Donna’s Journey: Where Curiosity Became Compassion

In the beginning, Donna thought she was simply teaching.

As an early childhood educator, she spent her days nurturing young children, supporting families, and creating environments where trust and exploration could grow. She loved the work — but something kept tugging at her. A question beneath the questions:

Why do some patterns repeat, even with the most devoted care? Why do certain moments carry more emotional weight than they seem to deserve?

It wasn’t just about children’s behavior. It was about the hidden layers underneath.

What She Began to See

As a parent-infant and parent-toddler facilitator, Donna began to notice moments she didn’t fully understand. Children who froze at soft voices. Parents who flinched from closeness.

And then back in Early childhood leadership teachers who burned out despite their skill and heart.

She saw emotional echoes — patterns playing out in tiny gestures, unspoken fears, or the silence between words.

That noticing became the beginning of her deeper work.

Learning to See Through a New Lens

Seeking answers, Donna trained to facilitate Circle of Security, which gave her language for what she’d sensed: attachment patterns, core needs, and the invisible threads that shape how we love and feel safe. She continued with Self-Reg, learning how stress and nervous system states shape behavior — not just in children, but in adults, too.

These frameworks helped—but they didn’t fully answer the questions that lived in her body. So she kept following the thread.

She trained in InterPlay, a play-based approach to trauma, presence, and relational flow. And there, something clicked:

we can’t think our way out of wounds that live in the body.

Everything Came Together

It was only when Donna integrated these threads—her deep respect for infant development, her embodied understanding of the nervous system, and her insight into attachment—that everything made sense.

That’s when InsideOut was born.

InsideOut: A Mentoring Approach Rooted in Compassion

InsideOut begins with the idea that before we can change how we relate to others, we have to gently meet what’s happening within ourselves.

Donna’s approach begins by exploring your core needs, protective patterns, and relational wounds — not to pathologize, but to understand. From there, she helps parents, educators and anyone that finds her shift from reacting to relating, from control to connection.

InsideOut mentoring invites us to:

Recognize the internal scripts and nervous system patterns that shape our responses

Hold space for grief, frustration, and unmet needs without shame

Rebuild our inner sense of safety, presence, and worthiness

*Relate more authentically — to ourselves, to our children, to one another

This isn’t about fixing behavior. It’s about meeting the truth beneath the behavior. And it’s about understanding how our inner world plays out in the relationships we care most about.

The Heart of the Work

At its core, Donna’s work is about presence. Whether she’s mentoring a teacher, supporting a parent, or facilitating a reflective circle, her invitation is always the same:

Slow down.

Notice what’s happening inside.

Be with it.

And from there—begin again, gently.

Because sometimes what looks like a problem… is really a wound asking to be witnessed.

And sometimes, the most healing thing we can offer is not a solution, but our presence.