Rachelle Muschamp

My story began 44 years ago, born in the UK to an English father and a Dutch mother. Their relationship quickly broke down, and when I was seven, my mother fled the country with my five-year-old sister and me. Losing my father at such a young age created a deep sense of abandonment within me, and I quickly learned to suppress my emotions. By the age of twelve, I started to feel lost and turned to drugs, desperately seeking a sense of belonging. I spent years using various party drugs, until—at seventeen—I decided to join the army. To this day, I have no memory of making that decision. It’s a blank spot in my mind, one of many that span from early childhood through my twenties. If I had become disconnected from my emotions by age twelve, drugs only deepened that disconnection. The nine years I spent in the military—where emotions were seen as weakness—further buried any connection to my inner self. During that time, I began suffering from anxiety and panic attacks, slowly realizing that I was, in fact, highly sensitive. Therapy never crossed my mind. I served two tours abroad on antidepressants, which ultimately didn’t help. I left the military at twenty-seven and entered into a twelve-year relationship, unaware that both of us were carrying unhealed trauma. Our connection was marked by intense highs and devastating lows, and eventually became soaked in alcohol. We were unknowingly reenacting our childhood wounds—stuck in a cycle of survival, with no awareness of what was truly happening. I lived in a constant state of fight-or-flight, but I didn’t yet have the language or tools to understand it. Despite the chaos, I always kept myself busy. But in 2017, I met a meditation teacher and committed to a ten-day meditation program. No alcohol, no distractions. During those ten days, an unexpected rage surfaced, and for the first time, I saw that if I didn’t make radical changes, my life was headed for disaster. When that relationship ended, I made a vow to myself: I would turn over every stone to understand what was "wrong" with me. I felt deeply broken—and I was determined to heal. What followed were years of therapy: EMDR, CBT, somatic work, breathwork, and spiritual exploration. I lived briefly in an ashram in Bali, became a yoga teacher, and continued searching. Eventually, I came across the work of Dr. Gabor Maté. I attended one of his masterclasses and was blown away by the effectiveness of Compassionate Inquiry. Although I had already made significant progress, there was still a persistent “darkness” I couldn’t shake. Other methods that seemed to help others left me frustrated—until I found this approach, along with Internal Family Systems therapy. I spent 18 months training in Compassionate Inquiry under Dr. Gabor Maté. More recently, I joined a course led by David Kessler, deepening my capacity to support clients navigating grief and loss—something that often surfaces during deep inner work.

Articles:

The Day I Truly Lost My Father: How Grief Became My Greatest Teacher and Led me Back to Myself.

The last time that I saw my father, I was 7. He died when I was 28. But I truly lost him at 43 Grief. Such a complex topic—one that we do not speak about enough. Grief shows up in many situations; it is not only about the passing of a loved one. In reality, we are all faced with grief throughout our lives, often on a subconscious level. And we rush through those events without honoring them for what they truly are: rites of passage—moments that mark profound transitions and have the power to transform us completely. Running From […]

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