Dark Sky Flutterby is more than a blog, it’s a vibe! I created this space to share the faith-based holistic approach to healing I discovered on my own trauma healing & transformation journey. A faith-based approach connects your body, soul, & spirit, to REGULAGE your nervous system, RELEASE stored trauma, and REWIRE your brain while practicing embodied faith, allowing you to heal from trauma & emerge from the dark seasons of life just as a butterfly does from its chrysalis—beautifully transformed!
Darkness, trials, and trauma are parts of life we can’t escape, but YOU are in control of how you navigate them, and more importantly, who you become on the other side of them. Life’s dark skies don’t have to dim your shine. Click the butterfly to learn more about VICTORIOUS, DSF’s Healing & Transformation Journey to becoming healed, whole, & free!
I’m Melanie Hope. It was my own trauma healing & transformation journey that led me to my passion & purpose: helping women heal from trauma by learning how to regulate their nervous system, release stored trauma, and rewire their brains using a faith-based holistic approach that connects and transforms the body, soul, & spirit.
My crooked, sometimes dark path to healing has taken me on a profound journey of understanding the impacts of trauma, where I finally found my voice and the truth that says my real strength lies in sharing my story. I created this space to help you in resourcing and honoring your body, soul, and spirit by offering information to support your healing and transformation journey. I hope you will feel seen and valued here.
A “Dark Sky Flutterby” is a woman who has, like a butterfly, undergone a metamorphosis—a challenging but oh-so-rewarding process of healing from trauma, life’s dark skies, and emerging on the other side beautifully transformed into the whole, healed, & free version of herself that God always meant for her to be.
The Dark Sky Flutterby transformation is a unique, Spirit-led trauma healing journey that collaborates with Jesus, relying on His truth and supernatural healing power combined with your consistent efforts to regulate your nervous system, release stored trauma, and rewire your brain while practicing embodied faith. This faith-based holistic healing approach combines somatic, cognitive, and spiritual practices to address you as a whole: body, soul [mind, will, emotions], and spirit.
The belief that guides my mission to help other women find freedom, shaped by my own healing journey, years of research, and deep personal relationships, is this: unhealed trauma & a dysregulated nervous system often sit at the root of destructive behaviors, persistent negative thought patterns, physical symptoms, and unhealthy relationships.
When trauma goes unprocessed, it doesn’t simply fade with time. Instead, it quietly weaves its way into how you think, feel, and respond to the world, often without your conscious awareness.
The longer trauma is left unhealed, the more it can negatively affect your behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and eventually, your physical health. This is why individuals with higher Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are more likely to struggle with chronic health issues, mental health challenges, substance misuse, and relational difficulties.
Explore the symptoms of unhealed trauma below to see if any feel familiar to you.
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Dissociation
Isolation
Self-Medicating
Heightened Emotions
Neglecting Self Needs
Controlling
Overachieving
Perfectionism
People Pleasing
Codependency
Avoiding
Procrastination
Lashing Out
Self-Doubt
Comparison
Imposter Syndrome
Brain Fog
Catastrophizing
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I am not loveable
I am not good enough
I am not worthy
I am not safe
I am damaged
I do not belong
I cannot trust anyone
It’s not okay to feel my emotions
It’s not okay to show my emotions
I am powerless
I am helpless
I am a burden
If I’m not in control I’ll get hurt
I have to please everyone
Life will never get better
Other people come first
It’s not safe for me to be my true self
If I'm vulnerable I will get hurt again
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Hopelessness
Grief
Shame
Anger
Resentment
Defensiveness
Disconnection
Numbness
Unworthiness
Drowning
Anxiety
Panic
Fear
Confusion
Apathy
Depression
Exhaustion
Doom
When emotional, psychological, or physical safety is disrupted, your nervous system instinctively moves into protection through fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown. This beautiful self-protective response, often called the survival brain, was designed by your intelligent Creator to help keep you safe from harm.
When you’re unable to find internal or external safety following the painful experience, a dysregulated nervous system takes over, keeping you stuck in a state of survival (survival mode), even when the original threat is no longer present.
In survival mode, the very armor that once protected you can begin to interfere with your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and relationships. The brain and body start to interpret anything that feels similar to the original wound as danger, responding out of protection rather than presence.
A central part of trauma healing is gently restoring a sense of safety to the nervous system, allowing it to move out of survival mode and into regulation, where connection, clarity, and growth can take place.
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•Understanding that you have subconsciously programmed thoughts, beliefs, patterns, and behaviors based on past experiences.
•Recognizing that trauma is often passed down through generations.
•Can identify your triggers and have a toolbox of practices to help your nervous system regulate.
•Regulating emotions and expressing them more freely.
•Understanding that difficult emotions are an integral part of growth.
•Recognizing that your early relationships with your caregivers influence your present relationships.
•Integrating your inner child into adulthood, so that they can now be seen, heard, and loved.
•Safety with yourself, others, and in the world.
•Living in the present moment, instead of the past.
•Setting healthy boundaries.
•Feeling safe to be authentically seen and heard.
•Relationships become a place for safety and connection, not a space to recreate trauma.
•No longer abandoning yourself to gain approval or belonging.
•Responding to stress, instead of reacting.
•Unburdening yourself from traumatic memories and parts that are stuck in the past.
•Striving for moments of creativity, curiosity, play, and soulful rest.
When the body becomes accustomed to living in a survival state, those responses can begin to feel like personality traits rather than signals of unhealed trauma. The protective strategies you relied on during painful or overwhelming experiences can become so familiar that they start to feel like who you are, instead of what you learned to do to stay safe.
In the language of science, these body-based memories are often referred to as procedural patterns—sometimes called protective patterns. These are your nervous system’s subconscious responses and habits that formed to protect you, even if they now keep you feeling stuck in behaviors or beliefs that no longer serve you.
These patterns are not your authentic self or your true nature. They are simply signs of a nervous system doing its best to survive. But here’s the beautiful truth: God has wired you for healing, not to become someone different, but to gently return to who you were created to be.
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•Staying busy & distracted when difficult moments arise.
•Picking fights when you feel distant from your partner.
•Procrastinating on new & exciting projects.
•Playing the comparison game to self-motivate.
•Choosing emotionally unavailable individuals.
•Lashing out at your children when they don't listen.
•Over-explaining or over-apologizing in work settings.
•Avoiding or neglecting your bills, even when the money is there.
And many more ...
Embodied faith is an integration of the body, soul [mind, will, emotions], and spirit on a journey of freedom that comes in relationship with a God who loves, comforts, and heals. It is the belief that God created your body to connect with Him, wiring you to experience healing and transformation.
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•Connecting with God through Visualizations: Feeling attached to God and embracing the hidden parts of yourself
•Grounding Yourself in God’s Word: Standing on God’s truth & promises no matter life’s circumstances; walking by faith not by sight and grounding yourself to the present by declaring and meditating on His Word
•Clarifying Your Purpose: Integrating your divine destiny & purpose to feel more whole
•Considering the Body of Christ: Taking seriously the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus' body to express God's love and salvation
•Making Healthy Choices: Nourishing your body, soul, and spirit with wholesome choices, and engaging different parts of your body to affirm God's design
You were never meant to live your life in survival mode. You have been fearfully and wonderfully made, with healing woven into every part of who you are.
Scripture reminds you of this truth when God declares in Jeremiah, “I will restore you to health and heal your wounds {30:17} ... I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. Again, I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt {31:3–4}.”
God’s love for you reaches far beyond human understanding, and His desire is to bring healing to your body and soul from the wounds you have carried. That is what I want for you, and it’s why I believe you can encounter this profound truth through the Dark Sky Flutterby Healing & Transformation Journey.
God has a plan for the butterfly far beyond anything the caterpillar could ever imagine. Dare to believe the same is true for the healed version of you, that there’s a life on the other side of your transformation that will exceed your wildest dreams. Because God has a plan for the woman far beyond anything the little girl could ever imagine.
Click the butterfly to learn more about the Dark Sky Flutterby faith-based holistic healing & transformation journey!
