Wounds 2 Wings Psychotherapy Services

Wounds 2 Wings Psychotherapy Services Wounds 2 Wings Trauma Yoga and Psychotherapy Services

Nicole Brown Faulknor, founder of Wounds 2 Wings;
Registered Psychotherapist CRPO ( #007596), CAPT;
Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator (TCTSY-F);
CEO of non-profit organization Wounds 2 Wings Trauma and Embodiment Association of Ontario (TEAO).

We Heal out of Relationships. We Heal Through Relationships. We heal through relationships because trauma itself is rela...
04/09/2026

We Heal out of Relationships. We Heal Through Relationships.

We heal through relationships because trauma itself is relational. Not just what happened—but what wasn’t there when it happened.

Healing changes your relationships because it changes us.

The truth that doesn’t get said enough:
Healing doesn’t just reveal who others are.
It reveals what you can no longer participate in.

All of this in one line:
Healing can cost relationships because you are no longer available for dynamics that required you to abandon yourself.

And just as real—
it also makes space for relationships where you don’t have to perform, prove, or disappear to belong.

We heal through relationships because the nervous system can only learn safety in the presence of another regulated, attuned human, so to speak.

This Belief. Let’s Unlearn This, Collectively. ⬇️We may need to unlearn it because it projects past survival patterns on...
04/08/2026

This Belief. Let’s Unlearn This, Collectively. ⬇️

We may need to unlearn it because it projects past survival patterns onto present relationships, preventing us from experiencing true safety, autonomy, and connection that isn’t shaped by fear.

⬇️

At a larger scale, this same pattern doesn’t disappear—it organizes itself into groups, identities, and systems.

When individuals are conditioned to read others as potential threats to their safety, that hypervigilance scales into collective fear.

Communities begin to interpret difference (race, culture, beliefs) as danger rather than diversity. What was once a personal survival strategy becomes a shared lens: “your emotions, your existence, your difference could harm me.”

⬇️

That is the psychological root of “us vs. them.”
From there:
* Projection turns internal chaos into external blame
* Unprocessed fear becomes control, dominance, or preemptive defense
* Safety gets pursued through power instead of relationship

This is how nervous system dysregulation, when left unexamined, can contribute to prejudice, oppression, and ultimately conflict—even war. Not because people are inherently violent, but because unhealed survival patterns get mistaken for truth.

⬇️

Unlearning this matters collectively because:
When we no longer locate our safety in controlling or anticipating others, we create space for curiosity over fear, connection over defense, and coexistence over control.
In that way, healing isn’t just personal work—it’s conflict prevention at a societal level.





Honoured. Grateful. Rooted in Community.This weekend, I’ve been nominated for two recognitions at the Black Excellence A...
04/08/2026

Honoured. Grateful. Rooted in Community.

This weekend, I’ve been nominated for two recognitions at the Black Excellence Awards 2026 .minds.family.wellness , within the Community Leadership & Service and Health & Wellness categories.

To be seen in this way… is not something I take lightly.

I stand here as a Registered Psychotherapist, Trauma Consultant, Child & Youth Counsellor, and Founder & CEO of TEAO Canada () but more than anything, I stand here as someone who listened when community said: something is missing.

And together… we built it.

Through trauma-responsive, community-rooted care, we are:
• Bridging the gaps systems have not been able to hold
• Creating spaces where safety is felt, not just named
• Expanding access to care for those often left navigating alone
• Reimagining what healing can look like — collectively

From peer-support certification, to youth leadership, to community care circles and the vision of Canada’s first Trauma Health & Embodiment Centre, this nomination belongs to every person who has trusted this work, stepped into these spaces, and chosen healing in community.

To be named alongside leaders who are reclaiming narratives, building brave spaces, and fostering collective healing… is an honour in itself.

This recognition invites me to pause and honour what has been built, what is still unfolding, and what it truly means to choose this path.

Because this is not just recognition.
It is a reminder of what becomes possible when we choose collective care over individual survival.

With deep gratitude,
Nicole 💙🙏🏾!

CollectiveHealing CommunityCare BlackExcellence

My Favourite Self-Tool. 💙🙏🏾! Ty TRY ITReposted from Most people try to calm anxiety by reasoning with it. Telling the...
04/07/2026

My Favourite Self-Tool. 💙🙏🏾! Ty TRY IT

Reposted from

Most people try to calm anxiety by reasoning with it. Telling themselves there’s nothing to worry about, that everything is fine, that they need to just relax. And it doesn’t work because anxiety isn’t a thought. It’s a physical state your nervous system is in.

The way out is giving your body a different physical experience. Touch, tapping, movement. These send direct signals to your nervous system that it’s safe to stand down.

Try this practice next time anxiety hits. Save it so you have it when you need it. ❤️

How do you Stay Regulated? As a parent? As a leader? As a conscious society? Because systems are shaped by the people wi...
04/06/2026

How do you Stay Regulated?

As a parent? As a leader? As a conscious society?

Because systems are shaped by the people within them, and when our nervous systems are dysregulated, we unintentionally recreate the same patterns of urgency, control, and harm we are trying to change. Sustainable, transformative change becomes possible when we move from a place of presence and awareness—where clarity, compassion, and collective care can actually take root. And not our interaction with our past, so to speak. We are a projected space of individuals — food for thought 💭🤔

Thoughts? 💙🙏🏾!





04/05/2026

Sunday Self Reflection: Kindness is Regulation. One of the greatest skills you can build is learning how to be kind even when there are a hundred reasons not to.

Kindness is choice.
Kindness is power that is not reactive.

Kindness is not “letting people in.”
Kindness is deciding who you are while you decide what you allow.

In today’s world, where hypervigilance is often praised and disconnection is normalized, choosing kindness becomes a radical act of nervous system safety. It signals to your body that not every moment requires armor. That you can respond, not just react.

Kindness has been misunderstood in a world shaped by survival.

For many people who have learned to overprotect or defend themselves, kindness doesn’t feel safe—it feels like exposure. It can feel like lowering your guard in a world that once taught you that being open meant being hurt, overlooked, or taken advantage of. So defensiveness becomes wisdom. Distance becomes protection. And kindness gets mislabeled as weakness.

Self inquiry / self reflect on Dr. Howard’s message below 🧐

The hardest part about being a psychiatrist?





Slow Down. The moment you stop forcing life, life stops resisting you.Your nervous system is trying to reduce risk.Wha...
04/04/2026

Slow Down.

The moment you stop forcing life, life stops resisting you.

Your nervous system is trying to reduce risk.

What it’s really doing:
•Trying to prevent pain before it happens
•Trying to avoid uncertainty (which feels unsafe to the body)
•Trying to recreate a sense of control when it was once lost
•Trying to protect you from feeling helpless again

The shift:
The same system that once helped you survive can learn that you are safe without forcing.

Because true safety isn’t built through control—
it’s built through your capacity to stay with yourself, even when things are unknown.

So when you notice yourself forcing…
it’s not a flaw.

It’s your body asking:
“Are we safe enough to slow down now?”

When your body has experienced overwhelm, it learns:

“If I stay ahead, stay in control, keep things moving… I won’t get hurt like that again.”

So forcing can look like:
•rushing decisions
•overthinking or overplanning
•trying to make things “work”
•needing clarity now
•pushing past your own limits

Slow. Down. 💙🙏🏾!

04/03/2026

Joshua’s Poetry.

The invisible pressure they ‘carry’ of learning how to be in response to us (the parent) and not in relationship with themselves. (this part!) 📢

When we raise children from the place of what we missed—rather than from who they actually are—we may be unintentionally place them inside our unresolved story instead of allowing them to live their own.

Over-reminding them (nonverbally even - aka overcompensating or over-parenting - looks like living always in the ‘just in case’s’ or trying to parent perfectly “perfectionism/anxiety) of OUR pain, or “what we didn’t have” or “felt” can create a quiet pressure where their role becomes to fulfill, soothe, or justify our past, rather than explore their own identity freely. This can lead to children feeling watched instead of seen, shaped instead of supported, and responsible for emotional weights that were never theirs to carry.

In this dynamic, their childhood becomes filtered through our lens of protection, fear, or longing, limiting their ability to develop autonomy, resilience, and a genuine sense of self—because they are learning how to be in response to us, not in relationship with themselves.







Thank you for your poetry and gift in words 💙🙏🏾!

The Crux of it All. 💙🙏🏾! Healing does not erase what you’ve lived through—it shifts your relationship to it, so your pas...
04/02/2026

The Crux of it All. 💙🙏🏾!

Healing does not erase what you’ve lived through—it shifts your relationship to it, so your past is no longer the thing that defines how you show up in the present. When your system is depleted, it’s not just your energy that drops—your drive to engage with life softens too. What once felt natural begins to feel heavy, distant, or out of reach. This isn’t failure—it’s a signal. Not for more pressure, but for restoration. Because healing is not about pushing past your limits; it’s about returning to yourself in a way that allows life to feel accessible again.

Dopamine isn’t just pleasure—
it’s your drive to engage with life.

When it’s depleted,
everything feels heavier…
even things you once loved.

Unlearn this:
You don’t need more pressure.
You need restoration.





Self-Permission Nuggets ✅: Healing isn’t about trying to heal or gathering information to fix yourself. It may be all ab...
04/01/2026

Self-Permission Nuggets ✅: Healing isn’t about trying to heal or gathering information to fix yourself. It may be all about returning inward before all the imprinting and internalizations, so to speak. The returning home is not to make everything so serious or make everything numb - the polarities. It’s about returning to the middle of this place. Where the breath lives and the pace in life feels unhurried. This is the reclaiming yourself space of being robbed of your own medicine, power & joy - Nicole Brown Faulknor

________

✔️ Self-Permission Nuggets posts are small, encouraging reposted messages designed to help people in a state of learned helplessness — that is, people who feel stuck, powerless, or unable to act on their own behalf because past experiences have conditioned them to believe they have no control.

These posts offer reminders and gentle affirmations that:

✅ It is safe to make choices for yourself.
✅ You have the right to say yes or no.
✅ Your body and your life belong to you.
✅ Small decisions are valid steps toward reclaiming your agency.

For folks who have lived in environments where choices were taken away — through abuse, oppression, or chronic disempowerment — Self-Permission Nuggets serve as bite-sized permission slips to rebuild trust in their own inner wisdom.

They’re meant to break through the freeze or stuckness of learned helplessness by:

🫶🏾 planting seeds of possibility
🫶🏾 validating even the smallest acts of self-care or self-advocacy
🫶🏾 normalizing the right to choose, act, and decide for oneself

03/31/2026

Listen In. 👂🏾🎧

What is the use in trauma-informed care if we can feel or interact with these three area of care. In other words the embodiment of trauma-informed work is what we call TEAO Canada, trauma-responsive care.

Trauma-informed care gives us the awareness—it helps us understand that trauma exists and shapes how people think, feel, and respond.

But awareness alone isn’t enough.
If we cannot feel, relate, and respond, then the work stays intellectual—not embodied.

Thoughts?

Underrated Truths. Scroll Through ⬆️Which ones your fav underrated truth? 💙🙏🏾!
03/30/2026

Underrated Truths. Scroll Through ⬆️

Which ones your fav underrated truth? 💙🙏🏾!

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9 Samuel Street
Kitchener, ON
N2H2M7

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Monday 7am - 10am
Friday 8am - 1pm
Sunday 7pm - 9pm

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Wounds 2 Wings Psychotherapy Services

About Nicole Brown Faulknor

Nicole is a Yoga Instructor, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and Child and Youth Counsellor as well as a member of both the Colleges of Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario and the Canadian Association for Psychodynamic Therapy with over 18 years of professional experience working with marginalized, vulnerable and oppressed communities, individuals, families and children. She has worked extensively with individuals and communities suffering from mental health, addictions, systemic poverty and profiling in order to therapeutically improve relationships with government programs and services.

In 1998, she graduated from Mohawk College with a Diploma in Child and Youth Counselling, received her Bachelor degree from the University of Waterloo in 2001 in Social Development Studies with two certificates, General Social Work and General Social Work (Child Abuse) and a 5 year Master's equivalency diploma from the Ontario Psychotherapy and Counselling Program in 2018 where she is currently at part-time instructor.

Using a psychodynamic approach that is rooted in the therapeutic relationship built between client and therapist with individuals, adolescents and group, this model of psychodynamic psychotherapy, seeks to reveal the unconscious, dynamic content of the mind, in an effort to alleviate mental tension which can manifest in a variety of symptoms that distort and disrupt our sense of self and well-being. By uncovering the hidden roots of our unwanted thoughts, emotions and behaviours, we can consciously change how they experience the world and ourselves. In addition, Nicole uses a body-centered approach, which may be known as somatization. With this approach it may be possible to recognize the intimate relationship between the physical body and the psychological well-being of a person. This practice maintains the view that the body is a resource for self-discovery and psychological healing. Bodily awareness and movements are used to explore and treat psychological symptoms and issues. This work can be both very subtle, involving only awareness of bodily sensation, or utilize physical movement and manipulation.