We’re all here
To experience
limitless
Each and every one of us.
We’re all here
To experience
limitless
Each and every one of us.
But how do we get there?
How can we feel outrageously confident just being ourselves, with all our unique talents and bespoke beauty?
How do we start healing from past trauma to become audaciously compassionate and universally wise?
We rise above our old, limiting stories…
and write
I’m Karena Kilcoyne and I know a thing—or 100—about old, limiting stories.
From the age of twelve (when my dad went to the federal penitentiary) and into adulthood, there were huge parts of me that felt trapped, held back, and severely less than.
Growing up in a dysfunctional home, where abandonment was served up on the regular, I survived by handing over my childhood.
I gave up being a carefree youngster riding my bike joyously through the neighborhood. Instead, I asked neighbors for money and bought canned soup, doughnuts, and fish sticks to quell the endless hunger in my siblings and me.
There are years meant for nurturing self-esteem and learning healthy boundaries. I spent mine unsuccessfully dodging insult and injury.
Where there was supposed to be space, I was force-fed limitation.
And when I was finally released from my makeshift home, I took with me a sense of abandonment and shame so great that it stole my desire to dance, love, and laugh.
My past stole my present.
until i decided to rewrite my story...
And redefine the person I thought I was.
I pushed back against the negative self-talk that other people had planted within me.
I questioned the constraints and judgments that society dished out based on how I was raised and what I did without.
I worked through and resolved the fear that was keeping me from being myself, daring to dream, and building a life that didn’t feel like a punishment anymore — but a true, soul-deep gift to myself.
Ultimately, I realized that I deserved to be alive and feel worthy. I belonged here on this earth.
until i decided to rewrite my story...
And redefine the person I thought I was.
I pushed back against the negative self-talk that other people had planted within me.
I questioned the constraints and judgments that society dished out based on how I was raised and what I did without. I learned that your past doesn't have to define you.
I worked through and resolved the fear that was keeping me from being myself, daring to dream, healing from my past trauma, and building a life that didn’t feel like a punishment anymore—but a true, soul-deep gift to myself.
Ultimately, I realized that I deserved to be alive and feel worthy. I belonged here on this earth.
Through years of various therapies and the love of a good dog, I found and claimed my emotional freedom.
It took others, with and without fur, to shine a light on me before I began healing from my past trauma and finally saw myself.
I wasn’t the battered, young girl riding a bike on the cold Ohio streets anymore.
I was an accomplished criminal defense attorney who graduated from Case Western Reserve School of Law.
I was the woman, who at twenty-four years old, unflinchingly adopted my kid brother when we were parentless, because it was a no-brainer.
I am the brilliant, limitless soul who brought my heart to the table, built a fulfilling life as myself, and now teaches other women to do the same.
Now on the other side of healing, joy.
When I’m not empowering other women to tell their own stories, you can find me taking my fur babies to the beach in my vintage Jeep Wagoneer Woody, and traveling to far-flung places with my husband and lots of happiness in tow.