My Hope is Simple

Breaking the Cycle: How Unhealed Trauma Echoes Through Our Lives Until We Choose Differently

Cinnamon Burdett

ABS Board-Certified Sexologist

Next Level Intimacy Coaching

My Hope Is Simple

"My hope is simple: if I can help one person realize their past does not define their future, then every part of my journey has been worth it."

- Coach Cinnamon B

People often ask why I do this work.

The answer has never been about relationships, intimacy, or coaching alone. Those are simply the vehicles that allow me to live out what has always been on my heart: helping people believe their story is still being written.

As a Child, I Learned How to Survive

As a child, I learned how to survive long before I ever learned how to feel safe. Trauma, abuse, and experiences no child should ever endure shaped the way I viewed the world, other people, and even myself. For years, I believed my past had already decided my future.

Then I became a mother.

Like so many parents carrying unresolved trauma, I was doing the best I could with the tools I had at the time. I loved my children with everything in me, but love doesn't erase survival mode. Survival teaches you to react instead of respond. It teaches you to stay alert, expect the worst, and push through instead of slowing down to heal.

I Wasn't a Perfect Mom

I wasn't a perfect mom.

Sometimes my words came out before my thoughts. Sometimes stress spoke louder than patience. Looking back, there are moments I wish I could have handled differently. Healing has also meant taking responsibility for the ways my own pain affected the people I love.

Today, I have a daughter who loves me deeply, and I have a son who no longer has a relationship with me. There were misunderstandings, painful circumstances, and things left unsaid. Whether those wounds were created by my mistakes, by things that were believed, or by the distance that grew between us, the outcome has been heartbreaking.

As a mother, there is no grief quite like loving a child you cannot reach.

That Loss Has Taught Me Something Profound

That loss has taught me something profound.

Trauma doesn't just affect the person who lived through it. If it goes unaddressed, it has a way of echoing through families, relationships, friendships, and generations.

If I'm completely honest, one of the deepest wounds trauma left behind wasn't just the pain. It was believing I wasn't worthy of healthy love or genuine friendships.

Even now, in my late forties, building close friendships has been one of the hardest parts of my healing journey-not because I don't love people, but because I spent so much of my life afraid that if someone truly knew my past, they would only see the damage it left behind. I worried they would judge me, pity me, or decide I was too broken to belong.

So I hid pieces of myself.

I smiled. I succeeded. I showed up for everyone else. But I rarely let people know all of me because I believed the truth about my past would outweigh the woman I had become.

That's What Trauma Does

That's what trauma does.

It convinces us that surviving means staying guarded. That if we never let people get too close, they can never reject us. The walls that once protected us eventually become the very thing keeping us from experiencing the connection we long for.

Healing Asked Something Different of Me

Healing asked something different of me.

It asked me to stop measuring my worth by what happened to me and start believing I was worthy simply because I existed. It asked me to stop carrying shame that never belonged to me. It asked me to trust that the right people would see my resilience instead of my wounds.

Healing didn't erase my scars. It changed my relationship with them.

Today, I don't share my story because I want sympathy. I share it because I know what it feels like to believe you're too damaged, too broken, or too far gone to create a different future. I also know those beliefs don't have to become the ending.

That belief is why I became a trauma-informed, body-based intimacy and relationship coach.

Every person who sits across from me reminds me that healing isn't about pretending the past never happened. It's about refusing to let it decide the future.

Being recognized as one of The Influential Women is deeply meaningful because influence isn't measured by titles. It's measured by honesty, compassion, accountability, and the courage to keep showing up even when life hasn't gone according to plan.

If sharing my story helps one person ask for help, choose healing, break a generational cycle, or believe they are worthy of love and belonging, then every difficult chapter of my life has found purpose.

My hope is simple: if I can help one person realize their past does not define their future, then every part of my journey has been worth it.

- Coach Cinnamon B