The Seen Club is a private letter for complex trauma survivors to feel validated, safe and creatively engaged.

TRANSCRIPT

Close your eyes and take a deep breath.

Exhale.

Imagine your personality as pieces. You know they exist within you, but they are scattered, disconnected.

Each piece is frozen in ice. You can see them, all blurry, but you can’t reach them yet.

So, you live with them. In the great frost. In your own long, dark winter.

But then,

a spark,

a match,

a moment of vitality,

a crack in the ice.

With each gentle touch, each moment of connection, each moment safety, something changes. A little warmth creeps in. And the ice begins to thaw.

At first, the melting feels unbearable, slow like honey, thick with memory, aching with beauty and grief. And the task is to simply hold the container while the pieces melt one by one.

With love and gentleness.

So. Much. Gentleness.

This is hard, painful and lonely.

But this is the portal to the other side of despair. Because what you meet in that thaw are the sacred pieces of yourself. Fragments long exiled by shame, contempt, or fear. Never gone, only waiting. As they appear, you greet each one with reverence, holy grief, unbearable ache, and quiet awe.

You realize they’ve been frozen in the void all along. A void that once felt like terror, emptiness, absence.

But now, you see the truth.

The void is not lack. It’s depth.

Your beautiful capacity for connection, love, and presence.

And within it, something moves: The Beast. Born of ancient survival, once consumed by the darkness, now learning to feel safe in it.

She’s not hiding anymore.

She’s feeling.

She’s moving.

She’s allowing the void to become a blanket, familiar, warm, almost tender.

And she’s not alone.

Her protectors are fiercely standing by: The Dragon, The Alchemist, The Fury, The Guard, The Soldier, The Siren.

Each one vibrant before her, each one loyal to her becoming.

Together, they form her inner army.

No longer battling the dark, but walking with it.

Holding her, soothing her, making her feel safe.

Brave enough to feel the full, messy, beautiful frequency of being human.

Warmly,

Dena

You are the first to read something from The Fragments Archive. This piece was written during a recent EMDR session. These protectors revealed themselves one by one, like old friends emerging from the fog.They once tried to keep me safe by hardening, retreating, shutting down or fighting. Now, they have new roles and are fierce, creative, loyal energies that hold me when my nervous system forgets how or repeats the old trauma loops. I'm grateful for them.

P.S. Be curious

1. Which part of you might be slowly defrosting right now, asking to be seen instead of fixed?
2. What protector is exhausted within you, needing some rest, waiting for your attention?

The Seen Club is a private letter for complex trauma survivors to feel validated, safe and creatively engaged.

TRANSCRIPT

I’m not a therapist. I’m not a coach.

I’m a C-PTSD survivor.

From this side of complex ptsd survival, I know this to be true:

Trauma needs to be seen.

This is what I offer here. A mirror, a pause, a safe place where your healing isn’t rushed.

I’ve officially trained in trauma-sensitive mindfulness and meditation, i’m a grief educator and I’m in EMDR trauma therapy (there is a link on the bottom of this letter to what EMDR is) but most importantly I’ve experienced the dark ache, the hollow place inside. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night in a panic, I’ve placed my hands on my chest trying to prevent my heart from exploding, i have taken way too many deep inhales and I’m actively rebuilding my nervous system, one intelligent patha and thread at a time.

I’ve practiced the kind of presence and depth that only immense grief, the long, dark night can teach you.

If you’re here, you don’t need to justify your pain.

I already believe you.

Some things that are true about me:

• 
  
• I believe grief is holy, rage is sacred, and silence is a language.
  
• I use writing, voice notes, and creative fragments to stay close to myself - you will experience these for yourself as well through this club.
  
• I’m learning how to let people in, and trust again, without disappearing in the process.
  
• I didn’t grow up with emotional safety. So I’m creating it here.

I would love to know more about you - so if you want, please send me 3 things that are true about you.

Spencer Sherman (MBA, CFP®) is helping transform our relationship to money from fear and confusion to ease and enough. Since earning his MBA from Wharton, he has been bringing his business acumen along with a 40-year meditation and emotional intelligence practice to help people of all wealth levels experience confidence and freedom with their finances. A New York native living in California, Spencer is the Founder and Former CEO of Abacus, a values-driven financial firm. He is the author of Cure for Money Madness, on the faculty of NYU’s Inner MBA program, teaches Fearless Finance and is a Certified Mindfulness Teacher. Access his financial insights, courses and newsletter at Spencer-Sherman.com.

Produced, created and hosted by Dena Argyropoulou. Sound editing and mixing by Dimitris Misirlis at Matrix Recording Studio, Athens, Greece. Song "In a world" written and performed by Tiger Gang.