Who We Are

Welcome!

My name is Sonia Lee and I am deeply grateful our paths have crossed.

Many people with emotional pain suffer in isolation. They may come to believe no one sees them nor cares for them. They might feel lost, abandoned, rejected, ashamed, or unworthy. Although these feelings make sense based on the individual’s experience of deep suffering, there is a pathway that leads to healing, connection, transformation, flourishing, and goodness.

Often, we may feel afraid of our own pain and reluctant to face our own story. So, we might overwork instead. We might become masters of perfectionism or narcissism. We might hide behind titles, we might over-achieve, spiritually bypass, people-please, over-shop, over-caffeinate, or use any other drug of choice in order to suppress, avoid, or dismiss the sharp shards of pain, shame, and trauma within our hearts. We might decide that becoming honest about our experience is too risky. What if we get judged, criticized, or abandoned, (again), by that relationship, friend, club, group, or church we so long to be a part of. So, we keep suffering in silence hoping we can keep the pain far away, or drown it out with enough success, ministry, popularity, things, money, substances, or relationships. Meanwhile, the ache cries out from deep within. Growing deeper and larger, and trapped within that ache might also lie our resilience. Maybe even a new, more authentic version of ourselves.

Land of the Living was founded to honor the suffering of all who have experienced the deep pain of living in a broken world. I believe there is a deep Love and a great Compassion available to us that transcends time, space, and even human understanding. A Divine Presence that desires to bless us, to meet us and to tend to our bruises, fractures, and wounds; and to make these wounds the very places through which light, grace, healing, compassion, self-forgiveness and deep love can enter in and transfigure us.

I’ve had the honor to have journeyed with sexual abuse survivors, depression, anxiety, addiction, and trauma survivors for over thirteen years. I have trained, coached, and supported hundreds of leaders in a variety of settings. I have created and planted trauma healing ministries, as well as planted hundreds of trauma care groups in spiritual settings. I have been fully beside each of these hearts, fully invested into their wholeness and healing.

This beautifully sacred work was birthed years ago out of my own journey through the fire of shattering heartbreak I thought I would not live through. This fiery gate opened up painful childhood memories of abuse, orphanhood, and terror which I had long buried and had worked hard to forget. One day, the pain of these repressed memories came back at full force and plunged me into a deep sea of darkness. I fell all the way to the very bottom of this ocean, as though I were made of lead. This drowning of sorts mysteriously morphed into a sacred portal to begin my healing journey.

I have stumbled my way through dark valleys of weeping, where the fog of betrayal, worthlessness, and grief is too dense, with no end in sight. I have painfully trudged up thorny hills, shallow breath, knees shaking as I face fanged beasts of fear and despair. I have fought through the whispers of darkness, the lies of shame, defeat, abandonment, and hopelessness that set onto my body, cold chills down my spine and burning pains in my stomach. This journey led me into liminal spaces where the numinous, gentle, and mysterious process of rebirth began to gently and lovingly weave new life into my being. I began to examine, name, weep, mourn, and grieve my deep losses and the tragedies, heartbreaks, abuses, and betrayals I had experienced from those who were supposed to be safe. But were not.

This sacred journey has taken me into depths where I can begin to carefully gather the sharp shards that were embedded in my heart for too long. The painful debris from the trauma I experienced in my childhood with violent, exploitive, and addicted parents, to the narcissism, sexism, gaslighting, and spiritual harm I experienced within the abusive power-hungry structures of a mega-church.

Gathering these shattered pieces has allowed me to begin to:

• Breathe in the midst of deep losses and incomprehensible betrayals.

• Name, grieve, and release pain and despair so as to receive healing and hope.

• Forgive myself for my own mistakes, and forgive others.

• Reclaim deep connection with myself, the Divine, and safe-others.

• Sit in the fire of reality, illusion gone, and allow it to transfigure me.

• Transcend tragedy and move further into purpose.

• Live from a deepening process of healing transformation, instead of living from performance, unrest, or the bondage of seeking people’s approval of me.

• Learn from my mistakes and failures and use them to grow and deepen my capacity, strength, embodied resilience, and compassion for myself and others.

• Find, rescue, and re-member the broken pieces so I can become the most AUTHENTIC version of me.

THIS IS THE SACRED JOURNEY I INVITE YOU INTO.

It is not an easy journey. But it is worth it.

I am grateful to hold a Bachelor’s Degree of Arts and Sciences from Dallas Baptist University with a major in Psychology, and a Master of Divinity with a major in Pastoral Counseling from Mercer University. I also hold several years of trauma and abuse training from several beautiful sources, as well as training in Spiritual Direction, Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, and other somatic and contemplative approaches to trauma healing.

My hope is that my life experience, my professional experience, and a variety of trauma care tools might serve you in your own journey to flourishing. Gently facing, naming, and properly grieving our tragedies is a crucial part of healing and transformation that cannot be bypassed. Our hearts will continue to cry out until we begin to tend to the bruises, fractures, and wounds in our beings. My hope is that as we walk together, you might discover that there is a Love that is real, and it runs deeper than your pain, and is stronger than any suffering, anxiety, depression, trauma, failure, or betrayal you may have experienced in your past.

Healing, flourishing, and transformation are possible for YOU. I invite you to meet Mercy, taste Compassion, and breathe in Hope in the landscape of your story. I look forward to being fully beside you, joining you in your beautiful and sacred journey.

A deep bow to you, and all that it took to bring you here,

-Sonia Lee