Today we’d like to introduce you to Donna Post.
Hi Donna , so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My story begins at birth. I was born addicted to heroin. My parents were 16 and 17 years old, both struggling with addiction, and my earliest years were filled with neglect.
When I was four years old, I witnessed my mother die from a heroin overdose in a gas station parking lot. It’s the only memory I have of her.
After that, I went to live with my grandmother and grandfather in Brooklyn. My uncle, who also lived with them and helped care for me, died of a heroin overdose when I was six. I remember finding him in his bed after he had passed away.
My grandmother was devastated by the loss of two of her children and began losing her grip on reality. One day, she the woman who was caring for me lost touch with reality and she put her hands on me which was shocking and debating for me and shortly afterward I was removed from the home. The hardest part wasn’t leaving the house, it was leaving my grandfather, who was the only person who ever made me feel loved, safe, and secure.
Eventually, I went to live with an aunt, uncle, and their adopted daughter in upstate New York, where I lived from the age of eight until I was sixteen. During those years, I experienced narcissism, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and deep loneliness.
From those experiences, I learned how to survive. I became the people pleaser, the over-giver, the good girl. I learned to earn love instead of believing I was worthy of it. Deep inside, I carried the beliefs that I was abandoned, unwanted, unlovable, and that I had to work incredibly hard for even the smallest crumbs of love and acceptance.
Those patterns followed me for decades.
It wasn’t until I was in my fifties that I realized I wasn’t simply “broken”, I was carrying trauma. I discovered the concept of the inner child and recognized that the little girl inside me desperately needed love, attention, compassion, and protection. I began the journey of becoming the loving parent she had never had.
That healing journey changed everything.
Today, I help other women release people-pleasing, over-giving, and self-abandonment so they can become their authentic, free selves. I am a yoga teacher, breathwork facilitator, retreat leader, and coach. I’m also writing a book called Brave, Not Broken.
The heart of my work is sharing the story of my inner child, Donna Francine, and what she taught me. I discovered that I wasn’t broken at all. I was incredibly brave.
The coping mechanisms I developed as a child were intelligent, life-saving strategies that helped me survive and belong. They simply stopped serving me as an adult. Healing has been the process of honoring the little girl who did exactly what she needed to do while gently teaching her that she is safe now.
I still do this work every day.
My mission is to be a light for people who feel lonely, disconnected, burdened by trauma, anxiety, depression, or the belief that they’ll never truly be loved.
I want them to know this:
If I can heal, if I can free myself from the past, if I can create a life filled with more peace, authenticity, love, and connection, then so can you
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
One of the greatest struggles along my journey was not realizing how deeply my childhood trauma shaped every part of my life. I didn’t understand that the survival strategies I developed as a little girl were still running my life as an adult.
They influenced my intimate relationships, my friendships, my relationships with coworkers and bosses, and even my relationship with myself.
I could see, eventually, that these patterns were a disservice not only to me but also to the people around me, because I wasn’t showing up authentically. I wasn’t being true to myself. Instead, I spent my life trying to be pleasing, accommodating, easygoing, and whatever I thought someone else needed me to be.
I abandoned myself in order to belong.
I didn’t have healthy boundaries. I didn’t know my standards or values because I had spent my entire life focused on everyone else’s needs instead of my own. I became a chameleon, constantly changing and contorting myself into whoever I believed someone wanted me to be so I could be liked, loved, chosen, and desired.
The heartbreaking part is that it never actually worked.
No matter how much I gave or how much I sacrificed myself, I never truly felt safe. I never felt secure in relationships. I didn’t know how to attract healthy, emotionally available people because healthy relationships were never modeled for me.
For decades, these patterns created tremendous pain, loneliness, disappointment, and suffering.
That is why I do this work today.
I want to help others recognize these patterns sooner than I did. I want people to know they don’t have to spend decades feeling lonely, hurting, abandoning themselves, or believing they have to earn love.
Healing is possible. Authenticity is possible. Healthy relationships are possible.
And the moment we stop betraying ourselves in order to belong is the moment we begin creating a life that truly belongs to us
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Sisterhood Retreats
Yoga
Breathwork Sessions
Sound Healing
Authenticity & Empowernent Coaching
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
When I think about the biggest risks I’ve taken in my life, they weren’t about chasing success—they were about choosing myself.
There were moments when I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I was. One of the biggest was leaving a secure, well-paying corporate job in Manhattan. It had become so toxic and so stressful that one Friday, I walked out and never went back. I chose my well-being over security and trusted that the universe would support me.
That was the beginning of learning to have faith in myself.
I’ve made several bold moves like that in my fifties. At one point, I left everything behind and moved to Florida for a year. It wasn’t because I had a perfect plan—it was because I needed space to heal. I needed to learn how to be with myself, to slow down, to play again, and to discover who I was beyond surviving.
Later, I returned to New York, but I knew my next chapter wasn’t there either. Once again, I listened to my heart, packed up my life, and moved to Austin to begin again.
Each move required me to let go of certainty and trust something deeper than fear.
Today, Austin feels like home. It’s where I’ve continued my healing, built beautiful community, and stepped more fully into the work I’m here to do.
Looking back, I realize that the greatest risks I’ve taken have always been acts of self-love. Every time I chose myself over familiarity, over fear, or over staying stuck, my life expanded in ways I never could have imagined
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedonnaamber?igsh=MTk3andseXFoeGlmbw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CQbKsVSE3/?mibextid=wwXIfr
