Sara Davidson has stared down death – three times!
Having battled through no fewer than three major traumatic life events, the 46-year-old Leaside resident is telling her painful story in her book, Any Body Can Heal.
“In the most clichéd way, it really is to help people. I want it to be the legacy I leave on earth,” says Sara, who is a psychotherapist. “This is the meat and potatoes I learned from therapy and through all my journey.”
Davidson writes openly and honestly in detailing her terrifying experiences – fleeing a tsunami in Thailand, which pulled her underwater and left her stranded for days, confronting a knife-wielding thief in South Africa, and later enduring a violent sexual assault by two masked intruders in Trinidad.
“I own my story,” says Sara. “It’s what happened to me. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m not ashamed to share it. I am banking on the hope and fact that true vulnerability (is) the ultimate way to allow people to feel that they are not alone, that they are seen, and to be able to reach them.”
Understanding how our survival mechanisms respond is crucial, Sara explains. She has studied extensively the neuroscience of trauma, which she calls a stern taskmaster. Trauma leaves an imprint that never goes away, she writes.
“We hold these stories of ‘I wish I had done more.’ I wanted people to know that in the moment you didn’t choose it,” she contends. “When these things happen, we go into fight, we go into flight, we go into freeze, and we actually don’t get to choose those things.”
Years of therapy, which she details in the book, resilience and an unwavering support system of family and friends, helped bring Sara to the place where she was ready to tell her story.
As her journey continues, Sara finds happiness and joy in many things in her life. She relishes the opportunity to help others. She loves being a teacher, athlete and coach, including a stint playing semi-pro soccer in Iceland, and she delights in travelling the globe.
Along with the book, her other legacy is her son, nine-year-old Kaden, whom she coaches in hockey.
Wendy Dennis, the ghostwriter who helped Sara craft her story, made it clear she needed to show her vulnerable side.
“It’s horrible,” says Sara. “I’m a very under-the-radar type of person and this is the opposite of that. You are vulnerable, but people see that you’re real and people see that they can do hard things as well. I’m proud of myself for doing this, because this is how it gets out there. And we’re all just really trying to do our best.”
True strength is easily misunderstood, she adds.
“I feel like we walk around thinking and hearing that true strength is coming out of something unscathed,” she says. “When in reality, it is being in our deepest despair and clawing our way out of it to find air again and perhaps even joy and safety again. That to me is true strength, doing the thing you thought was impossible. Being terrified and defeated and doing it anyway.”
She is donating copies of her book to shelters across the city and hopes to expand that initiative further. Visit https://www.saradavidson.ca/anybody-can-heal/ for more information on the book.
