Braver Collective, 10 Town Plaza #138, Durango, CO (2026)

05/14/2026

Have you ever been working and realize you’ve just been blankly staring at your screen for an unknown amount of time?

For survivors, the workplace isn’t just a place to “get things done,” it is a sensory minefield. Between open floor plans and the constant pressure to be "on," our bodies can quietly decide we aren’t safe, triggering a state of Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn.

When your nervous system is occupied scanning for danger, productivity and focus doesn’t just feel hard; it feels impossible.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐳𝐲.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 “𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐣𝐨𝐛.”

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞.

Whether you’re stepping into your first internship or you’ve been navigating office dynamics for years, masking a trauma response can be exhausting. It takes a specific set of tools to move from just “getting through the day” to actually feeling settled and safe in your space.

In the latest insight article by Karina Davila, she shares 5 practical tips for navigating the workplace as a survivor.

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: https://bravercollective.org/resources/5-tips-for-navigating-your-workplace-as-a-survivor

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: Karina Davila is a designer, researcher, artist, and writer whose life and work are shaped by her experience as a survivor of child sexual abuse. She channels that truth into advocacy, education, and healing—believing deeply in the power of design and storytelling to shift culture, spark conversation, and create the conditions for genuine connection and safety.

05/14/2026

Have you ever been working and realize you’ve just been blankly staring at your screen for an unknown amount of time?

For survivors, the workplace isn’t just a place to “get things done,” it is a sensory minefield. Between open floor plans and the constant pressure to be “on,” our bodies can quietly decide we aren’t safe, triggering a state of Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn.

If you’ve experienced this:

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐳𝐲.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 “𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐣𝐨𝐛.”

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞.

Whether it’s your first week on the job or your tenth year in Corporate America, you deserve to feel safe in your workplace.

In the latest insight article by Karina Davila, she shares 5 practical tips for navigating the workplace as a survivor.

𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐢𝐨. 🔗

05/12/2026

Your story is not a collaborative project. It belongs to YOU.

As survivors, we know that trauma can continue in the "after." It lives in the moments when our truth is bartered, whispered away, or rewritten by people who weren’t even there. It is a theft of reality, when those closest to us decide what happened to us before we’ve even had the chance to process it ourselves.

Today, we hold space for Isabel’s "My Never Ending Nightmare.” We honor the strength it takes to rebuild a reality that others tried to tear down. By witnessing Isabel’s story, we begin to reclaim the right to our own narratives.

Healing requires us to stop accepting the stories told about us so we can finally make room for the stories told by us. This is how we take our power back.

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐈𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥’𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲, "𝐌𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐞," 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: https://bravercollective.org/stories/my-never-ending-nightmare

Isabel Morgan currently serves as an Officer in the United States Air Force, continuing to develop her creative practice alongside her career. Her work is informed by themes of duty, identity, and perspective, bringing a thoughtful and distinctive voice to contemporary writing.

05/07/2026

Decades of “it wasn’t that bad.” Decades of “it was my fault.” Decades of “we were dating, so it wasn't really r**e.”

We bargain with the truth to simply survive.

When r**e happens within a relationship, the trauma is wrapped in a layer of profound confusion and doubt. We rewrite the story just to stay afloat because the truth is too heavy: the person who was supposed to be our safe space is the one who hurt us.

The anatomy of doubt is complex. It is reinforced by a culture that tells us “no” doesn’t count if you’ve already said “yes” a thousand times before.

Healing means realizing that “love” is never a substitute for consent. It means deconstructing the lie that intimacy gives someone else ownership over your own body.

It means realizing it was r**e. It wasn’t our fault. And it was that bad.

🔗 Click to read “Decades of Doubt” by Stephanie Beth Brescia: https://bravercollective.org/stories/decades-of-doubt

Stephanie (she/her) is a writer from the Midwest who focuses on poetry and creative nonfiction. After staying silent for thirty-two years, she started writing to finally put words to the feelings she couldn't explain. She writes to help herself heal, but also to let other survivors know they aren't alone. She knows how helpful it is to hear someone else say exactly what you’ve been thinking, and she hopes her words provide that same comfort to others.

05/06/2026

As survivors, we often use competence as armor. We try to be dependent on no one but ourselves, building lives that look solid from the outside. We think being “strong” and “fine” will help us outrun our past, but being “strong” isn't a personality trait, it’s survival.

In, “My Body Remembers,” Cynthia Hansford writes about the moment her armor begins to thin, forcing a raw, face-to-face encounter with the coping mechanisms that once kept her safe.

“No one warned me about the moment when the past stops behaving like the past. It returns quietly, not as memory, but as something alive beneath my ribs... I worked harder than most people around me. Not from ambition, but because competence felt like armor. If I stayed useful, no one could discard me. I became the person who handled everything and needed nothing. I climbed out. I built something that looked solid. Or I thought I did.”

Cynthia’s story doesn't offer a neat resolution. It captures the specific way we carry our past, the types of coping mechanisms we use, and how extremely heavy work it is to dismantle those defenses. It is an honest look at what happens when "doing everything right" isn't enough to keep you safe.

There’s no resolution yet. No bright side. Just the weight of it, unfinished, heavy, and real.

Read Cynthia’s latest story here: https://bravercollective.org/stories/my-body-remembers

04/28/2026

We are the architects of our own becoming. We are the ones who turn the wreckage into work and the trauma into a hard-won healing. Today, we hold space for Angela Ramos’s “practicing the art of opening” and the labor of our transformation. We see the grit in our survival and the magic in our refusal to stay shattered.

Let us witness. Let us make room for the weight of our own stories and the stories of those standing beside us. We practice the art of opening just as Angela Ramos has done—just as survivors have done for generations, willingly or not, alchemizing pain into rebirth.

We have become "something new" so many times that we often forget the sheer strength required to do it. But survival is not meant to be a solitary act; it demands to be seen. Our pain deserves to be witnessed up close, in the light, without apology.

Are you ready to receive? Are you ready to witness Angela Ramos’s “practicing the art of opening”?

“This
is a feat of magic. I can turn my rage into
a college degree, into work, into hope; this is a feat of
strength. it is the way I say f**k you.
F**k you. F**K YOU.
the way I defy architecture
in the art of opening.”

🔗 𝐓𝐚𝐩 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐚’𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: https://bravercollective.org/stories/practicing-the-art-of-opening

About the Author: Angela Ramos (she/her/hers) (.ramos.1088) penned her first story, “Wally the Worm,” at age four and has been smitten with words ever since. She is also enamored with her two children, the woods, animals of all kinds, and the exquisite mess we each contain. Angela's work has appeared in a handful of publications including, amongst others, Main Street Rag, Sheila-Na-Gig, Atlas and Alice, Sinking City, and Paper Darts.

04/26/2026

Healing is possible, but let’s be honest: it’s really messy.

There are moments when the past feels louder than the present, and it can feel nearly impossible to bring ourselves back to our bodies and a sense of safety. In those moments, we have to give ourselves deep compassion. Even when healing feels out of reach, we’re here to remind you: it is possible.

Today, is taking us through how they use their senses to stay grounded in the present moment. We’re leaning into the sensory experience of some incredible tea from August Uncommon, who so kindly donated to our SAAM giveaway! ☕️✨

Our SAAM giveaway ends tonight at 11:59 PM PST. Be sure to enter before the day is over!

04/23/2026

It is a heavy reality when our own minds try to convince us that being abused was our fault.

When we start to believe that lie, we shrink. We fold ourselves in. We try to become invisible because we were taught that our pain was an inconvenience or a burden to be managed.

In her poem "Trust," Holly Morgan (she/her) captures a core part of our experience. She writes about the ways we made ourselves the villains before anyone else had to be.

𝐖𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭. 𝐖𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐞.

For many of us, survival looked like hyper-vigilance. It meant looking for everything, all the time, all at once. We studied reactions because we couldn't rely on safety.

But here is the truth we are reclaiming together:

◦ 𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭.

◦ 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞.

◦ 𝐖𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧.

◦ 𝐖𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐮𝐩.

The hardest trust to rebuild isn’t always with the people around us. It is the quiet, shaky work of rebuilding trust within ourselves. It is the process of convincing our bodies that we are finally allowed to exist without apologizing for it and we are safe.

🔗 Tap to read Holly’s full survivor story: https://bravercollective.org/stories/trust
_________________________________________________________________

💜 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲?
👇Whether it’s a single word or a long story, this comment section is yours to use however you need.

04/21/2026

In impossible situations, our bodies and brains do exactly what they are wired to do to keep us safe. While we often hear about “Fight or Flight,” responses like Freeze and Fawn are incredibly common survival mechanisms—especially in the face of sexual trauma. ⁠
⁠
It can be difficult to reconcile these responses, but as Victoria Barclay, M.S. () reminds us in our latest resource: “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.”⁠
⁠
Our bodies were protecting us then, and those same instincts might still be trying to protect us now. Healing isn’t about forcing ourselves to go back to who we were before; it’s about moving forward with deep compassion for the people we are today.⁠
⁠
In “How Our Bodies Protect Us: Unpacking Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn,” Victoria explores how these involuntary responses work and how we can begin to reclaim our sense of safety on our own terms.⁠
⁠
🔗 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: https://bravercollective.org/resources/how-our-bodies-protect-us
⁠
𝑽𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒂 𝑩𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒍𝒂𝒚, 𝑴.𝑺. (𝒔𝒉𝒆/𝒉𝒆𝒓/𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂) is a trauma-informed advocate and case manager at Fort Lewis College’s Counseling Center, where she works alongside students navigating some of their hardest moments. With an M.S. in Applied Clinical Psychology and a background in community mental health and trauma-focused care, she is grateful to do this work every day. She also serves on the Sexual Assault Services Organization in Durango. When she’s not at the Fort, you’ll find her hiking, chasing good light with a camera, or dancing — with her partner Eli and their pets by her side.⁠
⁠

04/17/2026

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐞.⁠⁠

For many of us, that feeling took root before we even had the words for “no,” let alone the understanding that we had a choice. It leaves a trauma so deep that our own bodies become foreign territory, making it exhausting to simply exist within our own memories.⁠⁠

Whether our abuse happened in childhood or adulthood, we are breathing the same heavy air and navigating the same “Uncomfortable Skin.” We carry this weight together, and we no longer have to carry it in silence.⁠⁠

In her poem, “Uncomfortable Skin,” Faith takes us back to that lived discomfort, the grief and the remembrance of the selves we were before we were changed. As survivors, we know we don’t have to scream in isolation. We can witness her truth, and in doing so, hold space for our collective screams and the skin that still remembers.⁠⁠

As Faith puts it: “I hope others can read my piece, and know that others understand.”⁠⁠

🔗 𝐓𝐚𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡’𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲: https://bravercollective.org/stories/uncomfortable-skin

04/15/2026

When the memory of assault feels too heavy to hold, the echoes of the past can feel deafening. If you are in that space today, please know: You are not alone.

In her poem "The Echoes," Sisna reminds us that while our histories remain, they do not always have to be so loud. Healing is rarely linear, but through the highs and lows, we slowly gain the capacity to hear the echo without being consumed by it. Sisna’s words offer a promise to us still in the middle of the noise:

“One day the echoes will lessen, and you will hold no more fear.”

🔗 𝐓𝐚𝐩 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐒𝐢𝐬𝐧𝐚'𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲: https://bravercollective.org/stories/uncomfortable-skin

Braver Collective

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