I should have called this “SVC Lifestyle inspired by God,” but I thought this would be a little bit too dramatic. Also as I am getting used to the idea that the spirit God lives in me and that my whole body is his temple, I think there is no harm in putting my signature under this framework.

To explain the Self, Vision and Community framework, I have to tell you a little bit about a few current events. Last year after turning 29, my whole world started to explode. I was experiencing high anxiety to a point where I would have moments during the day where I could not breathe. The job that I was once excited to go to every morning started to become a toxic place to be. I would lock myself in my office for a whole 30 minutes just crying. I would get home from work and lay down on the floor feeling mentally drained. At home, I would wake up in the middle of night crying, at times for no apparent reasons. Every aspect of my life started to feel unbearable. My daughter was in daycare, and the only great time in my day was seeing her after work, and some days I would take her to work with me. I was still seeing a psychologist and this helped me get through the days, but this cloud felt so much deeper. I thought, maybe this is just a phase so this too shall pass. Little did I know, God wanted some time alone with me…

Exhausted by a string of insignificant events, one day I came home from work and I told my husband, I am quitting my job to finish school full time. He responded “I thought you loved this job, are you sure about that?” I said “Yup, I’m sure. If I do this I can finish school faster….” and all of the other reasons I gave him that day. He suggested keeping the job on a per diem status in case I changed my mind, and he said he was going to work some extra hours and we will remove our daughter from daycare (as he always wanted anyway) and the decision was made. The next day I talked to my boss, and gave three weeks notice resigning from my supervisory position. And guess what? Nothing got better. I spent the next month in deep depression. My problem was not the job. Then I started having consistent nightmares (I will say more about that in the Ebook).

So one night a voice in my dream told me “arrrête de courir, il faut prier” meaning “stop running, you need to pray.” I explained the dreams to someone close to me then I developed a three-month prayer and fasting plan, where I give up something either I enjoyed or something destructive in my life every week like social media, meat, impatience, reacting to everything ect… While I was in that three months fasting journey, I began to realize I had been so busy pursuing external accomplishments that I never really face myself and understand who I truly was because I spent all of my teens and 20s running from myself. I was busy achieving things and collecting the world validation that I never had to worry who was truly in there. I had this delusion that if I can achieve as many things as possible, my trauma will fade away and won’t be such a bad omen in my life. So I kept pushing myself externally, but what I was really doing was bringing my symptoms everywhere I go. So I spent weeks asking God’ s forgiveness for my disregard for this life that it gave me. I sat in my brokenness and process ALL of my trauma and the person that it was creating through me; then I ask God for direction.

Then it happens….

Ideas for the organisation that I have been trying to launch for three years started to get more specific. After praying, I would be going about my day casually, then have to stop what I’m doing to grab a pen and my journal to map my ideas. One month after praying and fasting, I had the most significant dream of my life thus far, where God showed me that I belonged to him. Something that we often think about, but never really let sink in.

One day, as I was processing my experience and reading the bible, the three words were whispered in my mind: Self _ Vision _ Community. Then I said I should develop a workshop for sexual trauma survivors from the age of 17 to 29, and assist them with redefining their life on these three aspects.

I have been a user of this framework my whole life, without the “Self” aspect. What happened in my case is that I survived the symptoms of sexual assault, rape and abuse because my community, ie. church, school and local libraries, and my vision to become someone in life, were all my protective factors. Up until I turned 29, it never dawned on me that I have been neglecting my true self, ie. my emotional stability and health. I also realised, because I always said to myself that I want my 30s to be very different, God pulled me back home just in time so I can do the work emotionally. I did in three months what I have been in therapy for for years. (But I have to say, therapy was useful in keeping me sane.) I cannot imagine going out in the world helping other people with their trauma without ever facing mine or worst not knowing my identity in Christ.

Drumroll!!!!!

So what is SVC?

A Self, Vision and Community framework asks these three set of questions: Self: Who were you before your trauma? Who are you now? Why?

Vision: What is your vision? Do you have a plan? and Is it motivated by your trauma? (are you doing this to prove yourself worthy to people who hurt you or is it truly what you want for your life?)

Community: Where is your identified community/support? Who is influencing you and who are you influencing? What is your plan to impact your community? As independent as you may be, you cannot do it alone. You may accomplish things, but you will never experience true fulfilment by yourself.

The SVC lifestyle is the one where you strive to live authentically having answered, or at least in search for the answers, of all of these questions. The SVC workshop is pulled from trauma-informed care, bible-based spirituality, and design thinking model where you use your life as your own customer.

In the mental health ministry, Savesouls, that I co-founded, we plan to offer the SVC workshop free of charge to all Afro-Caribbean individuals suffering from sexual trauma. I choose Afro-Caribbean because not only this is my community as a Haitian-American, but also I know firsthand that sexual trauma is an unaddressed challenge in my community.

For more of posts on my SVC journey, subscribe to this blog so you can receive alerts on new posts and the free e-book that will be available in Fall this year. Thank you for reading.