#184 From Shadows to Strength: Breaking Cycles of Domestic Violence

Have you ever wondered why certain painful patterns keep repeating, even when you promise yourself “never again”?

In this deeply moving episode, Tracey Walker shares her raw and powerful journey from a childhood shaped by domestic violence to adulthood marked by repeating cycles of abusive and alcoholic relationships. With honesty and compassion, Tracey reveals how early exposure to violence can silently shape our choices, relationships, and sense of self long into adulthood.

Rather than remaining defined by survival, Tracey chose to look beneath the surface of her experiences. Through awareness, reflection, and healing, she began to understand how trauma imprints itself on the nervous system and influences behaviour without conscious awareness. This realisation became the catalyst for profound change.

From this journey, Tracey developed The Calm Principle—a practical, four-pillar framework designed to help individuals move from chaos and confusion into clarity, resilience, and empowered action. In this conversation, she explains how calm is not the absence of pain, but the foundation that allows healing, choice, and self-trust to emerge.

This episode is a compassionate exploration of how cycles of violence form, why they persist, and—most importantly—how they can be broken. Tracey’s story offers reassurance that healing is possible, even after years of repetition, and that new possibilities can be created at any stage of life.

If you or someone you love has experienced domestic violence or feels stuck in recurring patterns, this conversation offers understanding, practical insight, and hope grounded in lived experience.

CONNECT WITH TRACEY

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/traceywalkertapping

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracey-walker-speaker/

Website: https://turningpoint4u.com.au/

PROMOTION: https://mailchi.mp/turningpoint4u/s18v47e2tz

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

The Healing Through Love Podcast with Sharlene Lynch and Rose Davidson.

Sharlene 0:08

Hello and welcome to Healing Through Love Podcast, where we shine a light on hope, resilience, and transformation in the journey to end domestic violence. Each week we share powerful stories, practical tools from survivors, advocates, and experts. Together, we're here to create a space, a safe space for healing, inspiration, and change. I'd like to introduce you today to our very special guest, Tracey Walker. She's an author, speaker, and practitioner who's turned her lived experience of domestic violence into a mission of healing and hope. I'm looking forward to our beautiful conversation. She's the creator of the Calm Principle, a four pillar framework that helps people move from survivor to possibilities to reclaiming clarity, confidence, and calm in their lives. Hello, Tracey. Welcome. Hi Charlene, thank you for having me. It's such a privilege to connect you here on the Healing Through Love podcast. So tell us a little bit about your story and how you transitioned from where you are to where you are now.

Speaker 2 1:13

I suppose in the short of it, I was born into a very violent alcoholic environment. So that was my normal. That was all that I knew. That you know, I didn't know anything different. So of course, learned experience, you live what you you watch and listen to and hear and experience. So where do you think I ended up? In a violent alcoholic relationship. And it all went from from there. Um and I didn't know. I didn't know that that was not normal. Um, I remember having a big argument with my my sister, and and she said, you know, you hate me. And and it was really weird because my response was, no, I don't, I love you, because that's what I learned. That's what my parents did on a regular basis. So that's what love must look like, sadly. And it wasn't until my first husband passed away and I fell into a really seriously violent alcoholic relationship that I'm grateful to my mum because she said, you know, you need to go to this group. And she tried to explain that I was in a violent alcoholic relationship, but to me, that was somebody, you know, in the gutter in the park, homeless, that sort of thing. So I didn't even have a concept of what I was actually living with. So I went to this group, and there was just something there. It just grabbed me. There was something I'd never ever experienced before. There was like a love in the room, an acceptance of what I was living with, who I was, and I was just accepted. And that was really a start of opening my mind and my thoughts of what this actually was, because I didn't I didn't have any clue. I really had no clue of what I was living with. Um, so if somebody had sort of said coercive control or all of those things, I wouldn't have had a clue what it was because I only knew what I lived.

Speaker 1 3:33

So Tracey, this group that you went to, were they specifically in and around, was it Alanon or um AA?

Speaker 2 3:41

It was Alanon. It was for the family and friends of alcoholics, and it just opened my mind um to doing things in a totally different way. So over time, I changed. I took back control of my choices and and I stopped the screaming and the yelling and all the things that you get caught up with in those situations, and I just had this calm. I just found that to do what I was doing previously actually escalated everything to a point where, yeah, I got beaten up and um and everything that goes along with that. But over time and continually committing myself to going to meetings, looking and and experiencing what other people were living with, I I just found a different way, uh calmness in it, and it just changed me, and ultimately to a point where I had the courage to say enough was enough, and it was interesting those imprints, those patterns of behavior. And even though I asked him to leave, he convinced me to can't let him come back. So I did it all over again.

Speaker 1 5:16

And that's often the case, isn't it, Tracey? That we get um we might shift and change, and we might be in another level of authority, and we might be in another level of healing, and that's almost even attractive to them. And they uh they yeah, and yeah, so what happened in the end? Did he end up did you end up separating or did he end up becoming calm?

Speaker 2 5:42

In the end, I had the courage to a second time to say enough was enough. I kept going to the Alanon group, and I just got stronger and stronger. And the second time he eventually lost interest and found somebody that would play those games with him, because that was his normal. And I just started then seeing a different world, things that I wanted to step out into, and things started to open up, and it was like really interesting. Um I went back to school after that, um, into the classroom with the kids as a mature age student, widow, single mum, raising three kids, and um to do grade 10, 11, and 12. And I'm lucky I didn't have to wear the school uniform, but I was in class with the kids through those years and graduated before I went on to university. So my life started to open up when I changed, and that really came down to I suppose learning how to love myself because coming from the background that I came from, I didn't even know what love looked like, which was really, I suppose, sad when you um think hitting somebody was love.

Speaker 1 7:13

Yes. Well, you know, a fish doesn't know water. We we just don't know, we don't know unless we've got something to gauge against it. So so he's now left, you've gone back to school, then you've gone to university. And and then and then and then what happened after that? I've changed that much then.

Speaker 2 7:34

I actually met somebody who was kind and loving, um, showed me respect and love, and was just so much wanting to love me. You know, I was studying when we met, and he wasn't fearful of my my career path and what I was doing. He was so proud of the things that I I was achieving. Um, he was so willing to show my children so many things that I could not offer them. Yet those ingrained behaviors were so already ingrained in my children that they they hated him. They tried everything in their power to destroy that relationship, which was really sad. Um and sadly, eventually, you know, um we were together three and a half years, and I must say his children tried to do the same thing. But we we stood united, we loved our children, but we loved each other also, which was really something I had never experienced, and and part of me wanted to um run away, and I was lucky to have a girlfriend who had only ever been with one person, and she said, Tracey, this is love, this is love, and part of me wanted to really just run away because it was so foreign, it was just so so foreign to me. But I had grown so much, I had transformed so much that I stayed and I experienced something that I'd never experienced in my whole life.

Speaker 1 9:37

Oh, I hear you, Tracey. I am late to love, uh, only got married in 2023, we only reconnected uh during COVID, actually. And um, and yeah, it's a completely different story having adult children and uh and walking into a relationship that's already existing. So, yes, I get it. And when you know though, you know, and you're right. When we are at a different frequency, when we think about ourselves differently, when we've got different border barriers and different um like rules of how we're going to show up, then people we attract different people. We magnetically attract a different type of person, and we also magnetically repel the people that maybe we used to attract when we were different. Yeah, I I you're singing my story. I love it, Tracey. Okay, so now that that brings us to today, where you are walking people through your calm framework. And this is what you're teaching in schools, and this is what you're sharing with people on a speaking platform as well, and uh taking people through on uh in your retreats. So to unpack if it's okay, a little bit about the calm process.

Speaker 2 10:47

I suppose it comes down to you know getting clarity on where you actually are. And and I suppose the example I can give is I didn't have clarity. Growing up in a violent alcoholic environment, I didn't have clarity, I didn't know what I was living with. So when you can open people's minds, even if it's just in the slightest little way, to crack that egg a little bit and help them get clarity of what's really happening in their life, that's that's the beginning. And then to help them to sort of start to awaken to the awareness, the awareness of where are these patterns coming from? So, like me, I recognize that's what I was born into, and once I started to explore that, not in a negative way, but to have an understanding and awareness of why I do what I do, and then we have to then face our fears. So that's having the liber liberation of going, wow, you know, I can feel in my body that fear rising, and that's the thing that sometimes it's easier to go back to what we know, back to that comfort zone, and say, Oh, you know, I'm better staying in what I know. And that's exactly what I did. It was easier to stay with what I knew because I knew how to react, I knew how to behave. That was my normal. But through my process, I help people see that you can befriend your fear, you can walk with fear and do it anyway. And when they start to explore that, amazing things start to happen, you know, and it's not big, massive things, it's in little baby steps. And then once they've recognized that, we step into momentum, and that is building our vision. What does life look like? What do you dream it can look like? What is possible without having the fears and the thoughts of well, I can't do that because I don't have enough money, I can't do that because I don't have the skills, and so on and so forth. And when you bring it all together, that comes under the calm principle. And that's how I suppose watching women that I take away on retreats to have that light bulb moment to awaken and go, wow, um, to build whatever their dream. So my first retreat, I had a young girl who came along and she's just recently um put out her new song out into the world, and I'm so proud of her. And at my last retreat, I have a had a woman that had a dream, and and um now she's following that dream that she put off and put off and put everybody else before her dream, and and that's I suppose just fills my heart to be able to help women to step out into the world and um see what's possible.

Speaker 1 14:10

Oh, I love it. So, with this beautiful level of clarity, awareness, and and being liberated, and now then getting that momentum, and these are all of the amazing things that you do when people come to the retreats. I love it, I love it. So I'm curious, you it's been a long journey for you, and you had a lot of times where you didn't really realize there was even a problem, yeah. That you just thought this was how life was. So, to that audience that might be listening today, that might not even be problem aware, they might not even realize what is possible. Because if you don't know, you don't know. What would you say to them? Pause.

Speaker 2 14:53

Just to pause and have that reflection time because that's what the women do at the retreat. I have many different activities for them to have that time to just pause and sit. You know, if they want to know more, they're quite happy to reach out to me. It's I'm quite happy to do that. I suppose it's another example I can give is a young mum who reached out, and she was struggling with her son who had just started high school, and his first term in high school, he ended up in suspension more than being in school getting an education. And mum was at her wit's end, she really didn't know what to do next. And I just said, Well, if he's willing to have a conversation, we'll see where it leads. And as a practitioner of EFT Emotional Freedom Technique and Matrix Reimprinting, he said yes. And after only two sessions, he released all this anger and this frustration that he had with the administration and the teachers and the bullies and just the school system. And it turned his life around because the way I work is I don't fit anybody into a box. Whoever I work with, it's uh where are you at? And let's find something that works for you. And we did, and he could take that to school and use those techniques in the classroom, and nobody knew he was doing these techniques to a point where everything changed, the bullies left him alone. Um, even his English teacher rang mum and said, Well, I don't recognize him anymore. They were just shocked. So these are the tools that that people can use to take away and change everything in their life, and that's that's powerful, you know, because what I find in the work that I do, they hold their answers, it's not for me to tell them. It's to open their mind, you know, to what's possible.

Speaker 1 17:20

Yeah. I love it. So if you're listening today and you're not sure, you just pause. Take that moment to pause. And how then, at the other end, do you know that you've made it? Like if if we don't know what we don't know, how do we know that we're living our best life?

Speaker 2 17:39

You're still continuing to put one foot in front of the other. So I haven't got the end of my journey. I'm always evolving. There are always new things that that rise up and go, hey, you know, I'm here. Um, you need to deal with this. So I really am tapped into my body these days that even if I feel a little niggling, the light bulb comes on for me and says, Okay, there's something here I need to address. And it's really, really important because I will never stop growing, I'll never stop learning to the day that I'm I'm not here anymore. Because that's growth that's continually evolving and moving forward, and I keep that momentum going because there is no way that I want to go back to what I came from.

Speaker 1 18:36

Yes, exactly. So that level of pause brings us into that level of awareness, that body awareness. We can see, hey, this is going to lead us to that level of intuition so that we can really get connected to that. Is this my stuff? Is it someone else's stuff? Is it my past stuff? And we can bring that into now by having that level of, you know, connection to self. I love it. So uh in closing, what would Tracey be your final words of wisdom to our beautiful audience?

Speaker 2 19:06

Connect with yourself, love who you are and also who you want to be and who you're becoming.

Speaker 1 19:15

Yes, I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Tracey, for your words of wisdom and walking us through the beautiful calm process. If you're listening today and it's time for you to have a retreat, it's the time for you to pause and reconnect to yourself and re-evaluate how it is that you want to live your life moving forward. Connect with Tracey. Her links are going to be in the show notes and in the show description as well. She regularly has retreats, and so all you need to do is reach out to get the details of the next upcoming retreat. It's been a privilege and a pleasure to have this beautiful conversation. It's a goodbye from us at Healing Through Love and a goodbye from Tracey.

Speaker 2 19:51

Thank you very much, Sharlene, and to your listeners. Thank you.

Speaker 20:00

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Healing Through Love. You can get further resources, see the show notes. Simply reach out to us.