Cinnamon Burdett

The Difference Between Surviving and Living

"Can I tell y'all something I've learned?

People think they walk into my office because they had a fight with their husband Tuesday night... Or because they haven't had sex in months... Or because they don't know how to communicate anymore.

Sometimes that's true.

But if we sit together long enough... Tuesday wasn't the problem. Tuesday was just the day the pain got loud enough to ask for help.

Because somewhere in that conversation... We almost always meet the child they used to be.

I know that because... I was that child.

I wasn't reading about trauma in a textbook. I was living it.

I was the little girl in foster care. I was the little girl wondering if anyone was coming back. I was the little girl trying to survive things no child should ever have to survive.

For years, I thought surviving was enough. Matter of fact... I wore survival like a badge of honor.

'Look how strong I am.' 'Look how much I've overcome.'

Until one day... I realized I wasn't really living. I had just become really, really good at surviving.

And y'all, let me tell ya... Those two things are not the same.

Here's the part nobody warns you about

Childhood doesn't always stay in childhood.

That little girl who never felt safe... She grows up. That little boy who learned crying wasn't allowed... He grows up too. That teenager who learned love always came with strings attached... They grow up.

We all grow up.

The question is... Does the hurt grow up with us?

I've sat across from adults whose parents loved them with everything they had. They weren't bad parents. They were hurting parents. Exhausted parents. Parents trying to do better than what had been done to them.

And sometimes-just sometimes-the best someone had to give still left a wound.

That's not about blame. That's about understanding.

See, we're really good at asking:

'What's wrong with you?'

Wrong question.

The better question is:

'What happened to you?'

Because behavior always has a story. Every single time.

Intimacy doesn't begin in the bedroom

People know me as a relationship and intimacy coach. But here's what I've learned...

Intimacy doesn't begin in the bedroom. It begins the first time a child learns whether they are safe. Whether their voice matters. Whether someone comes when they cry. Whether love feels steady or whether they're always waiting for it to disappear.

Because if you grew up believing people leave, trust doesn't magically appear just because you found a good partner. If you grew up believing your needs didn't matter, you don't suddenly know how to ask for them.

I tell my clients all the time:

'You're forty-five years old, but your nervous system still thinks it's twelve.'

Everybody laughs. And then... Most of them cry.

Because for the first time... They stop asking:

'What's wrong with me?'

And they start asking:

'What happened to me?'

That question changes everything.

Now here's the beautiful part

I don't believe people are broken. I never have.

I believe people did exactly what they had to do to survive. Those survival strategies were brilliant. They kept us alive.

But what protected us as children... May be keeping us from truly living as adults.

Healing isn't pretending your past never happened. Healing is teaching your mind... Your body... Your nervous system... That today is different. That you're safe now. That you don't have to keep fighting battles that ended years ago.

I believe healing is possible. At any age. At any stage of adult life. I've seen it. I've lived it. And I get to witness it every single day.

So maybe today... You're raising a child. Maybe you're loving a spouse. Maybe you're trying to understand your parents. Or maybe... You're just trying to understand yourself.

Whoever you are... I want you to remember this:

The version of you that learned how to survive deserves just as much compassion as the version of you that's learning how to heal.

Because healing isn't about erasing your story. It's about refusing to let your hardest chapter become the whole book.

And maybe... Just maybe... The greatest gift we can give another human being... Is helping them believe they don't have to spend the rest of their life surviving.

They get to live.

And that... Changes everything."

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