Hi, I’m Leanne

Storms

Some lives are built in straight lines. Mine has been convoluted, shaped by fracture, loss, and the slow work of rebuilding. I am the author of My Name Was Michelle, an upcoming memoir exploring the lifelong impact of forced adoption, childhood trauma, and the complicated terrain of reunion, estrangement, and grief. My writing sits with the truths that are often denied, the losses that are dismissed, the myths that replace them, and the courage it takes to live anyway. Alongside my writing, I offer spaces for people who are learning how to live after trauma. This is not the confronting work of recovery but an exploration of the question that follows: How do I build a life after the storm?

Rhythms

For many years I’ve worked as a psychologist, sitting with people inside their most vulnerable stories. This work taught me how deeply trauma reshapes identity and how often we’re left searching for something different once the nervous system has learned to settle itself, such as support to imagine a life that isn’t focused on survival and space to reorient ourselves. The work I do now grew from this. It blends reflection, creativity, values, and gentle companionship to help you rediscover your own rhythms and begin shaping the life that comes next.

Maps

I believe a meaningful life after trauma is not built through pressure or reinvention, but through finding your own rhythm and creating your own map. While grieving what is lost, we listen for the parts of ourselves that were once silenced. We rediscover our creativity, curiosity and possibility. We learn how the past can be carried without letting it author the life that remains.

When I’m not writing or working with clients, I’m often found moving slowly through the small rituals that make life feel whole. Reading, journalling, quiet mornings, long walks, tending to my pets, and the gentle work of shaping a creative life that’s unique to me. If you’re in a place where survival is no longer the whole story, you are welcome here.

I pay my respects to the family groups of the Yugambeh Language Region, Traditional Custodians of this land where I live and work, and extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations Elders, past, present and emerging.