1 Year On: The Trauma Recovery Summit's Impact & the Path Ahead

It has been one year since the 2022 Trauma Recovery Summit!

That’s hard to believe. Sarah Brassard, our other partners, and I worked on the event for more than a year ahead of time (and months afterward). It was such a huge endeavor and passion project.

To celebrate this anniversary, I have 2 gifts I want to share with you 🎁…

~

In a hurry? Just in case, I’ll spill the beans…

You’ll find my newly expanded version of the summit guidebook if you scroll down past the first quote below. Formerly titled “5 Tools for Inner Healing Without Drugs,” the new guide includes suggested actions for each tool, workbook sections, further resources, plus 5 more tools that go beyond healing to deeper self-discovery and growth. Plus, in emails I’ll send in early Nov. and Dec., you’ll find links to 12 of the most popular summit sessions.

You COULD jump straight into today’s gift…

~

But first, you might be wondering—what’s this about “the path ahead”?

And who even is this person? 🤔

I’m Brandon McPeak, one of Sarah’s partners in producing the Trauma Recovery Summit event. Before the summit, my collaborator Amy Greene-Dittz and I had been working with Sarah to promote her programs and work.

We’d both experienced our own past traumas and resonated with her mission. And having had success in our healing using techniques she taught, from meditation to breathwork to yoga and more, we jumped at the chance to produce a summit together tackling these issues.

My role included:

🧠 Working with Sarah to come up with the summit session topics
🗣️ Finding and recruiting the right speakers for each session
🎫 Planning events, including the kickoff party and expert panel discussion
✍️ Writing the “5 Tools for Inner Healing Without Drugs” summit guidebook
👷 A whole lot more!

Together, we celebrated some serious successes:

🙌 Almost 70,000 attendees
⭐ Hundreds of testimonials from attendees whose lives were touched
🤝 Glowing feedback from speakers about the quality and integrity of the event content

And there were some big lessons—about burnout, balance, and choosing the right relationships…

We worked HARD on this event. It wasn’t merely a passion project. My sense of the gravity of the topic and the importance of doing right by everyone genuinely seeking help made me push hard. Too hard. During the summer of 2022 and through the event itself last October, I averaged 70+ hour work weeks. It was too much, and I got seriously burnt out.

And, as you may know, we had some challenges with the summit company we worked with. Many of you complained, rightly, about the messages you received from them afterward. This was a HUGE regret for me—if you’re curious about this, respond and I’ll be glad to explain more.

But the past is past, as long as we learn from it.

I started being more tender and honest with myself about my capacities, limitations, and needs. I spent more time meditating, reflecting, and journaling. And I started re-evaluating what I was doing… And why, how, and with whom.

The following tidbit of wisdom informed our vision for and approach to the summit and companion guidebook, and I’ve held onto it since:

The time I spent looking within was fruitful. In fact, the first place it led me was right back to the topics in my guidebook, both to take its healing advice and envision what it looks like to transform healing into meaning and positive momentum.

Soon, I was committing that vision to paper, with a new and improved guidebook, which I give to you now to celebrate this 1-year anniversary! 🎁

10 Tools for Inner Healing, Self-Discovery, and Personal Growth (💡 this might help simplify New Year intention-setting and follow-through! )

Also to celebrate this milestone, I’ve curated those summit videos I’ll share with you starting in early November. These will be a mix of the most-watched sessions plus my favorite ones to help move your attention from past regrets and future concerns to discovering the power of what’s within you right now.

No matter where you are in life, these learning tools, and your own innate capacity to learn and evolve, are tremendous assets!

Whether ornament, refuge, something else, or something between, I hope they serve you well!

Truthfully, after the summit, I wasn’t sure how best to reconnect with you—after some of the not-so-uplifting messages from the summit company, one thing was clear: it was even more vital to share in a way that would lend to your healing and honor your time and attention.

Reflecting on the event's high points like the guidebook and my favorite sessions, then reigniting my spark with the new guide, a path emerged.

Rumi was right. I wasn’t sure where to go. But I had started walking. And the way appeared…

What I needed personally was also what I should do here—to share positive messages and resources, with an earnest intention to uplift. And while I love creating fancy guides, workbooks, and checklists, this sharing could be as simple as curating a powerful quote or some good news.

In the end, I got a little fancy with the new guide, while also injecting a bit of “Keep It Simple, Silly.”

So, this is the start of my newsletter:

❌ You will NOT receive overly frequent messages from me.
❌ Nor any messages trying to sell you things you don’t need (just the occasional sponsor or affiliate link embedded in a newsletter edition, for something genuinely useful).
❌ There will be absolutely NO agitation, manipulation, or negativity.

✅ Just feel-good, helpful messages no more than once a month (for the foreseeable future).

See the P.S. below my signature for a sample of the content to come.

Want to help set the course from here? I’d love to hear from you!

Respond to the poll to let me know which topic(s) you want to learn about!

Still wondering what to expect from the monthly In & Up newsletter?

I’ll share reflections on inner healing, self-discovery, and personal growth, aligned to a monthly theme, with relevant quotes from ancient and modern teachers woven in.

Each edition will include some recurring segments like Practice This 🧘 (meditation, breathwork, and more), Tools For Life 🧰 (only actionable things!), Enriching Readings 📚 (inspiring, useful, entertaining reads), Good News 🙌, and more.

Here’s a taste:

More to come soon in the first official edition!