When the Rescuer needs rescuing

Sitting with Andy Steele, I wasn’t just listening to his story - I could feel it.

As he spoke about his first childhood memory - being beaten by his father and not understanding why, something in me recognised that fear. Not just the physical pain, but the waiting. The hypervigilance. The walking on eggshells. The sense that something was coming… and that the anticipation was sometimes worse than the abuse itself.

Many survivors understand this without needing it explained.

The nervous system never truly rests. You scan the room. You listen for tone changes. Footsteps. Doors closing. Breathing patterns. You learn to read danger before it arrives. And as children, we make it mean something about us.

We decide:
I must not be good enough.
I must have done something wrong.
If I were better, this wouldn’t happen.

That guilt and shame can follow us for decades.

The Need to Prove Ourselves

When Andy ran away at 14 and later joined the Paratroopers Regiment, it wasn’t simply about career or adventure. It was about worth. It was about becoming someone who could not be dismissed. Someone strong. Someone respected.

So many survivors channel their pain into performance.

We become high achievers. Helpers. Protectors. Leaders. The dependable one. The strong one. The one who never needs anything.

Underneath it all is often a quiet longing:
Please see me.
Please tell me I’m enough.
Please say you’re proud of me.

But when the acknowledgement we crave never comes, the striving doesn’t stop. It simply shifts location.

Andy moved from the military into the fire service - roles defined by courage and rescue. And while those roles were honourable and deeply meaningful, there can also be something unconscious at play for trauma survivors: a need to save others because we could not save ourselves.

When you grow up feeling helpless, rescuing becomes identity.

If I can protect them…
If I can fix this…
If I can stop someone else from suffering…
Maybe then I’ll finally feel worthy.

When the Rescuer Needs Rescuing

PTSD forced Andy to stop.

And this is often how healing begins - not as a gentle awakening, but as a breaking point. The body keeps the score. The nervous system eventually says, “Enough.”

What moved me most was not just Andy’s professional retraining in EFT, hypnotherapy, and Kinetic Shift. It was the moment he spoke about feeling safe within himself.

Safety.

For those who grew up in unpredictable homes, safety is not automatic. It has to be learned. Rebuilt. Practised. Sometimes for the very first time in adulthood.

Healing, for many survivors, is less about becoming someone new and more about finally becoming someone who can sit with themselves without fear.

Andy described what it felt like to show up for himself and later, for his own son - in a way that broke the cycle.

And that is no small thing.

Breaking generational trauma doesn’t make headlines. It doesn’t come with medals. But it may be one of the bravest acts a human being can undertake.

The Guilt and Shame We Carry

Family-based trauma carries a particular weight.

There is often loyalty. Confusion. Love tangled with harm. We question our memories. We minimise our pain. We carry guilt for speaking up. Shame for not leaving sooner. Shame for leaving at all.

And underneath it, a child still waiting to be told:
You didn’t deserve that.
It wasn’t your fault.
You are worthy exactly as you are.

In my work and in my own healing journey, I’ve seen how powerful it is when survivors begin offering that acknowledgment to themselves.

The rescuer turns inward.

The voice softens.

The nervous system learns that the danger is no longer here.

From Survival to Evolution

Andy now speaks and teaches from lived experience. Not from theory. Not from superiority. But from having walked through fire - both literal and emotional.

There is something profoundly hopeful about witnessing someone who once lived in fear now embodying calm. Someone who once sought approval now rooted in self-acceptance.

It reminds us that trauma may shape us, but it does not have to define our future.

For those reading this who recognise themselves in these words - the striving, the rescuing, the proving - perhaps the bravest question is this:

What would it feel like to stop trying to earn your worth…
and begin believing it was never in question?

Healing is not about erasing the past.

It is about finally becoming the safe place you always needed.

Listen to my conversation with Andy here

Sharon Fitzmaurice is a trauma-informed holistic wellbeing coach, Reiki Master Teacher, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Mindfulness & Meditation Teacher. She has published three books, the first being her own story of healing after childhood abuse and speaks openly about it and how She found peace in her mind and in her life. To connect with her or find out more about her work please go to: https://www.sharonfitzmauricemindfulness.com

The Journey of Remembering

There was a time in my life when I thought I had lost everything - not in the physical sense, but in the way that leaves you hollow on the inside. What I call my darkest night of the soul. It was a place of despair, self-doubt, and disconnection. And yet, it was in that same darkness that a light began to flicker - a knowing that I was more than the pain I carried, more than my body, more than the roles I played in life.

That moment was my awakening. Not an instant transformation, but the beginning of a slow, tender journey of remembering. Remembering that I am soul in physical form. Remembering that there is a deeper wisdom always available to me when I dare to turn inward.

It’s why soul-led work isn’t just something I do now - it’s who I am. Every client I sit with, every group session, retreat or workshop I hold, every podcast conversation I share comes from this place of knowing. It is the compass that guides me back when I forget, when I stumble, when life feels heavy again.

This week on the podcast, I had the joy of sitting down with Suzanne Roberts, someone whose journey resonated so deeply with my own. Suzanne, Founder of Unifying Solutions and author of It’s Deeper Than That: A Pathway to a Vibrant, Purposeful Life, also walked through the fires of pain and self-hatred. Her childhood trauma led her into darkness, but her love of physics opened a doorway to something greater -the reality of polarity, of energy, of soul.

Listening to Suzanne describe her “inner laboratory” - the way she turned inward to explore and discover the truth of who she really is - felt like hearing my own story reflected back to me. That same turning inward is what saved me too.

In our conversation, we explored the science of magnetism and the current of life force that runs through us all, how meditation and mindfulness open the gateway to soul presence, and how healing is never about becoming someone new but about remembering the wholeness that was always there.

What touched me most was her reminder that being of service is at the heart of a purposeful life. That, I believe, is why so many of us who have walked through darkness feel called to guide others toward their own light.

As I sit with this episode, I feel an immense gratitude for my own journey - even the painful parts. Without that dark night, I might never have woken up to the truth of who I really am. Without it, I would not be living this soul-led path today.

My hope is that in listening to Suzanne’s story and hearing a little of my own, you will be reminded of your soul too. That quiet voice within that whispers: you are so much more than the physical, you are light, you are energy, you are soul.

✨ Listen here https://www.youtube.com/@sharonfitzmauricepodcast

An Invitation to You

If this conversation touched something within you, I’d love to invite you into my Soulful Journeys Online Community. It is a heart-centred space where like-minded souls gather to connect, share, and support one another on the path of healing, awakening, and purpose.

Inside, you’ll find monthly soul circles, guided practices, live teachings, and a community of people who truly understand the ups and downs of walking a soul-led path. It’s a place where you don’t have to pretend to be anything other than yourself - where your story, your light, and even your struggles are welcomed and honoured.

Together, we remind each other that we are never alone. Together, we walk each step more courageously and more lovingly than we might on our own.

If your soul feels called, you are so welcome to join us. 💜
👉 Join our Community — Sharon Fitzmaurice

Living with Loss and Finding Meaning

This may be a hard conversation to listen to but one that I feel is necessary to speak openly and honestly about.  My recent episode with Andy Campbell on The Sharon Fitzmaurice Podcast was one of those. A deeply soulful, open-hearted dialogue that was less of an interview and more of a communion between two souls who understand the raw, often silent language of pain.

Andy’s story is unimaginable. As a young boy, he experienced sexual abuse. He watched his mother bravely battle cancer for 11 years before she passed away far too young. Estranged from his father, and now navigating his own journey through stage four pancreatic cancer, Andy has known suffering at depths that could easily consume even the strongest of spirits. But nothing could prepare him - or any parent - for the devastating loss of his son, Heston, who died by suicide at just 18 years old.

As we spoke, Andy shared how they knew from when Heston was only nine that the world felt too overwhelming for him. Despite the love, the support, the daily effort to help him choose life, the decision was ultimately out of their hands. There was pain, yes—deep, soul-aching pain - but also anger, helplessness, and a hollow sense of having to keep moving forward in a world where their son no longer existed physically.

In his grief, Andy speaks to Heston. He asks him for help in easing the despair, in somehow mending the heartbreak that now lives in him, his wife, and their three other sons. His new book Overcoming Life’s Toughest Setbacks is both a legacy of healing and a lifeline to others who may find themselves at the edge of their own despair.

As Andy shared, I felt a familiar echo in my heart.

I, too, am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. And for a long time, I carried the belief that I was only meant to know pain. That somehow, love, joy, and peace were not mine to claim. There were times I truly believed the pain would only end if I did. And there was a moment - one that many will never speak of -where choosing to stay felt like the most painful decision of all.

But I stayed.

And staying meant I had to learn to walk alongside the pain, not run from it. It meant holding space for the wounded parts of me, not burying them under smiles and silence. It meant breathing through the nights I thought I wouldn’t make it. And, slowly, one step at a time, I began to believe that healing was not only possible—it was sacred.

In my conversation with Andy, there was a deep resonance between our stories. Two people shaped by trauma, carrying invisible scars, yet still choosing to show up for life, for love, for others. Still choosing to believe that healing is not a betrayal of our pain, but a devotion to our spirit.

We cannot always change what happens to us. But we can transform how we move through it. We can speak, we can share, we can write, we can walk hand in hand with others who are just beginning to find their way through the darkness.

If you are reading this and your heart feels heavy, please know - you are not alone. Your pain is real, your story matters, and even if it feels impossible right now, there is a path forward. Maybe not a painless one, but a path nonetheless. One where meaning can be made from the broken pieces. One where love lives on. One where peace, slowly but surely, returns.

From Andy’s story and my own, I offer this: stay if you can. And if you do, know you are loved.

Sharon Fitzmaurice

Author, Speaker, Holistic Wellness Coach & Podcast Host