What if your worst childhood trauma became the gateway to your greatest gift?

In this profoundly moving episode of The Big Silence, Karena sits down with Susan Grau: soul healer, grief and addiction therapist, and Hay House bestselling author. Her near-death experience transformed a childhood marked by extreme trauma into a life devoted to healing. Susan had a childhood that most people can't imagine surviving. But she’s transformed unimaginable pain into a life of powerful healing. Now a grief and addiction therapist who works with spirits from the other side, Susan shares how she learned to survive by becoming her unstable mother's "ally," how codependency became her survival strategy, and why she believes therapists need lived experience to truly help people heal.

How do you heal from a childhood that tried to destroy you, and then use that pain to help others?

True healing comes from walking through the fire, not just studying it from afar.

(02:43) A Near-Death Experience That Changed Everything

Susan's story of being locked in a freezer at age 5
Growing up with sexual abuse and trafficking
How childhood trauma shaped her entire life journey and awakened her abilities
The beginning of her connection to the spirit world

(05:51) Growing Up with a Mother with Mental Illness

Susan's mother: borderline personality disorder, seeing spirits, and extreme inconsistency
Learning how to stay safe
The confusing duality: loving and giving one moment, frightening and abusive the next
Why Susan became her mother's "ally" while her siblings didn't understand how
Understanding codependency as a survival strategy for children of mentally ill parents

(14:18) Addiction, Alcoholism & A Household of Dysfunction

Growing up in a home with addiction, alcoholism, and abuse
Her brother’s schizophrenia
The unpredictability of never knowing which version of your parent you'd get
How dysfunction becomes normal when it's all you know

(27:33) Her Brother's Suicide & Choosing to Become a Therapist

Why that loss pushed her toward becoming a grief and addiction therapist
The importance of therapists having lived experience with trauma and loss
How walking through darkness prepares you to help others find light

(38:13) Why Your Therapist Needs to Have Walked Through Fire Too

Why Susan doesn't want to see a therapist who hasn't experienced real trauma