Sharna Teresa Bowers was sexually abused by a family member starting at age 12. For years, she buried what had happened, carrying the weight in her body: panic attacks daily, insomnia, an inability to eat. She stopped trusting men. She stopped trusting herself. She spent her high school years alone, focused on survival, wrestling with suicidal thoughts that she pushed back against because of the impact it would have on her parents.
At university, Sharna hit a breaking point. She wanted to give up on everything. A friend told her about energy healing, and though Sharna had grown up atheist and skeptical, she went to prove the friend wrong. Instead, she found something that talking therapy had not opened: a way to feel the emotions her body had been storing since childhood. Through somatic work, she began to release what had been locked inside her. A five-year engagement ending forced her to stop being a chameleon and claim her own identity. She discovered who she actually was underneath the fear.
Now Sharna works as a holistic coach, using techniques like Emotional Change Technique to help people clear trauma from their nervous system and reclaim their power. She is building Kindred Spirits, a not-for-profit healing sanctuary where children who have experienced trauma can access tools and healing immediately, so they do not have to suffer as long as she did. Her purpose is clear: to help people move out of their pain and into their power, and to make sure they know they do not have to do it alone.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation and suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:
• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au
• 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au
• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au