Sheena Talks Trauma

I’ve got 3 markets this spring, and the next one is this Saturday! I am so excited to be part of and the accessible arts festival.

Sensory Canada is an autism inclusive event and an accessible arts festival that features inclusive performances, sensory-friendly experiences, and community belonging. Along with neurodivergent vendors like me, Sensory Canada brings together artists, advocates, and community leaders to celebrate accessibility and inclusivity over 2 days (April 10-11).

I’m honoured to be a part of this incredible event alongside and

Please come support accessibility and inclusivity this weekend ❤️

I’ll be at this weekend! Come see me Saturday or Sunday at the Cloverdale Community League ❤️

I love vending at markets. It’s a tough sell sometimes though. “Hey do you want to sample these cookies?” is much easier to pitch than “Hey do you want to explore your childhood trauma and how it’s impacting your nervous system today?”

That’s why I sell fun stickers. To lure you in.

But, when I do connect with the right people? It’s magic. And when you can dive into your own nervous system, learn how to listen to it, and hear the stories it’s been carrying? Y’all, magic doesn’t even begin to describe the power of that ✨

I’m at the Self-Care Market until 4 today if you want to learn more. Or you can drop me a line when it’s right for you.

Most small business owners don’t actually want to run a business—they want to provide a product or service they’re passionate about. I don’t want to run a business—I want to hold space for people while they learn how to listen to their bodies, make sense of their pasts, and build capacity in their nervous systems.

Social media is incredibly draining and unfulfilling for me. I am much more interested in working IRL vs online. So come meet me at my next event. I’ll be at the Self-Care Market on February 21st from 11-4, at the Alberta Aviation Museum. Hope to see you there.

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I’m a vendor at The Self-Care Market, hosted by the on February 21st! If you’re interested in somatic experiencing, parts work, getting to know your shadow side, or learning about how trauma impacts your nervous system, then come see me. I’ve got lots to show you ❤️

I’m so happy to be part of the upcoming Neurodiverse Community Market! Come see me December 13-14 at the Norwood Legion. I’ll have a ton of mental health resources you can get your hands on:

• “The Daily Unplanner” decolonial workbook: the workbook I wrote and designed to help you figure out who you are outside of who you’ve been told you to be (featuring daily un-planning pages created for neurodivergent minds).
• “Letting Your Shadow In” journal and card deck: exercises and prompts to get to know your shadow side.
• “Hack Your Nervous System” card deck: prompts for regulating your nervous system and navigating fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses.
• “How to Trust Yourself” card deck: prompts, insights, and meditations to help you get to the root of your anxieties and move through them with compassion.
• Various mental health themed stickers.

As a late-diagnosed AuDHD person, I’ve become pretty passionate about helping other neurodivergent folks. I’m also pretty good at it, not just because I can relate to those experiences, but because my work is deconstructive to its core. The systems we live in don’t make sense for neurodivergent people, but we’re forced to fit in them anyway and inevitably burn out. Then we’re told that we’re the problem.

I’m not interested in making people contort to a system that doesn’t fit them. I’m interested in pointing out those oppressive systems, dismantling them, and helping people figure out who they are outside of them.

If you want to be part of that, then come see me December 13-14. We have a lot of work to do.

Crisis after crisis. One breaking news story after another. Our nervous systems were not meant to carry all this, either as victim or as witness. And we were certainly never meant to carry it alone.

We live in a colonial, capitalist, patriarchal system that keeps us isolated on purpose by telling us that individual achievement is better than collective achievement, that resources are meant to be hoarded rather than shared, and that relying on others is a sign of weakness. This is all by design, because those at the top (kings, emperors, tsars, presidents, billionaires) know what happens when we build community and mobilize.

We tear their systems of oppression the f**k down.

Governments, world leaders, and the UN have all failed to help Gaza. But that doesn’t mean that WE are failing. We the everyday people are not failing. We are not doing nothing. The colonial-capitalist-patriarchal system wants us to feel hopeless and helpless so we keep propping up their systems.

It’s time to stop turning to our governments for help and start turning to each other. It’s time to support grassroots movements. Because we are not hopeless. We are not helpless. We are mobilizing.

Hold on.

Oh hey, I wrote a workbook. And I’m really proud of it.

This actually started off as real work, and then it devolved into… this.

I’m usually pretty serious on this page. I feel like I have to be, trauma and systemic oppression are such serious topics. But maybe that isn’t good modelling for the people I work with. We are complex beings with many parts—some of those parts are serious, some of them are angry, some of them are anxious, and some of them make dumb jokes that may or may not land.

All of your parts are welcome in this work. Bring me your weirdness and I’ll welcome it with mine at Bin Chicken Trauma Recovery ❤️🐓🗑️

I’m not a therapist. And I don’t pretend to be. My work is rooted in the collective, in the somatic, in trusting that you already have the tools and capacity you need to heal. My only job is to guide you there.

I reject the DSM-5 and the mental health industrial complex. I do not diagnose anyone or see our actions as symptoms of mental illness. I see our actions as symptoms of a society that refuses to address its core wounds of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

My work is intersectional. Feminist. Q***r. Anti-carceral. Anti-oppressive. Anti-racist. I believe that decolonization is an action word, not a buzzword, and it’s something I am committed to for the rest of my life. I will be learning and unlearning until the day I die.

I’m part of a new wave of healers—one that’s returning to the earth, our bodies, and our ancestral practices. I’ve learned enough at the hands of old white men. I’ve been told enough times that I don’t know what I’m talking about, or don’t have the evidence to back up my claim, only for my instincts and impulses to be proven right over and and over again.

Enough.

I am the expert on my own healing.

You are the expert on your own healing.

You are the expert on your own life.

It’s time to stop looking for validation at the hands of others and start putting our trust back in ourselves.