Terese Teasley, author, and certified holistic life coach overcame her personal struggles and now helps others.
Photo provided by Terese Teasley
The little girl didn’t have anyone to protect her from vicious abuse (from someone who knew better) and was only four years old when a female family friend inappropriately touched her decades ago.
“I lost my innocence and voice at the age of 4 by an individual that my parents believe would provide care for me,” Terese “Tea Nicole” Teasley, 41, told the Michigan Chronicle. “For many years I cried out for help while suffering silently but no one listened. I learned at an early age how to protect myself, fight, put up walls, lie, and how to adapt to things that were not normal because I was numb.”
Teasley said that as a side effect, she also suffered from imposter syndrome because she didn’t truly know who she was, where she belonged, or who to trust for years.
“For many years I thought I was all alone and that I was the only one that experienced this type of abuse,” she said.
Teasley, unfortunately, is not alone.
According to RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, one in nine girls and one in 53 boys (under the age of 18) experience sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult. Just over 80 percent of all victims under 18 are female. The organization also reported that the child victims often know the perpetrator, as Teasley did.
Today, the Pontiac native allowed the pain, confusion, internal struggles, and battles she carried for years to be worked through, no longer pushed down in the pit of her stomach — and now, Teasley is helping others do the same as the founder of her health and wellness services program, Driven By Purpose, LLC.
“We focus on the whole person mentally, physically and spiritually,” her slogan reads. “We believe in the impossible.”
Teasley, who overcame the impossible, is also the author of “Breakthrough Awaits Empowerment Journal” and co-author of “The Coaches Connect” told the Michigan Chronicle that before her healing journey started, she held fastidiously onto the belief that no one could protect her because she did not tell anybody about the abuse.
“For years I carried a lot of weight, hurt, guilt, and shame, which lead to health problems, anxiety, fear, low self-esteem, and me not knowing my worth,” Teasley said, adding that for most of her life she has been overweight. “Because I carried secrets of being molested, touched by people I trusted, seeing abuse in my home and because of family secrets. In 2005, I fell into depression and wanted to take my life, but I called out to God and began my spiritual journey. It was not easy, but I told God if He showed me who He was and what I had to do I would turn my life around.”
From having a healthcare scare in 2020 that ended up with her losing nearly 60 pounds naturally (and taking back her power, strength, and health) to gaining a new lease on life and quitting her job in February – Teasley said that her “story is still being written” with the pen firmly held in her hand this time.
“I am a Brown girl that rocks that looks to show individuals how to be their unapologetically dope seIf,” she said, adding that as an ICF Certified Holistic life Coach (that specializes in wholeness, wellness, and health) she is on a mission to educate, empower and inspire others to live healthier and whole lives and live life on purpose by “tapping into their greatness.”
Teasley added that she was up to the task of having to break through generational curses, and she heavily leaned on God for help in that process.
“I said, ‘God, I just want to help people,’” she said. “I reversed the curse and didn’t even know what I was saying. As I got older … now I understand. Now I identify as a breakthrough.”
She added that she got to her place of happiness by walking in her truth because as a child she lost her voice and she began having digestive tract issues.
“I didn’t know how to express the things I liked, didn’t like so I would hold it in my stomach; hold it inside,” she said, adding that she knows where her feelings are at her stomach, which was physically painful.
When she began to identify her feelings and grew out of just feeling numb, Teasley said that she began speaking up, and she wants other people to speak up for themselves, too.
For her, speaking up looked like finally telling her mother what happened, and she’s been speaking out ever since and helping others with their own journey to do some inner healing by first identifying that they might have a problem.
“In order to heal you have to know something is wrong, then once you have identified it you have to accept it,” she said. “Then in order for you to heal you have to learn how to find out what the root cause is. Getting to the root of the problem … I believe is to remove it or release it.”
She said that she had to heal the inner child that was crying out to her. She then wrote down what was bothering her, then talked to others who helped her finish the work.
“This is how you overcome,” she said.
For more information visit www.tereseteasley.com. Find her on Facebook, Instagram & YouTube at Driven By Purpos3.
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