Serenity Cafe Academy
Combine Serenity Cafe Academy with Our Coaching & Counseling Services ~ High Impact Tools for Your Serenity Creations Toolbox!
Welcome to Serenity Cafe Academy!
Thawing the Iceberg Online Courses
These videos are meant to be studied. Remember the need for intensity and repetition. They provide the foundation for healing. Get Free Access: Sign up below…
Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues mimics the developmental processes of childhood. Follow that same developmental pathway to heal each stage and resolve the past.
Thawing Your Inner Family of Self is designed for those who want to heal Issues such as abandonment, shame, addiction, Complex-PTSD, and codependency,
Thawing Addiction is at the “Tip of the Iceberg” because it is a complete guide to the many critical issues that must be addressed during early recovery.
Thawing the Iceberg Series eBooks & Downloads
- Kindle [.mobi],
- Nook [EPUB],
- and PDF Versions.
THAW – Freedom from Frozen Feelings, is about the emotional wounds of abandonment, shame, and contempt created by growing up in a less-than-nurturing family.
- Kindle [.mobi],
- Nook [EPUB],
- and PDF Versions.
Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues mimics the developmental processes of childhood. Follow that same developmental pathway to heal each stage and resolve the past.
- Kindle [.mobi],
- Nook [EPUB],
- and PDF Versions.
Thawing Your Inner Family of Self is designed for those who want to heal Issues such as abandonment, shame, addiction, Complex-PTSD, and codependency,
- Kindle [.mobi],
- Nook [EPUB],
- and PDF Versions.
Thawing Addiction is at the “Tip of the Iceberg” because it is a complete guide to the many critical issues that must be addressed during early recovery.
Serenity Cafe Academy Videos & Therapy Cards
These videos and therapy cards are designed for personal and professional use (Not meant to replace professional help, but to supplement it). The videos provide the education for a therapy construct that helps to identify the survival skills and create coping skills instead. Download the Video and Therapy Cards. Use them for personal growth and healing, or use them in sessions with your own clients. Print the card on 5×7 deluxe paper to give to your client. (Not for resale)
The Iceberg model is a unified model of addiction, codependency, and childhood abandonment issues I have developed over the past almost four decades of my career. Children who do get their dependency needs met fully, on a regular basis, will thrive, flourish, and grow at a healthy pace. The Iceberg explores how not getting these needs met causes the “original” wound of abandonment, infection of toxic shame, scab of contempt, and the development of a false self.
The phrase “Getting Triggered” is almost a household word these days. What does it mean? Essentially, being “triggered” means I become reactive. I am proactive when I choose my behaviors, and I am reactive when my behaviors choose me! When I act in a way that I do not like, it is a part-of-self that reacts to a cue internally or externally. Only one part-of-self can “drive the bus of my life” at a time. All the other parts are on board, but not driving.
As seen in the video, humans are subjective beings. Due to limitations in our ability to process all the available sensory data (see, hear, feel data), we all have our own map of reality. We see the world according to what’s important to us. We see things through our unique mental filters. We develop our Mental Filters from our experiences in the early stages of life… “I am not good enough, smart enough, tall enough” or “I can never have what I want”
In the previous lesson on Mental Filters, we learned how what we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste must be taken into the mind, organized in a meaningful way, and then re-presented to us in a way we can understand. What we know as our imagination is that mechanism of re-presentation. I think of limiting mental filters and negative core beliefs as “Rational-Lies” because they look true, sound true, and feel true – but they are lies!
The Drama Triangle, by Steve Karpman, forms the mindset of those who play relationship and/or psychological mind games. David Emerald’s Empowerment Dynamic is the positive opposite of the model. These patterns are neither true nor false, they are each a MINDSET that gives us a way to see ourselves, others, and the world in general. When we adopt one of these mindsets we act out the roles.
Eric Berne, founder of TA, defines an Ego State as “a consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behavior”… This includes everything a person experienced in childhood along with the mental filters and core beliefs generated by those memories. The three primary Ego-States of TA are the Parent Ego-State, The Adult Ego-State, and the Child Ego-State.
This session explains what happens in the brain and central nervous system when we get triggered into emotional wounds, what should happen, and Don’s Group Home Analogy regarding goals for recovery. We refer back to several videos and models that we presented earlier in this collection. You can find all of these models and videos above… Or if you’re a current client you’ll find them in your client portal as well.
Many of you know from working with me that I am an integrative psychotherapist. In other words, I integrate complementary models of therapy in many different ways in order to fit the unique needs of each client I work with. In this video, In this session, I want to talk about blending what I know about psychology with what I know about spirituality and how this pertains the Step Three of a Twelve-Step Recovery program.

Oasis @ Serenity Cafe
We are excited to announce that 2022 is the 10-year anniversary of the Publication of the first four books in the Thawing the Iceberg Series! To Celebrate we are making more resources than ever available for no charge. We hope you enjoy and find helpful the free courses here in the Oasis @ Serenity Cafe. As always, contact us if you have questions, feedback, or suggestions.
Free: Guided Imagery & Self Hypnosis at the Oasis @ Serenity Cafe. Our ever-expanding Media library for personal growth.
Free Courses: Working with Ego-States in the Oasis @ Serenity Cafe includes Understanding Ego-States, Integrative Journaling and More.
Free: Brainwave Entrainment in the Oasis @ Serenity Cafe includes Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta Brainwave Entrainment Programs
Free: Meditation Music at the Oasis @ Serenity Cafe – an extensive and growing Audio/Video library for personal growth.
Check Out Our Counseling & Coaching Services!
Don & Angie will work with you to create your own personal keys for success! Everyone is different, so we start with a thorough assessment and then pull from every resource at our disposal to create a precision-targeted coaching program, whether that be tools from Serenity Cafe Academy or our years of experience. Contact Us to arrange a free consultation.
Growing up in a less-than-nurturing family hurts and leaves emotional wounds ~ and wounded people, wound people! Just as whole families get wounded, whole families can and do recover. That’s why we are preparing to begin enrollment into small groups online here at the Academy. Contact Us to arrange a free consultation.
Angie and Don have had the benefit of learning from some of the best helpers over the years. We are the culmination of all they have given us and we want to pass it on. Serenity Cafe Academy is one way we do that. Don also helps prepare Masters level Social Workers for licensure here in Missouri. We want these tools to be available long after we are gone so we offer consultation and training to counselors and coaches who want to grow and learn. Contact Us to arrange a free consultation.
What Our Members and Clients Have to Say
Join Our Recovering Community Today!
Get in touch with us for a free consultation by clicking the button below ~ or simply drop us an email by clicking the link at the top of any page. We made these resources for our clients, website visitors, and anyone else who might benefit. We highly recommend that you work with a professional on many of the courses unless you have experience with therapy and recovery. The courses here are not intended to replace professional help, but to compliment it. If you are a therapist or life coach who would like to use these resources with your clients, contact us and we will work it out.