True II Soul; Keda Edwards Pierre

Keda Edwards Pierre founded True II Soul, a sanctuary dedicated to the healing and advocacy of BPOC & Indigenous women and gender-diverse survivors. She is a passionate advocate for transformative healing and support for survivors of sexual trauma. As a survivor of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), intimate partner violence, and racial trauma, Keda uses her personal experiences of being othered and retraumatized by systems claiming to help. Keda was inspired to create discreet, trustworthy, and inclusive spaces for recovery. True II Soul challenges stigmas around sexual trauma and fosters authenticity, creativity, and community. After a 27-year career with the Toronto Police Service, Keda now focuses on revolutionizing perceptions of survivors and eradicating gender-based violence. She identifies as a renaissance woman, living her mission of personal and professional lifelong healing and development.[bio]

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• Website: TrueIISoul.com

Most Influential Person

• My Mom

Effect On Emotions

• I recognize emotions as Messengers. The entire spectrum of emotions always serves us. One of our challenges, I feel, is that we hold on to them, and of course, they become dense, sit in our tissues, and create illness of one sort or another.
• So, mindfulness has allowed me to understand the role of emotions and that they're all quite sacred.
   

Thoughts On Breathing

• Breathwork is an incredible tool, and if that's all one has, it does incredible things for our bodies—not only emotionally but physiologically. If you hold the right nostril down and just breathe in and release through the mouth, the parasympathetic system is responsive to that.
   
• It can help calm, bring things down, and lower anxiety. So whether we're outside or we're in a room, if we're able to use our breathing, it does wonders for us, from mindfulness, for the presence of mind and body

Bullying Story

• I was a school liaison officer in Scarborough and worked with my partner. We had a ball. We handled all the elementary schools in 42 division, which was over 70 schools that we split between each other.
• We worked as a team in the high schools and elementary schools, and we were dedicated to creating human-to-human relationships.
  The kids would see us and call us by our first names and recognize that the stigma doesn't define the institution.

Suggested Resources

• Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
• Book: Bodhi In The Brain: Yinnergy Meditation: A Technological Path to Enlightenment by Morgan O. Smith
• App: Awake

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