I was fortunate enough to have sold some companies in my 30’s. So when I was diagnosed with PTSD at 40, I had the resources to throw at the problem until I could figure out what exactly would work for me.

It was a long and hard road to healing - with some therapies helping, and others having the opposite effect - but as I started to find healing and peace again in my life, I kept thinking “What about those who are suffering like me, but don’t have the same resources I had at my disposal. Do they not also deserve to find the same healing that I am now experiencing?”

Now, I had been an entrepreneur for 15 years. Entrepreneur is just code for “Problem Solver”, and I knew that this was a problem I wanted to solve. I felt strongly then, as I do now, that my path was not to become a therapist, but to help make the healing work of the many incredible therapies I experienced accessible to as many people as possible; it was to use my skills as a “problem solver” for the good of those that I cared so deeply about.

And though I was blessed to work with some incredible therapists (and I still do), my entrepreneurial background (which is just code for “problem-solver” background) kicked in and I started looking at what I could to remove as many barriers as I could for as many people as I could so they can experience the healing I have.

I partnered with a local therapist to start a boutique trauma therapy clinic where we developed a unique process involving a personalized healing guide for every client. I personally spoke with over 500 people experiencing the ravaging effects of trauma. I can’t even tell you the number of times that I would hang up after a call and just cry for them. For their story. For their pain. For their hopelessness. 

But I also knew something that they didn’t yet. 

There IS hope. 

Through the work and research of people like Gabor Mate, Bessel van der Kolk, Richard Schwartz, Rick Doblin, Stephen Porges, Peter Levine, Deb Dana, and so many others, we have begun to understand trauma on a level that we never have before; its causes, its effects, and most importantly, how to heal.

When I was healing from trauma, all I wanted was for someone to be a guide for me, someone to help me transcend my suffering and work towards a life worth living again.

My dream was simply to help in my little way to guide them to see it, pointing the way until I was no longer needed.

HopeGuide is a realization of that dream, designed to further reduce the barriers that so many people experience to healing from their trauma: cost, accessibility, community, and an individualized plan. 

We believe that healing from trauma should be available to everyone, and this is our way of helping make that happen.  

I hope you join our community and our collective healing journey. Join us in hope.

~ Ryan, CHO (chief hope officer)