About Us
Creating brave spaces for real conversations and lasting change…
Phynix Initiative exists for one person: you, doing the deep work of finding out who you actually are. It wasn’t built by someone who studied this from the outside. It was built by someone who’s lived it, and still does the work herself.
OUR VISION
A world where suicide is no longer an option because no one is left to fight their battles alone, unheard, or unseen.
OUR MISSION
To dismantle the silence and shame around suicidalness by creating spaces where people can be raw, real, and supported in their darkest moments; without judgment, without stigma, and without being told to just “stay positive.”
OUR IMPACT
So that… fewer lives are lost to silence, more people realise they are worth saving, including themselves, and resilience becomes a middle finger to a world that tells them they are too broken to heal.
OUR VALUES
Passionate
We show up with fire, and full commitment to this work.
Humanity
No one here is more healed, more expert, or more in charge than anyone else. We meet each other as equals, not as fixer and fixed.
Yes And…
Your path, your call. We build on what’s true for you, not what we think you should choose.
Nurturing
We work from what’s strong in you, not what’s wrong with you. Growth and hope, not deficit and diagnosis.
Inclusion
Lived experience, not credentials, is what qualifies you to be here. We show up as peers first.
eXchange
What we learn together doesn’t stay in the room. Peer knowledge is public knowledge, aimed at changing the conditions that hurt us in the first place.
PHYNIX shows up twice here: first as the values that shape how we work together, then as the quality this work is built to hand back to you. Same fire, aimed in two directions.
THE PHYNIX EFFECT
Passionate
Living as if on fire from within. The fire that gets you out of bed on the hard mornings. Not for anyone else. For you.
Hope-Full
Once you choose hope, anything is possible. Hope that doesn’t need proof first. The kind you practise before you feel it.
Young At Heart
The beginner’s mind you get back once you stop needing to have it all figured out.
Noetic
A way of knowing that doesn’t come from a textbook or logic. Your own inner wisdom, trusted again.
Indomitable
You have already survived what should have broken you. That doesn’t go away.
Xtraordinary
Not better than everyone else. Just finally, unmistakably, yourself.
OUR TEAM
Phynix Initiative runs on a peer support model, which is a simple thing dressed up in a complicated name. It just means the person supporting you has actually been where you are, not studied it from a textbook. That changes the relationship: you’re not being treated by an expert, you’re being met by someone who’s been there. Equals, not fixer and fixed.
Right now, that someone is me. As Phynix Initiative grows, anyone who joins this work will meet the same standard I hold myself to: real lived experience of distress, overwhelm, or caring for someone living through it. Not a qualification you can study for.
TAMMIE HORTON
Founder and Firesmith
Lived Experience:
- bullying
- self-harming
- domestic abuse and coercive control
- anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts
- carer for sick family member
- sole-income earner
- raised three children
My top 5 strengths are:
- Input: Needs to collect & archive information, ideas, artifacts & relationships.
- Empathy: Senses other people’s feelings by imagining themselves in others lives or situation.
- Relator: Enjoys close relationships. Deep satisfaction in working hard with clients to achieve a goal.
- Harmony: Looks for consensus, areas of agreement.
- Developer: Recognises & cultivates the potential in others.
My top 3 motivators are:
- Searcher: Purposeful, feedback-orientated, quality critical.
- Spirit: Independent, choice-orientated, decisive.
- Expert: Insightful, learning-orientated, knowledgeable.
Credentials for this work:
None of this is what qualifies me to sit with you in this. That’s the lived experience. This is just the training I’ve stacked on top of it.
- Certificate IVs Mental Health, Community Services & Community Development
- Certified Resilience Coach
- Internationally Certified Results Coach
- Accredited Motivational Map practitioner
- Accredited Rhythm 2 Recovery practitioner
- Certified Speakers Institute Coach
- International Best Selling Co-Author
If you’d like me to share my lived experience, and the work I do at Phynix Initiative, with your audience, click the button below.