In a world where kindness feels like an open wound because cruelty reigns and callousness is rewarded, those of us who hold on to compassion feel burnt out and overwhelmed.

I have long ago decided to stand up to injustice and risk everything for those suffering from abuse and oppression. I have affirmed that choice over and over again and I will always continue to do so.

I am a peaceful soul by nature, honest and soft-hearted. I have been forged by fire, been born into abuse and grown up through oppression, while nurturing my own curiosity about a better way to live. I always seek accomplices in those around me who suffer too, be it from the same or different causes.

I can think of nothing I'd rather spend my time and energy on than to support others through and out of abuse, oppression and related struggles.

Because I value equality, diy and mutual aid, my favourite form of emotional healing is Co-Counselling. But it doesn't work for everyone in every situation, so I coined "Pro-Counselling" because it rhymes. That's where I accompany you in your healing as a "Life Coach", which is my official job title.

I will support you to:

• gain clarity over what and who causes you suffering
• increase your agency
• stand up to abusers
• learn to spot abuse/oppression and understand their dynamics and mechanisms
• learn to trust your instinct, your gut feeling, your inner wisdom, to read vibes — however you want to call it
• integrate your reasoning with your emotional wisdom, to combine them and strengthen the basis on which you make decisions
• find strategies to survive oppression
• work towards thriving instead of just surviving
• find ways that go beyond conventional wisdom — or contradict it
• connect to yourself, your body and soul
• connect to nature and stay connected
• find out, decide and shape what and who you are and want to be and how you want to impact the world
• stay true to yourself amidst adversity
• resist fascism, genocide and ecocide in whatever way you choose

I work remotely online, in whichever form is best for you: written, voice chat or video chat. We can use simultaneous or asynchronous communication, that is we can talk together at the same time, or we can each talk and respond in our own time. I am fluent in german and english.

I will help you to the best of my abilities; if the opportunity arises and you agree, this can go beyond words. I might knit you an emotional support hat!

Contact: bellis-storm@tuta.com

Qualifications

I don't have an academic degree in psychology or related fields, nor am I interested in life coaching certifications; my expertise stems from lived experience with:

• being abused by different people and in different ways and escaping said abuses
• having escaped the cult I was born into (despite persecution and death threats) and emotionally processed what happened to me and how that system functioned
• being a patient of different forms of outpatient and inpatient psychotherapy and psychiatry
• forming bonds of mutual aid with the other patients there
• actively participating in online self help groups, forums and mailing lists all my adult life and running an in-person group for 8+ years
• being poor and finding ways to survive via both receiving and (more often) giving mutual aid
• having carried comrades through homelessness and psychotic breaks several times and helping them regain their agency and stability (housing, getting benefits sorted, finding social ties)
• sharing what little material resources (money, food, a couch to crash on) I had with whoever needed it most
• shielding others from abuse, sometimes by physically standing between their abuser and them
• being very empathetic and compassionate by nature and by choice
• transferring my skills of giving emotional labour from the abusers who demand(ed) it towards those who need it
• taking back my own agency and reclaiming my truth
• not flinching away from remembering, dealing with and processing trauma
• overcoming eating disorders, specifically restrictive eating while being considered "not thin enough" for an ED and becoming fat while recovering; defying conventional "wisdom" aka diet culture and it's mandate to "recover, but not too much"
• struggling with gendered ideas about and treatment concepts for EDs and successfully breaking the mold
• just in general, I know and chose to remember what it's like to fall through the cracks of existing support systems, at times getting abused and retraumatised by "help" – and that's why I want to be there for others who are falling through cracks
• good (autistic) pattern recognition
• being curious about almost everything
• my passion for justice
• my almost lifelong political activism in many scenes and causes (antifa, queerfeminism, climate justice, among others)
• good ability to analyse situations, soak up information and combine different pieces of information and different viewpoints
• openmindedness and willingness to see the world from someone else's perspective
• using every shitstorm of my life as compost to grow flowers of wisdom (ah, if only it were this poetic in real life!)
• using both scientific, psychological ways of understanding myself, as well as spiritual and religious worldviews. I combine these when thinking about myself
• not believing that I have all the answers already
• humility to admit mistakes
• hard won confidence that I built from nothing

Sliding Scale Prices

The first session is an assessment to see if we're a good fit and is free.

After that, the normal fee for me is 150€ per hour. This also includes my time preparing for the session and doing research on issues that are relevant to you.

But the pricing is based on the principle of "giving according to one's means and receiving according to one's needs", which means that when deciding on what to pay, we'd take your ability to pay and my need for money into account. That means that you can get reduced prices, say 100€ per hour or less.

When I can afford it, I work with clients for free, though currently I am struggling to pay rent and have to beg for that and food.

If you have the money, be a comrade and pay more — as much as you feel my life's work is worth! You'll enable me to support more people.

Scheduling

I recommend 1-3 sessions of 1 hour a week. You can have shorter sessions too, but not longer ones. Fewer is of course always possible.

We can also use asynchronous chats or emails where you can write at me whenever you want and I spend an agreed upon amount of time to respond.

I can work on any day of the week and weekend, on afternoons and evenings eastern European time, UTC +2 or +3 with daylight savings time.

Contact

bellis-storm@tuta.com