In this powerful discussion, Kathleen shares how a piece of information from a trauma training in 2017 brought a new understanding to her own life. She navigated decades as a high-achieving strategist while carrying the weight of childhood trauma and perfectionism. Her experience highlights the profound impact of adverse childhood experiences and the beginning of a personal healing journey.
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Kathleen McKune spent decades as a high-achieving entrepreneur, strategic facilitator, and co-founder before a training slide changed her life. In 2017, at 56 years old, she saw the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale for the first time and realized she was in the 2.5% of the population with a score of 8, 9, or 10. Childhood trauma, resilience, healing, and discovering your authentic self.

Kathleen grew up in a home marked by abuse and neglect. She became what she calls "steeled up": driven, high-functioning, and completely unaware that her upbringing wasn't something everyone shared. That moment in a Kansas City training room cracked open sixty years of assumed normalcy, and set her on a journey to understand the neuroscience of trauma, break a multi-generational cycle, and eventually begin asking who she actually is underneath all the survival.

In this conversation, Kathleen and Matt talk about:

- How perfectionism rooted in fear shaped her entire identity
- What it felt like to finally have language for what happened to her family
- The process of writing a book with her twin sisters and learning their stories in full
- The difference between managing trauma and actually healing
- Finding her authentic self, one piece at a time, starting with dancing

Kathleen McKune is co-founder and CEO of Team Tech and CEO of Remarkably Resilient, a nonprofit focused on trauma-informed resilience education. She co-authored Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters with her twin sisters. Learn more at [remarkably-resilient.com](http://remarkably-resilient.com).

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childhood trauma, adverse childhood experiences, ACE score, trauma-informed, resilience, healing, authentic self, perfectionism, high functioning trauma, generational trauma, what happened to you, neuroscience of trauma, survival mode, Kathleen McKune, remarkably resilient

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