I didn’t plan to change someone’s life that day.
Actually, I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything at all.
It was a retreat. Not a working one. Just a quiet gathering of women, fellow coaches, soul-driven entrepreneurs. (I had an online stationery business and did some business coaching.) We were there to breathe. No clients. No breakthroughs. Just some space to be.
Until the kitchen table changed that.
We were supposed to be relaxing, but someone had shared a new brainstorming tool, and a few of us got curious. We cracked open laptops, sipped coffee, and slipped back into our default mode: creating. One of the women sitting beside me, Lisa, had been fidgeting. Smiling on the outside, but her energy… it was coiled tight. Familiar.
She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.
I could feel the static of her pain. The way it vibrated just under the skin. The resistance. The grief. The rage. The deep, ancient ache of someone who had lived too many years pretending she was fine.
I gently put my hand on her arm.
And that’s when it happened.
What unfolded in the next hour wasn’t planned, practiced, or professional. There was no process. No fancy method. Just presence. Her story wasn’t new: childhood trauma, abandonment, years of therapy, diagnoses, a nervous breakdown. She had done everything “right.” She had spent $75,000 trying to get better. But still… she carried the weight.
Not visibly. Not in a way most people would spot. But I did.
Because I know what it’s like to live with that weight.
Something cracked open between us. And not in some shiny Instagram ‘healing journey’ kind of way. This was raw. Wordless. Her pain hit me like a freight train, and without thinking, I let it move through me. She cried in ways she hadn’t in decades. We touched places in her soul that therapy hadn’t reached. Not because I tried. But because I knew.
Not from books.
Not from certifications.
But from lived experience. From being a woman who’s carried invisible shit for too long.
From being a mother who’s screamed into pillows at 3 am because the baby wouldn’t stop crying, and the rage felt unbearable.
From being the partner of a combat veteran with PTSD who once told me he felt weak for having it, because “other Marines didn’t.”
From being the kid who didn’t have a horror story on paper, no cult, no dungeon, no homeless shelter, but still felt broken for reasons she couldn’t explain.
I’ve lived most of my life in the in-between.
Not the worst-case scenario. Not the best.
Just… the middle.
The girl who wasn’t abused by her parents, but also wasn’t really seen. The one who wasn’t rich or poor. Smart but not standout. Quirky, masked, and often misread. I didn’t fit the boxes. I just floated through them.
So when people tell me they feel like something’s off, like they’ve done all the inner work and still can’t shake the sadness or the self-hate…
I believe them.
Because I’ve lived it too.
And that’s what happened that day in Boston.
It wasn’t “healing.” It was humaning. Two people at a table, stripping away the story, the shame, the shoulds. No ego. No fixing. Just truth. Lisa later said I “blazed down the walls” she didn’t even know were still there. She said I finally helped her feel what all the other work couldn’t.
That’s when I realized something:
This is my work.
Not the business plans. Not the polished messaging.
The real stuff. The messy, soul-level, gut-punch truth stuff.
This wasn’t the first time someone had said something like that to me. I’ve had strangers cry in front of me. I’ve “accidentally” helped people connect with their dead loved ones (which I tried really hard to avoid, by the way). My whole life, I’ve known things I wasn’t supposed to know. Felt things I wasn’t taught to feel.
But this time?
Something clicked.
This wasn’t just a moment.
It was a mirror.
It showed me the truth about who I am and why I’m here.
So no, I’m not your average coach.
I’m not a healer with a capital H.
I’m not here to sell you five steps to your best life.
I’m here to sit beside you at the fucking table and hold your pain like it’s sacred.
Because it is.
I’ve built a nonprofit for this.
I’ve created communities for this.
I’ve walked through fire, marriage, motherhood, grief, trauma, and burnout so that I could meet people here.
In the messy middle.
Not with answers. But with honesty.
So if you’ve done the work and you’re still stuck…
If you feel too broken to be fixed, but too aware to pretend anymore…
If you’re exhausted from being the one who holds it all together…
I see you.
Because I am you.
And you’re not too much.
You’re just full of truth that’s ready to be heard.
Let’s sit at the table.
I’m here.