The Humble Pie
Trauma Recovery Coaching That Meets You Where You Are
I’m Jane Davidson, a certified trauma recovery coach and trauma-informed educator based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I work with adults who were taught to be strong instead of supported,
reasonable instead of real, and grateful instead of honest.
If you have carried too much for too long, The Humble Pie is our place to begin again with honesty, softness, and a nervous system that no longer has to apologize. I offer online trauma recovery coaching and a free 30-minute consult so you can see if working together feels right.
The Humble Pie: Let’s Start from Scratch
Because healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken.
It’s about remembering who you are.
This framework borrows the shape of 12 steps, but it isn’t about one drink, one drug, or one diagnosis.
It’s a gentle structure for recovering from the parts of life that fractured us in ways we never had language for.
We’re not just healing from substances or behaviors.
Those are symptoms.
We’re healing from the lies we were told, the shame we carried, and the betrayals that taught us to disappear.
Each step on this page has two layers:
The journal-style entries written from inside the experience,
and the Learning Library overview that explains what that step is doing in your nervous system, relationships, and story.
The Humble Pie is about coming back to ourselves, slice by slice, truth by truth.
The Humble Pie Clarity Prayer
Every beginning needs an anchor. This one begins with a prayer…
Grant me the clarity to see what is hurting me,
The courage to walk away from what will not change,
And the wisdom to trust my truth above all else.
The 12 Humble Steps
These steps aren’t rules. They’re invitations...pieces of the journey.
You can enter from any doorway. Begin where you need to; there’s no single order.
How to Navigate This Map Back to Yourself
The 12 Humble Steps aren't a ladder you climb or rules you have to follow.
They’re invitations…doorways you can walk through at your own pace.
Start where you need to. Some days you may return to the same step over and over; other days you may skip ahead. There’s no wrong way through.
Under each step, you’ll find two layers: the journal-style entries that speak from inside the experience, and a Learning Library overview for people who want language and context for what each step is doing in their nervous system, relationships, and story.
This guide is here to remind you that healing doesn't move in straight lines. It moves in circles, pauses, and returns, always carrying you closer to yourself.
Step One: Admitting the Crack
The fracture we hid is the same place light gets in.
Explore Step One through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview, Moral Injury: When Your Conscience Wakes Up Before Your Life Does.
Step Two: Seeing Through the Fog
Learning to name what was once blurred or denied.
Explore Step Two through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Why Awareness Can Dysregulate the Nervous System.
Step Three: Turning Toward Ourselves
Learning to return to myself after decades of self-abandonment.
Explore Step Three through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview, Learned Patterns You Didn’t Choose (and Why Shame Shows Up).
Step Four: The Inventory We Were Never Allowed
Writing the story in our own words, without edits or erasure.
Explore Step Four through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Why Nervous System Collapse Is Not the Same as Giving Up.
Step Five: Speaking the Unspeakable
Letting what was silenced finally be said out loud.
Explore Step Five through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview, Why Relationships Feel Harder After Awakening.
Step Six: Unlearning Obedience
Breaking the spell of “be good” that kept us small.
Explore Step Six through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
How Systems Shape Behavior (Without Excusing Harm).
Step Seven: The Cost of Shrinking
Seeing the toll of making ourselves smaller for others’ comfort.
Explore Step Seven through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
The Cost of Shrinking: What Happens When You Make Yourself Small.
Step Eight: Repair Without Erasure
Healing without rewriting the past or disappearing ourselves again.
Explore Step Eight through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Step Nine: Choosing Ourselves
Letting boundaries do what my silence never could.
Explore Step Nine through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Choosing Ourselves in Recovery.
Step Ten: Telling the Truth in Real Time
No longer rewriting after the fact, speaking now as it happens.
Explore Step Ten through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Telling the Truth in Recovery: When You Were Trained To Stay Quiet.
Step Eleven: Letting Grief Be Sacred
Making space for sorrow as proof of what mattered.
Explore Step Eleven through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Step Twelve: Living Out Loud, Without Permission
Claiming our voice, our joy, and our place — unapologetically.
Explore Step Twelve through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Living Out Loud in Recovery: Letting Your Life Match Your Truth.
A Slice to Carry With You
Healing isn’t something we do once and call it done. It’s something we return to, slice by slice, truth by truth.
The Humble Pie isn’t about reaching a finish line. It’s about remembering who you are, again and again. Take one step, or many.
Circle back as often as you need.
The reflections linked to each step are here to walk beside you. Come back whenever you’re hungry for clarity, courage,
or just the reminder that
healing those protective parts - and yourself - is possible.