind of like what you're talking about now-that you have gratitude for that because now you learned lessons from all those traumatic events. Big T, little T doesn't matter. Trauma is trauma is trauma, and we still have lessons to learn in every little thing that happens to us. And so, what I love, like your journey, and this is why I just kind of the audience to you know they're not picking up. Like all you're doing is going into the unconscious, right? Breath work. We're going into our higher bodies, right? All this energy healing, and there's so many beautiful modalities out there that we just call different doors. They're just different doors into your unconscious mind, and you know, you call it God, I call it universe, some call it higher self. You know, everything that we need is already within us, right, and it just opens up that door. So, all that to say, Kelsey. First of all, congratulations for getting to this side because I know I've been there myself. You know, I love the tools that we teach now because, like, this is literally why I have an easy button on my desk. Like, easy way to do healing, right? You don't kind of go through all the hard stuff and and do all those. Yeah, it doesn't have to take long. What has now, since you're kind of now living over here on Solution City, and we always say, you know, it's so much better.

There's better restaurants and amusement parks and beachfront properties. Like, how are you using what you've learned now in impacting others, and not just in your own life, you know, with your clients and like, what what's changed now in how you operate in the world? Because I know you said that like your. Just the happiest you've ever been, and you're on cloud now. So, what's how do you bring that into your work now?

Yeah, I well, as an integrative health practitioner, I'm constantly like in part in my intake. I do ask about trauma, and even though I'm not technically qualified to really help them work through it, I at least have resources, right, to help guide them, like and bring awareness. Like I had a lady come in who had this big gaping wound on her arm, and they've biopsied it. They've done all these tests, and nothing is coming back. And then during her intake, it came out that oh, well, my boyfriend abused me 10 years ago, right in that spot, and then it appeared right after that, and I'm like, okay, there's something there, you know. But she had never even put that together. So I like being a resource for people. I like to educate people, maybe give them ideas of other modalities of healing. Because again, like you said, talk therapy is great, but you're stuck in it. You're stuck reliving it, talking about it over and over and over again, so not only do I help my clients then with the physical body, trying to get to the root cause of what's going on there, because that is important too, right? And the stronger your physical body, I find the more I'm able to handle things mentally too, right? I have a clear mind, I have a clear spirit, like I just healthier in general. Then, in my fitness, I also create workout plans for people. I'm a yoga instructor, so it's all mind, body, spirit, and that's why I wanted to add in the somatic breath work because I'm like, okay, so many people are even resistant to therapy. So many people like don't want to do any other modality, just come breathe with me, you know. Just come see what happens, and I'm there to create a safe space, provide, you know, just someone to talk to, and I'm just building a community where people feel so seen and heard. And I think that's what's lacking in this day and age. We're missing true connection, you know, everyone's so glued to their screens. I mean, you go out to eat and

you see people just on their phones. Even kids, like kids, are just looking down at their screens now too. And I'm like, we need this human connection. Like, I think that's the missing piece so many people don't think of too when it comes to health is how important human connection truly is, and real connection, not just "Hey, how's your day? Oh, great. Okay, now I'm on my phone. You know, like how deep can we connect? So that's what I'm trying to bring to my breathwork sessions as well. Just being a safe space, someone to talk to. You know, and I, if I ask you how you're doing, I always want the long version. That's awesome.

So, in your, I know you, you, you've talked about lots of like moments where you know when you did your sorry, what's it called again? Iboga, Iboga Boga,

yeah,

Boga. Your Boga journey, your breathwork journey, your somatic journey. Like, there's so many pinpoints. Was one moment where you were like, "That's it, I'm I'm good. Like, I've I've gotten through the storm, and now like that the past is the past. I don't have to think about it anymore, and now it's just like full steam ahead.

I think the brothwork was the pivotal moment because up until then, I was still suffering from a lot of the PTSD symptoms. I mean, I was so hyper vigilant; I couldn't be alone. I'd have nightmares, and something just through that process of shaking and releasing whatever that was, I can now be alone, and my nightmares are gone. So I think that breathwork session was that pivotal moment because being 37, I'm 37. Earlier this year, imagine being 37 and being like, I can't even live alone. I can't be alone. Like how it was really overwhelming to think about, and then to think about like, oh, I was freezing in the bedroom. I'm never going to have a healthy relationship again, and to come out on the other side and be like, man, yes, I do. So I would say the breathwork session. It was just this year, and it seems like forever ago, but it was really just in February, where it just was like that-the massive tipping point. Of course, I had healed so much leading up to that too, but that would be my big point. Where I'm like, yeah, that changed my life, and all of the healing that you had done up to that point obviously then helped you have such a powerful breathwork experience, and that physical shaking to release the trauma is something that animals do. You know, we've all seen dogs. You know, they go out and they have some experience. They come home and they lie down and they just start shaking, and that's their nervous system releasing it, and it releases it in the moment. Whereas that doesn't happen for humans, especially if the unconscious mind feels that it's not safe in that moment, right? And so all of the work that you did got you to a place where now in the breathwork session, your unconscious mind goes, "Yes, good, she's safe. Let's get rid of this. And you were ready, and your unconscious mind knew that. And so it's you know so incredible to actually have it leave your body and be aware of it leaving your body because you

are feeling it leave your body. Yeah, and I think it can be subtle too, right? Like with meditation, like meditation-that's a practice that I've been incorporating into my daily life now for probably a year, and it's not just meditation, but I guess you could almost call it manifestation as well, where you're feeling your future, right? You're feeling what you want in the future. You're going to create that, and meditation has been proven in research can rewire the brain alone itself too. So, just doing all of these things and making it a daily

practice is also life changing. Absolutely, and you're right. It can be subtle because in the work that we do, when we're releasing the trauma, it is more subtle. And as Billy said before, it's just the doors, right? There's the different doors that you can go through as to what is the right tool for you to allow this to release your body from your body, and for you to know that that is a step in your healing journey. It's not enough to just talk about it. We have to actually release it from the body and get rid of all those stuck points. So again, congratulations for all the work that you've done. And I know it's only been six months since you you know had that major moment, and you've been living on cloud nine and fully living your life, so yay! The rest of life is in front of you now, and you've got some really fascinating travels coming up later this year, and opportunities that again have landed in front of you now that you've done this healing, and you are continuing to follow your intuition and follow your the seeds that are being planted, so please share that with us as well.

Yes, I remember going to my first aboga ceremony and just looking around at the facilitators and being like, "How does anyone get to this point where you know they can be a facilitator? Now, fast forward three years later, they invited me to go to Gabon, West Africa, to be initiated into the Bleeti tribe, so that I can go and work as a facilitator next March at the same retreat. And I just remember sitting there and looking around, and I'm like, "Oh, is this my life right now? You know, yeah, it's very exciting. I feel very honored because, again, and you're completely right. I 100% agree. Not everyone should go down this path, right? Like it's only for a certain type of person. You have to be really careful. But for me, I really feel like it saved my life. Like getting this to leave my body, whatever it was, was life changing. Like I can sit at a computer, right? So I just want to like pay my respects to the plant as well as kind of my thank you,

and paying saying thank you and paying it forward. It's beautiful,

and yeah, and as you know, as we talk about, you know, there's so many different ways to heal, and you know, different. I always say to people, if it's showing up in your life, it's there for a reason, right? When certain modalities, like I've been, you know, a personal development junkie for I don't know 30 years, like since my teenage years, and I tried. When you use the word "try" intentionally, that I tried so many different things, and it couldn't work because of the fact that I couldn't access my unconscious. I was thinking my way through a lot of things, right? So I wasn't open to receiving, and that's part of a lot of whether you're doing plant medicine or anything. It's open being open to receive, and so a lot of times when I did Reiki or I did breath work or stuff like that, it didn't ever open because that door wasn't open for me yet, and so you know, again, just if it sinks to you and it's something like, oh, I think that I can resonate with that. All we want we tell people is make sure that you've done some work first, right, and not just go like pull the bandaid off, right? Because sometimes again, you know, it opens doors that we don't aren't ready to go into, and that's the the safety issue that we always want to talk about. The ecological issue that you know, if if you never even talk into a talk to a therapist about your your trauma, go talk to someone first, right? We we as much as we say talk therapy is a hard way of doing things, we know it's great for awareness because you need to have some sort of awareness around it, and until you can have that awareness, now you have the choice to do something to shift it, right? So I love that you you've had a lot of this awareness, Kelsey, which is why likely it was such a powerful and profound transformation for you, right? And we always say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. We always say that.

Yes,

it wouldn't have. The fact that

it just, yeah, the fact that it just appeared in my. Email. I was like, okay, I don't know. This is a sign. Exactly. Like God knows I say yes. So here I go.

So Kelsey, I'm going to ask you. You know, as you know, our our podcast is called Impact Makers Podcast, and you know, we love hearing stories of people that are out there making an impact in the world. So, what does making an impact mean to you specifically, and how do you embody that every day?

Yeah, making an impact. I again, I just try to be there for people. I try to create connection, have that connection, and then lead with love, lead with my heart, just care. We're missing so much of that in this world, and I feel like so many people are, again, glued to social media or the news, and it's all this doom and gloom. When really, like, let's talk about uplifting things, right? Like, I try to just bring more of an uplifting spirit to my community, to the world, because again, I've reached that joy part, and I know how hard it can be. But really, on the other side, it's so so good, and so I just try to be there, encourage people,

and love that. And you know, it doesn't matter where we start in making an impact; we start with one person, and you will never know the ripple effect of what you are creating because you impact one person's life. You're there for them at the time when they needed you, and that can shift something in their life. And then they leave that interaction with you more joyful, more happy, and they go out and make someone else happy. And you will never know that. And I love that you know you just look at it. You know, one person at a time in my community create that space, and that is such powerful impact. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for the work that you do. Now, if listeners want to get hold of you and work with you, learn more about what you're doing, how can they get hold of you? Yes. Well, my

social media handles are my name. I know it's kind of hard to spell, but it's . Then my website is www.betteryouhealthcoaching.com Yeah, and you can contact me that way.

Beautiful. We will have all of that in the show notes for listeners to access. So again, thank you so much for being here for sharing your story, and in doing so, again having impact in the lives of others because you might inspire somebody who listened and is feeling like they're stuck on Victim Island to recognize that oh my goodness, I can get myself over to Solution City. If she did it, I can do it too. So thank you for sharing, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in and being inspired each and every week on the Impact Makers podcast.

And if you know someone that could be inspired by this podcast or anything that we share, please share it with someone else and help spark someone else's light.