The Pain We Don’t Heal Becomes the Pain We Pass Down
Helen Brenner speaks to the unspoken pain that shapes how we raise, love, and lead the next generation.
Her message is a wake-up call to those still carrying childhood wounds—especially survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), child abuse, or deep personal loss—who may not realize how their pain is silently influencing the people they care about most.
With raw honesty and compassionate insight, Helen invites audiences to turn inward, to heal what hasn’t yet been healed… not just for their own freedom, but so those who come after can grow without carrying what never belonged to them.
Helen didn’t have one defining moment—she had a childhood full of them.
Sexual abuse. Bullying. Teachers who made her feel stupid. A home and social life where silence and survival were the norm.
She became the girl who didn’t speak up.
The one who carried shame that didn’t belong to her.
The one who grew into a woman still trying to find out if she had any value in this world.
But the most gut-wrenching realization didn’t come from the trauma itself.
It came much later in her life.
At 54, just a few weeks after losing the love of her life, Helen was watching her daughter glow in the joy of young love—exactly the kind of love Helen never got to have. And instead of feeling happy for her, Helen felt like her heart had been ripped out with two shovels.
It hurt. It hurt like no other pain she had ever felt.
It hurt in a way that made her realize:
This is why people don’t change the next generation.
Because if they do…
It means feeling what they never got.
It means facing head-on all they lost or never had.
And that’s just too much for most people to bear.
So they end up numbing everyone around them—just so they don’t have to feel their own pain.
But Helen was determined not to pass that pain down.
She was determined not to get in the way of her children’s happiness.
She was determined to finally become truly healed.
Now, as a speaker, she helps bring awareness to others so they can stop the silent handoff of unhealed trauma.
She shows people how their past—especially the parts they think they’ve already moved on from—can still shape how they parent, lead, love, and live.
Because healing isn’t just about us.
It’s about what we make possible for the ones who come after us.
