Tammy Cunningham
Healer. Teacher.
“Brain development is important, but the biggest piece of intelligence is your heart.” -His Holiness, 14th Dalai Lama
Hello, I’m Tammy Cunningham. I tell you my story—not for your pity or compassion—but for you to take from it what you need. We can all learn from one another. The differences between all of us don’t lie in our circumstances. It depends on how we move from them.
A Cereal Kiss.
My journey to you began with a cereal kiss. I was running around on a frantic morning many years ago. But before I left, I stopped to steal a kiss—with crumbs of cereal and a mouthful of milk—from my two-year-old son Tony.
Two hours later, I got the phone call. He was at a gas station with his daddy. Tony slipped out of the car to follow his dad across the short path inside, only to be swiftly pinned beneath a car. After eight days in a coma and brain surgery, I was faced with a horrific choice. As a 22-year-old mother, I made the heart-wrenching decision to take my two-year-old Tony off life support.
Shortly thereafter, Tony’s father and I divorced. I lived in constant pain from the obvious mental and emotional duress from Tony’s accident, as well as years of extreme lower back pain—the physical manifestation. Parties, cocaine, shopping, and alcohol helped me to forget all of the pain in the moment. I was suicidal.
Life renewed.
Five years later, I met my husband Noel. If not for myself, I was ready to try life again for him. I went through many healing modalities. Along the way, I tried neuro-emotional technique (NET). I felt the warmth in my lower back. I learned how spirituality and mental and emotional wellness intertwine with physical health. My back was cured. I poured myself into learning tools to live a full life.
I learned how we so easily turn our emotions inside our bodies. We often neglect our feelings and the quiet voice inside. I learned that we take the risk of causing energy blocks and disease within the body when we bury our emotions. We also risk never knowing who we are. To find our hearts’ desires, we must go deep inside our bodies to answer, “What do you love, feel, and want in life?” It was then that I learned how to tap inside the body and open the heart.
In 1999, I opened a Reiki practice and worked alongside my clients to pass along emotional awareness, energy work, and healing tools to empower others. I finally found my place of peace and fulfillment.
Last kiss.
And then another kiss. Amongst ruffled sheets, Noel puckered his lips to me from bed before I left for work. It was an ordinary day. But when I came home that snowy evening, I couldn’t find him in the house even though his car was parked in the driveway. I called out his name several times but heard nothing in return. When I found him, I realized why he hadn’t replied. My husband of 25 years had taken his own life. I called 911 and they told me to try to resuscitate him. That was the final kiss.
Despite overwhelming grief, confusion, and loneliness, I had to keep going. I needed to run the restaurant and nonprofit organization my husband and I owned together, as well as my own business—with the last image of Noel burned into my mind. But not without mourning. I wept for hours, days—months in total. Yet, I rested my weary soul and weathered heart upon the tools I learned to live after that cereal morning kiss as a mother years prior.
I continue to live from my heart—with the tools I’ve learned and the spirit I draw from. Along with my practice, I also work in donor relations at the Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners, a call center for suicide and crisis intervention. This allows me to support others, as well as my own healing, and to honor my late husband Noel.
Despite the tragedies in my life, I am happy. I’ve learned how to live my best life and share those tools with others. For nearly 20 years, I’ve passed along these gifts to my clients. Healing and spirit are not for me to keep for myself. The reason I am here is to teach you tools to quiet your mind and nourish your heart and soul so that you may live fully and feel well.
It would be my honor to do help you do so.
Credentials:
- Living Your Vision, certified for coach training through The Academy
- Professional Certified Coach (PCC), International Coach Federation
- Certified Professional Coach (CPC), Academy for Coach Training
- Certified HBDI Brain Profile provider (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument)
- Reiki Master
- Heartmath Practitioner and Resilient Advantage Trainer
- Shamanic Practitioner
- Psych K Advanced Practitioner
