✨ Reclaiming Wholeness: Lulu Essey’s Journey Through Trauma and Healing
How Tiny Steps Transform Our Relationship with Pain
“I’m not here today because I’m perfectly healed,” Lulu Essey shared during our Keep Calm Speaker Series. “I’m here because healing happens while life continues—messily and imperfectly.”
That single sentence captures the soul of Lulu Essey’s approach to healing. In a world that rushes us to “get over it,” Lulu offers something countercultural: permission to heal slowly, truthfully, and with compassion.
In our latest KeepCalm.org Speaker Series, Lulu joined us for a powerful and personal conversation about the Intersection of Trauma and Healing. A certified Life Coach, Executive Creative Director, and host of The Lulu Essey Podcast, she offered her wisdom not from a stage of perfection—but from lived experience.
Through her 30-year journey with bipolar disorder and childhood trauma, Lulu redefines healing as a relationship, not a destination. “Healing doesn’t mean the trauma disappears,” she explains. “It means our relationship to it transforms.”
Watch the full session here:
📺 YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEfpVwEiHHU
(We recommend watching with a journal nearby—it’s that insightful.)
💡 What Lulu Taught Us
Lulu didn’t offer just ideas—she shared practical, soulful tools grounded in her “Mental Fitness” philosophy. Her signature concept, “A Tiny Way to Big Impact,” reminds us that healing happens in micro-movements, not grand gestures.
1. Trauma Lives in the Body, Not Just the Mind
“Trauma isn’t always the big obvious events,” Lulu explained. “It’s anything that overwhelms your ability to cope and leaves an imprint on your nervous system.” This shift in understanding invites compassion—and more realistic expectations—for the healing process.
2. Healing Is a Spiral, Not a Straight Line
“There isn’t a graduation day where we’re suddenly fixed,” she said. “We revisit the same themes at deeper levels.” Rather than seeing this as failure, Lulu sees it as deepening integration. Healing is cyclical, nonlinear, and deeply human.
3. Mental Fitness Is Built with Daily Deposits
Like a savings account, resilience grows with regular, small actions. Some of Lulu’s favorite “mental fitness deposits” include:
- The Three-Breath Reset
- Facts vs. Feelings journaling
- Practicing gratitude as a superfood for the mind
- Being mindfully present during routine tasks
- Leading with curiosity instead of criticism
4. Community Doesn’t Require a Crowd
“You only need one safe connection,” Lulu emphasized. In a world that often celebrates social numbers, she reminds us that depth of connection matters more than quantity. Healing thrives in presence, not popularity.
5. You Are Not Your Story
Lulu spoke powerfully about moving from being broken by trauma to being expanded by it. “Our capacity for compassion, honesty, and authentic living deepens. The trauma is real—but it’s not our whole identity.”
💬 Lulu’s Quote of the Session:
“The intersection of trauma and healing is that sacred space where we learn to hold both our wounds and our wholeness. It’s not about erasing what happened—it’s about not allowing it to define our entire story.”
📚 More From Lulu
Lulu has generously shared her guide, The Success Trap: Why Chasing Achievement Is Keeping You Stuck, a powerful exploration of how chasing validation and perfection can delay true healing.
The guide includes:
- The L.O.V.E. Framework for building real self-trust
- Exercises to shift from external achievement to internal grounding
- Tools to replace perfectionist paralysis with courageous imperfection
👉 Get the guide at www.luluessey.com
🎧 Continue the Conversation
For more unfiltered, heartfelt wisdom, subscribe to The Lulu Essey Podcast on:
- Spotify
- Apple Podcasts
- YouTube
- Or wherever you tune in
Each episode is an invitation to do life your way—messily, honestly, and with heart.
🌱 Final Reminder
Healing doesn’t require you to be “fixed.” It asks you to be present, even when it’s hard.
And as Lulu teaches: Sometimes the most profound growth comes from showing up anyway—tiny step by tiny step.
🕊️
With love from KeepCalm.org
Instagram: @keepcalmdotorg
Website: www.keepcalm.org
