You belong HERE.
You are enough, just as you are.
Even if the world around you makes you think that you need to improve yourself, to be more, to be different, to be better, you are worthy of care and attention. You are good enough, just by being alive.
We are so hungry for belonging that we starve our bodies and strip our identities to fit into relationships, workplaces, and a capitalist society that profits from our illness, over-consumption, chronic pain, and stress. We have become habituated to exiling ourselves, to denying our essential humanness, and to compromising our health to meet the super-human expectations of our capitalist and patriarchal society.
This is a gaping wound in our sense of belonging to each other and to the planet itself. The result is widespread relational and environmental trauma, and a cultural dis-ease that has taken up residency in our bodies, hearts, and minds.
But healing is possible.
With mindfulness and somatic awareness, you can retrain your brain, revisit developmental tasks you didn’t get to complete, identify self-limiting beliefs, and offer your wounded parts information you did not have when you decided how to relate to yourself and to the world. With a handful of practical strategies and in-the-moment interventions, you can put new possibilities on the map, learn to navigate challenges more skillfully, and heal your relationship to being alive.
Recover your Sense of Self.
Reclaim your Power.
Reconnect with your Inner Child.
Start Healing Today ⟶
Emotional abuse is relational trauma.
Voice notes, emails, and text messages don’t leave purple marks that can be covered up with makeup or disguised with sunglasses. But when you are in a power-under relationship with a family member, friend, or co-worker, episodes of emotional violence can leave you trembling, hyper-vigilant, rattled, and afraid, just like a physical attack.
The damage may be hidden, but the trauma is real. There may not be eyewitnesses, video footage that would stand up in court, or a single, identifiable incident of acute threat, but ongoing psychological maltreatment is a legitimate cause of complex post-traumatic stress disorder that can leave deep scars.
Attachment wounds leave deep scars.
The lack of secure attachment in a child’s early years has been linked to a large number of mental illnesses, unhealthy coping strategies, and addictive behaviors. When children experience neglect, abandonment, or a primary caregiver who is chronically unavailable or dysregulated, this form of exile creates a core wound to our sense of belonging in the world. Even intra-uterine and generational trauma can stay with us into adulthood, causing us to experience chronic anxiety, depression, and a lack of connection.
When we bring care and attention to our childhood wounding, we can start to recognize the patterns and strategies that were once essential for getting our needs met, but are no longer serving us. With that information, we can start to offer ourselves the love and care we didn’t get to receive when we were young, and transform our relationship to belonging in the world.
Healing begins when you slow down and welcome yourself as you already are, without judgment, right here in the present moment. At the core of relational trauma is a deeply fractured relationship with ourselves. It is in doing the work of repairing this relationship that we can begin to heal this core wound - that of belonging in our own bodies.
Access guided meditations, in-the-moment interventions, and practical tools for instantly reducing anxiety and managing reactivity
If you find yourself, wondering whether something is abuse or domestic violence, that alone is enough to seek help. You do not need a court or a mediator to tell you that what is happening to you is not OK.
You do not need to compromise your values, or your sense of belonging in your body to make a relationship work. You have the right to reclaim your mental real estate, and to be the master of your own mind, and the caretaker of your own heart.
— Cynthia Garner
About Me
Cynthia Garner is a certified mindfulness instructor, somatic psychotherapist, public speaker, single mother, former classroom teacher, and author.
Her passion is helping trauma survivors find refuge in the present moment, reclaim their power, and come home to their authentic selves. As a coach, she works with educational leadership and survivors of domestic violence, offering practical coping skills, secular mindfulness, and in-the-moment interventions for managing reactivity and breaking the patterns of generational, systemic, and relational trauma.
Cynthia studied counseling at Regis University, earned a doctorate in Body-Mind Health from the Parkmore Institute, and is trained in group psycho-education through the UCSD Medical School, the Centre for Mindfulness Studies, Inward Bound, Mindful Schools, and the Hakomi Institute.
Work with me: Start your Healing Journey
My mindfulness practice and somatic therapy training brought me home to myself, after years of alienation, betrayal, and emotional violence. Understanding how trauma is stored in the body and learning tools to regulate my nervous system offered me the opportunity to reclaim my mental real estate, stabilize my attention with anchors in the present moment, and tend to my wounded heart.
Gradually, one baby step at a time, I began to widen my window of tolerance, develop the capacity to ride the waves of emotion, and to learn how to disengage from the conflict in a non-violent way.
I am so grateful for the lessons that my experience taught me, and that now I have the opportunity to raise my daughter in a regulated and compassionate environment, and that I get to share these practices and teachings with other survivors of relational trauma who don’t know where to start.
There are a few different ways you can work with me to learn mindfulness, heal your relational wounds, and come home to yourself:
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These intimate groups are open for enrollment 3 times per year in February, May, and September. Groups meet online for 12 weeks on Saturday mornings and include trauma-treatment, grief work, mindfulness-based interventions, somatic practices, and reflective writing prompts. Join the Waitlist.
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Sometimes we need individual therapeutic support to identify our core beliefs and discover the deeply engrained patterns that keep us from moving forward. When we work together one-on-one, you’ll be guided in gentle somatic awareness practices and mindfulness meditations to help you make space for feeling what you feel, and retraining your nervous system to rest in the present moment. Schedule an introductory session.
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In this 12-week, live online workshop, you’ll be guided in somatic mindfulness practices, reflection, and writing prompts to support you in welcoming yourself, reconnecting with your inner child, and soothing your wounded parts. Our focus will be on identifying our core experiences, how they shaped our sense of belonging in the world, and through writing we will offer ourselves the care we did not get to have when we were young. The program will include live practice sessions twice per month, with writing prompts and workbook material released to you on the alternating weeks. This series will be facilitated by Dr. Cynthia Garner, a certified mindfulness instructor, somatic psychotherapist, and Learn more and register.author.
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This group for leaders of trauma-impacted school systems will focus on prioritizing wellbeing, managing reactivity, and nonviolent communication. We will meet via Zoom every other week on Friday mornings, 10-11:30 am MST, for the duration of the spring semester. Participation will include access to the self-paced Mindfulness for School Leadership Course. Our practices will include trauma-informed interventions, attentional training, somatic awareness practices, and reflective inquiry. Spaces are limited. Enrollment period closes January 23, 2024.