Hi, I’m Leckey,
Pronounced like “lucky,” except with an E instead of the U. It’s the anglicized version of the Irish clan name. It means “warrior,” or “hero.”
I'm known as the post-trauma growth specialist.
As a firefighter/EMT I fell into the abyss of trauma that led to being unemployable, then unemployed, then homeless. With help I was able to get out of that abyss, and now with the Raise Your Resilience Toolbox Progam, I guide others into getting out of their own abyss and moving on to buiulding lives they love living.
My clients have gone from professed PhDs in couch surfing to being a real university student, from social anxiety to being an entrepreneur with a class based business, and another a better lover, physically and emotionally.
Because of the advent of women preferring to meet a bear in the woods rather than a male, I am developing a new program to help males become men. Men that women would rather meet everywhere. Men that will help take on the #1 health issue on the planet - trauma. Men that are physically, emotionally, cognitively, relationally, and “spiritually” accessible, response-able, and engaged. This is what I’ve accomplished with my own life.
Bullet points, right? It's easy to just post bullet points of things I’ve achieved. The stuff that would make you trust me well enough to invest in the Raise Your Resilience program. What it lacks is any meaningful context. There is no story. No emotion.
In a nutshell, I was born and lived in Milwaukee for 10 years, moved to Chicago for 15 years, then to Minnesota for 22, and then finally to Whidbey Island. That still doesn’t say much does it? My parents were both veterans of WW2, and my Dad had undiagnosed and unacknowledged PTSD from combat, and my mother may have as well. Both were Lieutenants in the Navy, both had survived the Great Depression. I experienced non-malevolent emotional neglect, and the impact that has on a developing infant and later child. Which led to my not having anyone to talk to about being sexually abused before I was 10, and not feeling safe or connected enough to talk about it, even while living in a family. I felt lost and afraid.
Yea, I did all the things that I learned to do, and kept them going for almost six decades. The learning and doing part? I had it down, although this thing about living a lie (the inner hell against the outer appearance of functional) is that the hell finally wins. I had learned all these survival behaviors, and then they’d fail to work, and I’d adapt and make new ones, still and always unable to actually find that “magic” that would make me whole, help me feel loved and accepted for who I was.
No matter where I moved, I was always with me. All that crap was piling up. And on Christmas Day, 2011, I experienced the straw that broke this camel’s back.
I had learned, I had done, I fell into the abyss, and I broke. I broke into a million pieces.
I had to figure out just what the hell happened to me, and how I was going to fix it. And in that fixing, I realized a lot more about the why of the learning and doing I did until Christmas Day. Then I had to learn how to heal it. Going all the way back to my infancy. That set the stage for my Great Unraveling in 2019, when I lost, in succession over two months, my primary relationship, place that I lived, the vehicle I drove, my job, the Krav Maga class I was teaching, the death of a high school friend, and my mother-in-law. Despite the grief that was piling on, I secured a new place to live, a vehicle, and employment. That employment which I was able to quit later, to better serve myself. And then yet a better offer came along, that served me even better, so I moved on. I was capable of handling all this because of the capacity and resilience I had developed while healing.
Oh yea. That bullet pointed list? It’s based on those 58 years of lived experience that has ample reflection, and then application of what I’ve learned over the years, to my own healing. And that bullet pointed list cannot at all come close to describing what it feels like to be a fully functional, connected, pleasure-able man. I have pummeled my former self-limitations, and to this day continue to learn, to do, and to teach.
Now to the bullet points, and mix the two together:
served as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician in Minnesota and Washington State for 16 years, and retired to get out of the hole I fell into - my trauma. The bottom was hard and I didn’t bounce much. Along the way I earned over a dozen certifications from state agencies and FEMA, in such things as confined space rescue, leadership, and emergency management.
Was co-director of Whidbey CareNet, a non-profit set up to assist emergency responders from dispatcher to coroner get out of their own trauma.
Co-founder of TRE Washington, a cleaqring house for TRE providers that was intended to collect data we could use, and centralize the state providers to best serve customers and encourage collaboration rather than competition.
is a certified Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises provider. This required two years of study and clinical work, and the clinical work was 100% supervised, I already knew how trauma felt in my body and psyche, and I got to see in my own healing experience first (required), how to apply tremoring and other techniques to the healing process.
was an American Red Cross volunteer, specializing in Staff Wellness and Staff Training
has a blue belt rank in Advanced Krav Maga, and is a certified instructor in Core and Advanced Level A Warrior Krav Maga and NWSDE Krav Maga (Wingate)
has practiced meditation for 15 years.
has presented at conferences and led workshops.
has decades of experience in manufacturing and construction.
is an avid reader and creatively expresses himself through writing, drumming, and photography