Speaking the Truth You Were Taught to Bury: Kath Essing’s Journey from Survivor to Advocate

Kath Essing Interview

Tiff Carson: What’s the one truth you’ve never told out loud? Maybe it’s something you’ve buried for years. Maybe it’s something you whispered only once in the dark, or maybe you are still holding it in your chest, waiting for the right moment the right person to hear it today. I want you to hold that truth gently, because my guest Kath Essing knows what it’s like to carry something so heavy and so painful, and still find the courage to say it out loud. Kath’s story is tragically common. She’s one of the one in three girls who was sexually abused by someone that she knew and trusted. But what’s uncommon is what she’s done with that pain. She didn’t just survive. She found her voice and now she uses it to help other women speak their truths and navigate a world that often fails survivors. This isn’t just an interview, it’s an invitation. To listen differently, to support differently, and maybe to finally tell the truth that you’ve been carrying. So let’s begin. Welcome to the podcast, Kath. How are you?

Kath Essing: Great. Thank you. That was a beautiful introduction. Thank you, Tiff.

Tiff Carson: Thank you! I am really looking forward to our conversation. 

Tiff Carson: Your story and your mission are so incredibly powerful and deeply personal. Beyond the bio and the book title, who are you today and what would you say you’re most passionate about when it comes to using your voice now?

Kath Essing: Well, I think what I’m so passionate about is helping create space between our inner dialogue and the way in which we express ourselves to the world around us. You know, for a long time, I had an internal voice that told me to look after the needs of others. And so I curated my story, not because I was afraid to tell it, but I was afraid of how it would impact other people. And I think that I’m not alone in that, that a lot of women particularly are brought up to look after those around them. And so I just held on to the scary parts of my story thinking that that was the right thing to do. And now I understand that really that was building a wall between myself and others, and the truth became the bridge.

And so now there is nothing dividing us that I feel more connected to myself and others more than I ever have.

Tiff Carson: That is so powerful. And you’ve said that your story is just statistically average, and that honestly is just heartbreaking in and of itself. When did you start remembering and what was the tipping point that moved you from keeping quiet to actually starting to speak about it?

Kath Essing: My body, you know, for a lot of adult survivors of childhood trauma, it’s a way to make sense of what’s actually happening. We don’t have the language. Our nervous system responds in a way that is about keeping us safe and alive. So I didn’t remember my memories until I was in my twenties and I feel my body remembered first.

It started with depression and it was like a black cloud arriving. There was a disconnect between my feelings and my reality, and I just couldn’t quite make sense of what I was feeling. 

So once I started working with a psychologist to try and make sense of that depression, that’s when the beginning of the story started to unravel. Initially I had no choice but to tell people because my body started twitching in this session with a psychologist, and I couldn’t make it stop. It was like the memories had been trapped in my body for almost 20 years. And I couldn’t contain them anymore. So it was really like my nervous system just unraveled entirely.

Kath Essing: And so initially I was very open about the fact that I’d experienced abuse, but I didn’t really share details. I just shared the fact that that was something that I remembered. Then it took another 10 years to make sense of events that happened after the first one. And then it took another 15 years to go to police about that.

Tiff Carson:  Mm-hmm.

Kath Essing: And so, in the last few years, writing the book and talking about it publicly, that I realized how little I’d shared with even the people closest to me. And you know, we use language as a bit of a bridge, but as I said, it can also be armor. And in my case, I use the word abuse a lot and it’s taken until recently, before I actually used the word rape. And you know, there’s a lot of power behind that word. And it was something that felt really uncomfortable saying, but had to be said because that’s what it was.

Kath Essing: Again, I’m not alone in how we use language to protect ourselves and others, but really it does divide us.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. So many survivors, they fear not being believed. Was that the case for you?

Kath Essing: No, I didn’t. I think I was trying to make sense of how can it possibly be true?

Tiff Carson: Mm.

Kath Essing: How could something so awful actually happen? So it wasn’t that I didn’t think other people would believe me, I think I just had a hard time believing it myself. It’s really complicated because 90% of the time we know our perpetrator and I think that’s what makes it so complex in sharing that with other people that we love, because it’ll be someone known to them as well. And as in my case, I was related to my perpetrator….50% of the time we are. And so that’s where it gets really, really messy and where I share the statistic of one in three girls, but really the ripple effect of how this has impacted my life, on my friends and family. There’s so many more victims of these incidents than just me.

Tiff Carson: So you said that you started to have depression in your, it was your early twenties?  Was there any memories whatsoever of this happening before you started seeing a psychologist or was it completely blocked?

Kath Essing: There was definitely emotion and fear of this person, that I couldn’t make sense of that there was. A little bit of irrational fear around someone breaking into my room or feeling unsafe. But also, I didn’t know that it was irrational because it was all I’d ever known.

Tiff Carson: Mm.

Kath Essing: And I think that’s the complex part about being a woman in our society and bringing up girls in our society is we’re taught to be fearful and we’re taught to be worried. And so when I felt that way, no one really questioned it. I look back now and think maybe someone should have, but I was also very happy and very gregarious and very liked. 

Kath Essing: So there wasn’t a lot of evidence that anything was wrong. And so that’s what’s pretty scary as a parent actually is, what do you know? How do we see the signs? And I don’t know that beyond my fear that there really were any.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. That was going to be my question because I have three of my own kids and just that worry, right? And what are the signs and. But they vary from person to person and to situation. Is that correct?

Kath Essing: I would say so. Absolutely. And the more research that I’ve done, the more I understand that for me, what it showed up as is people pleasing, that I played the good girl and I was the kid everyone could rely on. I was the oldest daughter and the oldest granddaughter, so I was trusted and I lived up to that expectation and I guess I was hiding behind this shield of I’ve gotta be enough.

Because there was a little part of me that felt like I wasn’t, that I was carrying a deep secret and a blanket of shame and I just was doing everything I could to not to get swallowed up by that. And you know, I think I made some really smart decisions unconsciously. I was an athlete as a teenager and so I think I made some really powerful decisions about how to reclaim my strength and power in a constructive way.

Kath Essing: I felt strong in my body and that made me feel safer and I used my body as an opportunity to be, I don’t know, in control as opposed to outta control. And you know, that decision can vary for people. As a parent myself, I’ve realized that it’s just so important for my children to know my story, not to scare them, but so they can make sense of me and so that they understand that hard things can happen.  They can strengthen grace. And really, there’s already been a couple of things that my children have come to me about where they’ve felt worried. I feel so grateful that they know they can and the communication I’ve had with my kids from a very young age is that it’s okay to feel uncomfortable. It’s okay to trust that little bit of wobbly butterflies in your belly that tells you something’s not right. We have sometimes kids come and have a sleepover and they change their mind. They wanna go home, and I make sure my kids know that’s absolutely okay because if we’re not giving kids permission to change their minds when it’s safe, then how will they ever step up and say, I need help when it’s not.

Tiff Carson: Hmm. I love that so much. And that gives them their power too, right? Like it just allows them to feel that safety even more when they come back to your house another time. So I love that.

Kath Essing: And it’s the beginning of how we teach children consent. And you know, when we’re talking about childhood abuse, obviously there is no consent involved. It’s a power play of an adult and a child. And in my case, there were three very quick violent acts that I didn’t have a chance to stop. But I also was never given a chance to talk about the fact that I was sad. And so you know, I guess that haunts me as a parent….like, what am I missing? And will I ever miss something that’s really important to recognize and I think that’s all we can do is tell our children that it’s okay, that we’re a safe place for them to discuss anything that’s happened or that they fear of is going to happen and to trust their instincts and have autonomy on making those decisions. That’s really, really the greatest gift we can give them.

Tiff Carson: I agree a million percent. And even being able to show them our vulnerability around these things in age appropriate language for where they’re at at that time, but really showing them that you’re going through things too. And it just gives them that freedom, I guess, to talk to you later about hard things that they’re experiencing.

So, yeah, I love that you’re doing that with your kids too. So when you started to share openly about this, how did your family, how were their reactions and how did it impact your healing journey?

Kath Essing: Look, I think Tiff everyone’s journey is so different and that there were things about mine that made it easier than a lot of friends that I know have gone through similar things. Firstly, my parents weren’t together when I remembered my abuse and the abuser was in my dad’s family,and so I had already estranged from that family, so that made it easier. I’ve had clients and I’ve had people since my book’s been out, disclose with me that their abuser is still someone very much involved in their family life. And that’s what makes this whole issue so complex. 

Kath Essing: So I feel fortunate that there was a safe place for me to talk about this. My whole mom’s side of the family, like everybody, there was no taking sides. It was just my truth. And so I was very lucky. It was still complicated because then people who love you still have to go through their own understanding of what this means for them.  To make sense of it and work through their own sadness about not having known and protecting me.

And you know, there’s not one part of me that blames anybody else except for the perpetrator themselves. But it did take a long time to shift through the pain of “did no one notice”. And why didn’t I say something earlier and how did he keep me quiet? And it took years and years of therapy and all sorts of different modalities to really make sense of it all. And my inner child needed a lot of nurturing. I think ultimately that that’s what helped me in the end, was giving my own inner child that autonomy to speak up and to be heard.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. So you have openly shared that attempt at justice failed. What was that process like for you emotionally and spiritually, and what would you say to someone who may have tried as well and feels betrayed by the legal system?

Kath Essing: I hadn’t been able to find any public story about a failed attempt at justice. And that is part of the reason why I’m talking about it. Because I first went to police, the police said to me that they believe only 23% of sexual abuse survivors come forward to police. And from that, only 10% of those cases will end up in a trial situation and from those trials, only 1% will ever eventuate to a prosecution. So, I knew from the beginning that it was really very unlikely that the outcome would be my perpetrator would be held accountable. I was very conscious that the process was a healing part for me that I wanted to use the opportunity confront my abuser.

I wanted to use the opportunity to tell my whole entire story through working with detectives. It was like I was handing it over, and I used the analogy in my book that it was like a whole big puzzle on the floor that I had to put piece to piece back together and even though I knew in the end that maybe there was still some missing pieces, I knew I wasn’t finishing that puzzle alone and I carried those pieces with me in such a fragmented way for so long, that it was time to just share the load, and that’s what the investigation gave me. It also gave me an opportunity to, as I said, to call my abuser and confront him, and that was incredibly grueling and heartbreaking, and liberating all at once.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Kath Essing: I don’t know about where you are, but we had some pretty strict COVID restrictions around this time.And so went to the detectives office and I made this call, and then I came home and my kids were home being homeschooled and my husband was home. And I don’t remember much about the for four days that followed. But I didn’t leave my bed, and it was almost like I’d ripped open a wound and all of the puss and all the disease had to come out. And it was like this accelerated way of letting it all go and. And then I woke up and went, okay, I’m done. 

Kath Essing: I could not have got where I am today I don’t think, without having walked through those parts of my journey. And it was really the last piece for me, was the reclaiming and the speaking about my journey. I don’t suggest it’s what everybody needs or how everybody will heal, but for me it was absolutely imperative.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. Is that when you started writing your book? Was after this process happened?

Kath Essing: Before I wrote the book, I actually put a speech together, so an 18 minute talk that I presented to organizations, and once I constructed how to tell that story of remembering, recovering, and reporting and what benefit there was to my story for the audience. Then I thought, this is a book, and so I’d always used writing as a tool for healing. I’ve always journaled. I write a lot of poetry. 

I first went to police and gave my statement, which took four hours.  When I got back to my car and there was a message from my mom and my sister, just a text message saying, I am thinking of you, and call me when it’s over. And I sat in the car and this poem just poured through me to make sense of how I was feeling. And so that was my response to that moment. And for me so much of the time, words were constructed in a creative way. So I guess the book was being formulated for 20 years, and then when I finally put pen to paper, it only took a month to write it.

Tiff Carson: Wow. Oh my. That is incredible. That’s incredible because I’ve written a book and mine took 18 months. But there was some other hard stuff that I was going through and I was trying to give myself the grace of those other hard things that had nothing to do with this book. But once I got through that part, it was like what happened to you. I knew that it was time to finish this thing. 

So writing your book….was it painful or freeing or both? Or what were the emotions that you were experiencing as you were writing your book?

Kath Essing: I was experiencing every emotion that you just mentioned and so many others, but it was almost like trying to catch up to the pouring. It’s like someone had turned a tap on so fast that I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. It was like this pouring of, I’ve gotta capture all of this. And I remember once hearing Elizabeth Gilbert talk about the fact that, you know, there is energy. And when it comes through you, if you don’t catch it, then someone else will. And so I had to get all these words out. And so they came at odd times of the day and night, and I never quite knew when and how. And so it was freeing at the time it was confronting, handing that first copy of my book to someone I loved was scarier than writing it, knowing if it was any good and not knowing if it was going to be received. I’ve done so much healing that I know that I’m not coming from a place of blame or resentment. I know that in my heart, but you just never quite know with words how they’re going to be translated by others.

And so I was worried about how my mum would feel about me telling this story publicly. So I gave it to her sister to read first and just said, look, I want you to read this, looking through the lens of your sister and how she might respond. And my auntie was blown away and she just kept saying to me, this is so beautiful. And I was like, really? 

Kath Essing: So that was the first step in saying, okay, this is okay. And then I handed it on to four publishers and they all came back and said, yes, we wanna publish it. So I knew it was good. But then when I did the audio version and I narrated it out loud, I was so nervous because I thought, what if saying it out loud, what if it doesn’t resonate with me, or what if it’s not any good or…you know, there were lots of “what ifs” and thankfully I didn’t experience that and I’m very proud of it.

Kath Essing: I’m very grateful at the positive ripple effect it’s having on not just survivors of childhood sexual abuse, but their allies who are supporting them and need a resource to help understand what their loved ones are going through.

Tiff Carson: I completely understand what you mean about narrating your own book. Mine is a memoir, and I’m a podcaster, so leading up to doing that part of the process I was just like “Yeah, I got this. No problem. I know how to do it. I know how to speak, I know how to edit. This will take couple days.”  Yeah, no, that is not what happened whatsoever. It was intense, it was emotional. There was a lot of stops and starts because I was actually saying the words out loud that had just lived in my laptop.  They had gone through my fingers to the laptop, but I hadn’t actually said them out loud. And that was a whole different process for me. But it was another layer of healing as I was saying those words out loud and after I was done recording it was like, okay, I’m done. It felt like I completed a cycle. Is that what you experienced too in the recording piece?

Kath Essing: Well, it’s interesting you know.  I’d had done my talk several times publicly, and because I’d done this investigation, it was like ripping off another layer of skin every time I did it. By the time I narrated it, I did that again in a day and a half. They said to me, it always takes about three days, we only like to do four hours of recording each day. And I said, no, it’s all good. I’ve got this. And once I started, it was almost harder to stop.  Because when we had a break, I’d have to recalibrate and get back in the zone and back in the flow. So I think the sound engineer very quickly recognized that he was best to just let me go, and then maybe that’s, you know, indicative of my personality and then just get home and fall in a heap. 

Kath Essing: I found it really tricky listening to it back, like hearing myself.  That was another level of healing above the other level of healing, but hearing the words from my own mouth, knowing other people were listening to it, was pretty scary, I must say the first time.

And I really struggled. And I just said to the publisher, do I have to? Like, if there’s mistakes, do I have to listen to it? And they said, yeah, you really do. I kept putting that off and it took a long time, but once I got around to listening to it, that felt like I’d healed something new inside of me.

Tiff Carson: So this book that we’re talking about is called The Courage to Speak Your Truth. I want everybody who feels called to read or listen to this book, go and get it. Where can they find it?

Kath Essing: On Amazon, and you can buy a hard copy on there or Kindle version. It’s also on Spotify and Apple books, they can listen to me and rate it.

Kath Essing: I’ve got my poetry threaded through there. So it’s a lovely companion to a walk. I think if you’re a survivor, my recommendation is listening to this during the day on a walk, so it doesn’t bring up anything in your own story before bedtime. 

The same for people that are supporting them. Like I know myself, I read a lot and I’m quite selective about what I read and what I watch just before bed. So, you know, if you’ve got a puppy or you know, you’re at a kid’s sports game and you’ve just wanna walk around and not have to talk to anyone, then it’s a nice thing to do during the day.

Tiff Carson: So let’s talk about those support people that are in your life. A lot of them, your friends and family, said that they didn’t know how to help. What did help you and what do survivors really need from the people that love them?

Kath Essing: Well, I think it’s a bit like grief, isn’t it? That you know, healing. 

Kath Essing: We can’t give a prescriptive answer to what’s going to fix the problems that arise in our lives. One of the consistent things that I learnt is that healing doesn’t necessarily come from speaking up, but absolutely comes from feeling heard, and that will be different for everybody.

So where I tell people to begin is to write out what’s happened to them if they’re not ready to say the words. And as long as the energy in people is moving, I think at whatever pace suits the individual is important. You know, I think that there were so many people that wanted to fix me and I’ve got girlfriends who I’ve been friends with for 35 years that they did an intervention on me when I was in my twenties, there were so worried I wasn’t getting outta bed. I was just heavy with depression. And one of those girlfriends is still one of my best friends till today and she’s now a trained counselor and she just said, I just think back to that time and I’m really sorry.

And I said, don’t be sorry you thought you were doing the right thing and you did best with what you had at the time, but I think, you know, we have much more information now about what it means to be healed and to heal and how to support others and really begin by listening and just holding space.  Holidng space for that individual to tell you what it is that they need, and for me, writing helped me establish what that was.

Tiff Carson: And in that holding space, there truly doesn’t need to be one word that comes out of your mouth as the person holding space. I’ve witnessed that many times, is just being there and letting them feel it.

Kath Essing: Yeah, and just not putting pressure, like it’s okay. And that’s as a parent too, it’s letting kids know that we are, some days don’t feel good some days, are hard. Some teachers we don’t get along with. Some friendships can be challenging. Like we have lots of challenges in our life.

Like, the title of your podcast, you know, it’s a hard, beautiful journey and I think one of the gifts we can give our children is learning that. Just because one day is hard, doesn’t mean the day that will follow will feel as challenging. And so I think this whole idea that life is meant to be easy or free from pain, I think that is where the pain comes from.

Tiff Carson: Absolutely. There was a point in my life where I was just like, why? Why is there all of this pain? Like, it was a “why me?” Why is this all happening to me? And it was when I stopped feeling like that and what can I do with this pain? What is this pain supposed to teach me? That’s when it started to shift for me and my depression started to lessen and where I was really trying to understand the gift that was in that hard because they’re everywhere.

Kath Essing: There is, and you know, I feel like some of the most beautiful moments in my life have come from transcending some of the most difficult moments. And even if we look at the metaphor of childbirth or often I remember a midwife saying to me that, you know when you hit that point just before your baby’s born, where you just think you can’t do anything more. You can’t push, you wanna give up, it’s all too much. That means the birth’s about to happen. And so I often think about my healing journey in that way. Like when I hit a point where it’s just too much, I almost celebrate, oh wow, this means I’m nearly at the end of this phase. I’m nearly at the end. 

Kath Essing: And you know whether that’s true, it doesn’t matter ’cause it’s a story that serves me and gets me through those hard times. So I always say to my kids you know this is good. When it’s really hard, it means something new and exciting, is about to be birthed that’s worth celebrating.

Tiff Carson: There’s times though if I’m being real, where I’ve asked God and my angels and my peeps like, I need five days off. Just gimme five days off. Gimme a break. Let me catch my breath and then we’ll go again. So sometimes they give me, you know what I’m asking for, but I don’t know. There’s some days where I’m like, really? Are you sure? 

So at what point did you realize that your story wasn’t just for you and that you could help others with it? And what did stepping into advocacy look like for you?

Kath Essing: I think I’m still learning what that looks like to be honest. But for me, when I was running my business I would have so many women come to me who wanted small business advice and mindset advice, And when I realized that the numbers of challenges that stemmed back to childhood trauma were so significant, I started getting angry. I started feeling frustrated that there was just this prevalence that as a society we were just not talking about and accepting. And so the day that I went to the police for the first time was a day I’d taken my children to a justice march locally. So there was a group of people that arrived at the beach, and justice was formed by human bodies. The word justice was formed and it was videoed by drone. And that image went all around Australia at the time. And I remember standing there thinking, you know, this is amazing. I’m teaching my son that he needs to speak up and advocate for women, and I’m teaching my daughter that she’s got a voice and she could use it. And then in that moment, I’ve realized I actually hadn’t done that for myself. And so there was this little cloud within me that didn’t feel that I was quite being authentic to the world because I knew I was strong. I knew I was outspoken, and I knew that I was making a difference, but I hadn’t done this really hard thing.

Tiff Carson: Hmm.

Kath Essing: And it wasn’t about anyone else, but there were parts of me that really needed it, and my children became my mirror of that for me. And so I dropped them at school and I went straight to the police station that day and walked up to the counter and said, I wanna report a sexual assault. And that was the beginning. So it was about really recognizing that wasn’t doing it for any particular outcome. I wasn’t doing it for any other reason. It was just something I was ready for, that I needed to do for me.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. What would you say to someone who is listening right now who feels like it might be too late to tell the truth to speak up?

Kath Essing: There were so many things I learned and that was another reason like, you know, it was 18 months of investigating. It was a very complicated time ’cause it was during COVID, but there were so many things at the end of that investigation that I wish I had known. And one of those things I didn’t realize was that at any point I could have gone to the police and given a statement and just left it with them and taken 10 years off.  I didn’t realize that at any point in that 18 months, I could have said just I need to pause it for a while. 

And I think if I had had known that, then I might have done it a lot sooner. So that’s one of the things I talk about in the book is that it’s okay if you don’t do anything, if that’s what your soul needs. It’s also okay to put your toe in the water and speak to someone and find out what that process looks like. 

Kath Essing: I think for me, when I found out my abuser was still alive, I realized that I would’ve regretted never confronting him. But I also have friends who’ve been through similar things that think that’s their idea of worst case scenario is having to talk to that person again. So it’s about figuring out what your soul needs, what your own story looks like, and not being too swayed by other people’s opinions of that. 

Kath Essing: Because I had people try and talk me out of going to police and I did have people say that it’s very unlikely that this will ever proceed to a trial. But that didn’t matter, that wasn’t why I was doing it. So just know what the outcome for you individually is. It’s never too late. It’s to reclaim your voice, and it’s to look after you as a child who’s been hurt.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. Something that I’ve been learning about and I’m doing training right now is in somatic and breath work, and experiencing it in my own healing right now because we are deep in the embodiment piece of that training.  And trauma lives in our body. So have you ever used tools like Breath Work or Somatic Movement or other body-based tools, and how have they helped in your healing journey?

Kath Essing: Yes I have and very instinctively, to be honest, like I’ve done a lot of psychotherapy.  I’m a trained psychotherapist, so a lot of my training was where some of the most profound healing came from. And within some of that training is where a lot of the letting go physically of the holding of memories happened. And meditation for me has in some ways, breath has taken over some of the meditation that I’ve done there were times where my body would be letting go so much that I sure that I was just levitating off the bed.

Kath Essing: Breath helped move emotion and energy in a way that nothing else could. You know, it’s interesting, isn’t it? We tend to say to our children, just take a breath, calm down. We just know instinctively what heals us and what frees us. And then as adults we almost get untrained to trust in those steps. So I’ve done a lot of energy work and I still do, and I don’t know quite who I call to, but I feel very guided.

I’m sure I’m surrounded by angels and I used to talk to fairies and you know, like for me, I just have had this magical world around me that has held me and stopped me from feeling too lonely.  And that’s been part of my healing kind of, and sense of happiness, I suppose, as a child. And I’ve brought that into my adulthood.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. If you could change one thing culturally, legally about how we respond to survivors, what would that be?

Kath Essing: I think the shame is placed in the wrong hands.  That the narrative in our society is that the victim has to prove that something happened and we just make it easier for perpetrators to place the blame on those victims. And I think the silence is perpetrated by that shame and it’s just so misplaced and I don’t know how to change that conversation, but I believe that particularly in families, the prevalence of abuse that’s happening, and think we have to just make people aware of the statistics so that we can change them and make sure that we understand that the bad behavior and the responsibility sit solely with the person perpetrating these not the person who is surviving them.

Tiff Carson: I want everyone to go and look up Kath, get her book. This is where you can find out all about Kath. If you are listening on audio, it’s at www. bspeak.au.

Tiff Carson: She is on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/kath_essing and on facebook.com is https://www.facebook.com/bespeakconsultancy. I end every interview asking my guest what they are grateful for. What are you grateful for today, Kath?

Kath Essing: I am grateful for this conversation with you. Thank you. I’m grateful that my inner child has been heard so that my adult self can listen to my children completely objectively from where they’re coming from, not from where I’m projecting they should be from.

Tiff Carson: Hmm. beautiful. Thank you for your vulnerability and sharing your journey with us. Thank you for sitting in this space and reminding us that we are never alone in our healing. You reminded us today that silence may feel like safety, but it can also be a prison. And that truth, even when it feels dangerous, can be the most powerful medicine that we have. So maybe today is your day to speak something out loud. Maybe just to yourself or maybe to someone who’s earned the right to hear your story, and if you’re not quite ready yet, that’s okay too. There’s no timeline. It’s just a gentle invitation to come home to yourself. One breath at a time. 

If this conversation touched something in you, I’d love to invite you into our private, Healing Heart Facebook community. It’s a safe space for big hearts and tender stories, and you can also download my free healing heart meditation @tiffcarson.com. It’s a beautiful way to reconnect with your body, your breath, and your truth. 

Tiff Carson: Thank you again, Kath, for being here and sharing your story with us, I know that it is going to help so many people that have walked a similar journey as you.

Kath Essing: Thank you so much for holding this space so beautifully for me to tell it. I’m very grateful.