My path into health coaching grew from years of exploring how trauma and chronic stress affect the way people learn, lead, connect, and move through the world. Through my work in educational leadership and trauma-informed care, I began to recognize that the same patterns I saw in schools and organizations were also showing up in our bodies. Through IIN’s Health Coach Training Program, I found a way to expand that work through a whole-person approach to wellness, bringing together nutrition, relationships, purpose, movement, stress, and daily choices.
Today, as the founder of the Wellness Journey Portal and co-founder of TrUTH Consulting, I help people better understand what their stress and behaviors may be communicating and create healthier, more sustainable ways of living.
Through the Wellness Journey Portal, I focus especially on helping women in midlife move from self-criticism toward greater self-understanding, using trauma-informed coaching, integrative nutrition, nervous system education, and practical behavior change. My work is rooted in a belief that continues to shape the way I approach wellness: we don’t need another perfect plan. We need to listen to our bodies, understand what we need, and build wellness around the lives we’re actually living.
YOUR WORK TODAY BRINGS TOGETHER TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE, EDUCATION, LEADERSHIP, AND HOLISTIC WELLNESS. LOOKING BACK, WHAT FIRST INSPIRED YOU TO PURSUE THIS PATH?
A: My path really began in education. Over the years, I became deeply interested in what happens when we stop asking, “What’s wrong with this person?” and begin asking, “What happened, and what might this behavior be communicating?”
That curiosity eventually became part of my doctoral work in educational leadership, with a focus on trauma-informed schools. I began studying how trauma and chronic stress affect the brains and bodies of children and how those effects show up in classrooms, relationships, leadership, and learning.
But over time, I realized something important: the need for healing doesn’t disappear when we become adults. Educators, leaders, parents, caregivers—we bring our nervous systems with us everywhere we go. That realization expanded my calling from trauma-informed education into integrative wellness.
BEFORE BECOMING A HEALTH COACH, YOU HAD ALREADY SPENT YEARS SUPPORTING EDUCATORS, LEADERS, AND COMMUNITIES. WHAT EXPERIENCES LED YOU TO REALIZE THERE WAS ANOTHER LAYER OF HEALING YOU WANTED TO EXPLORE?
A: For years, I supported schools, educators, leaders, nonprofits, and communities in understanding trauma-informed and healing-centered practices. I could see how systems and environments affect people, but I became increasingly curious about what was happening inside the individual.
People can understand trauma intellectually and still live with bodies that are bracing, pushing, overfunctioning, or exhausted.
I wanted to understand wellness more holistically, not simply through the lens of behavior or professional performance, but through nutrition, stress, relationships, lifestyle, the nervous system, and the whole person.
HOW DID THOSE EXPERIENCES ULTIMATELY LEAD YOU TO DISCOVER HEALTH COACHING AND IIN?
A: Health coaching felt like a natural bridge between what I already understood about trauma, neuroscience, education, and behavior and what I wanted to understand about whole-person wellness.
IIN gave me an opportunity to widen the lens. Instead of treating wellness as one isolated area of life, I could explore how food, relationships, purpose, movement, stress, environment, and daily choices interact.
For me, it wasn’t about abandoning what I already knew. It was about adding another instrument to the ensemble.
WHAT STOOD OUT TO YOU MOST ABOUT IIN’S APPROACH TO HEALTH AND WELLNESS?
A: What stood out was the understanding that wellness is deeply individual and multidimensional.
We can’t reduce a person to what they eat, how much they exercise, or a number on a scale. People live inside relationships, families, communities, workplaces, histories, identities, and nervous systems.
That resonates strongly with my trauma-informed background because context matters. When we understand context, we can move away from judgment and toward curiosity.
WAS THERE A PARTICULAR LESSON, CONCEPT, OR EXPERIENCE FROM THE PROGRAM THAT CONTINUES TO INFLUENCE YOUR WORK TODAY?
A: One idea that strongly aligns with my work is looking at wellness beyond food alone and considering everything that nourishes or depletes our lives.
That complements my trauma-informed lens beautifully. I’m interested not only in “What are you eating?” but also “What is consuming you?”
What relationships nourish you? What environments drain you? Where do you experience belonging, purpose, rest, creativity, movement, and joy?
Those questions allow wellness to become much richer than a checklist.
HOW HAS INTEGRATING HEALTH COACHING INTO YOUR EXISTING WORK CHANGED THE WAY YOU SUPPORT INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS?
A: It has helped me connect the systemic and the personal.
My educational leadership background taught me to examine environments, structures, relationships, and systems. Trauma-informed practice taught me to understand behavior through the lens of experience and nervous-system adaptation. Health coaching adds another dimension by asking how people can participate actively in their own wellness.
So now I’m not simply asking, “How can this organization become trauma-informed?” I’m also asking, “How are the people inside this organization actually doing?”
Because organizations don’t have nervous systems. People do.
THROUGH THE WELLNESS JOURNEY PORTAL, YOU HELP PEOPLE BETTER UNDERSTAND STRESS AND RECONNECT WITH THEMSELVES. WHAT TRANSFORMATION DO YOU HOPE EVERY CLIENT EXPERIENCES?
A: I want people to move from judgment to curiosity.
Many of us have learned to interpret exhaustion, procrastination, irritability, disconnection, or overwhelm as personal failures. I want people to become curious about what their bodies and behaviors may be communicating.
Ultimately, I want someone using the Wellness Journey Portal to develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves and a greater sense of agency.
The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is being able to recognize: This is what is happening in me. This is what I need. And I have choices about what happens next.
YOU OFTEN SAY THAT “BEHAVIOR IS COMMUNICATION.” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, AND WHY IS IT SUCH AN IMPORTANT SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE?
A: Behavior gives us information.
When someone shuts down, becomes irritable, avoids something, overworks, disconnects, or has difficulty concentrating, we tend to focus on correcting the behavior. A trauma-informed approach invites us to become curious about what might be underneath it.
What is the nervous system communicating? What need isn’t being met? What experience might this person be responding to?
That doesn’t mean every behavior is acceptable or that accountability disappears. It means we can hold accountability and curiosity at the same time.
That shift can fundamentally change how we parent, lead, teach, coach, and talk to ourselves.
MANY PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE THEY’RE LIVING IN SURVIVAL MODE UNTIL THEY’RE OVERWHELMED. WHAT ARE SOME EARLY SIGNS THAT SOMEONE MAY NEED TO SLOW DOWN AND CARE FOR THEIR NERVOUS SYSTEM?
A: Sometimes the signs are surprisingly ordinary: difficulty concentrating, feeling constantly rushed, becoming more reactive, having trouble resting even when there is time to rest, feeling disconnected from things you normally enjoy, or constantly telling yourself, “I just need to get through this week.”
Another sign can be overfunctioning and overriding your bodily needs.
Survival mode doesn’t always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like being incredibly productive while your body is quietly saying, “I cannot sustain this.”
That is why learning to notice our patterns before we reach exhaustion is so important.
ONE OF YOUR GUIDING QUESTIONS IS, “WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT IS NEEDED, AND WHAT IS POSSIBLE NOW?” WHY HAS THAT FRAMEWORK BECOME SUCH AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR COACHING PHILOSOPHY?
A: Because each question serves a different purpose.
“What happened?” gives us context without blame.
“What is needed?” brings us into the present and helps us identify needs rather than simply reacting to symptoms.
And “What is possible now?” brings us back to agency.
We cannot rewrite everything that happened to us, but we can develop a different relationship with what happened. For me, that final question is where hope lives. It asks us to honor our history without requiring our history to determine our future.
CAN YOU SHARE A CLIENT STORY OR EXPERIENCE THAT REMINDED YOU WHY THIS WORK MATTERS?
A: One experience that really reminded me why this work matters came during a Wellness Mapping session with a client who was struggling to maintain healthy routines.
She came in thinking the problem was consistency. She had tried movement, grounding practices, and other healthy habits, but she often found herself trying to restart them when she was already exhausted. She described it as trying to get the car moving when it was already out of gas.
As we mapped the different areas of her wellness, we began to see that the issue wasn’t simply, “Why can’t I maintain these habits?” Her life required an enormous amount of giving. She was often the person others relied on, both professionally and personally, and there was very little space where she wasn’t responsible for someone or something.
At one point, she recognized a deeper pattern: “I move with intentionality for everyone else except for myself.”
That was the moment that stayed with me.
Instead of treating her difficulty maintaining wellness routines as a personal failure, we became curious about what her life and her body were communicating. We looked at where she was depleted, where she was supported, and what needed more care. Interestingly, one of the things that surprised her most was realizing how much she needed stronger boundaries. She had been absorbing other people’s urgency and carrying responsibilities that were leaving very little capacity for herself.
So our conversation shifted from, “How do I become better at maintaining healthy habits?” to “How do I build care for myself into my life in a way that doesn’t disappear when life gets hard?”
From there, wellness became less about adding another list of things she “should” be doing and more about creating rhythms that could actually live inside her real life. She identified boundaries, movement, and intentionally creating joy as places to begin.
That experience reminded me why I believe so deeply in trauma-informed, whole-person wellness. Sometimes people don’t need another strategy for becoming more disciplined. They need a compassionate space to understand the pattern beneath the pattern.
When we replace “What’s wrong with me?” with “What might be making this difficult right now, and what do I need?” we create room for something different.
That’s where wellness can become empowering rather than another standard we feel we’re failing to meet.
FOR SOMEONE FEELING STRESSED, DISCONNECTED, OR OVERWHELMED, WHAT’S ONE SIMPLE PRACTICE THEY CAN BEGIN TODAY?
A: Start with noticing before fixing.
Take a moment and ask yourself three questions: What am I noticing in my body right now? What might I need? What is one small thing I can do next?
Not ten things. One.
Maybe that’s stepping outside, drinking water, stretching, putting the phone down, taking a few slow breaths, eating something nourishing, or asking someone for help.
We often think wellness requires a complete life overhaul. Sometimes healing begins with becoming present enough to notice what we need.
WHAT’S ONE MISCONCEPTION YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE UNDERSTOOD ABOUT TRAUMA AND HEALING?
A: That trauma is simply about what happened.
Trauma-informed work invites us to understand that people can respond very differently to difficult experiences. We also need to pay attention to what happened afterward: Was there safety? Support? Connection? Were you believed? Did you have resources? Did you have choices?
And healing doesn’t mean erasing the past.
To me, healing means increasing our capacity to be present, connected, and able to make choices rather than automatically being governed by old survival patterns.
WHAT HAS THIS WORK TAUGHT YOU ABOUT RESILIENCE AND WHAT IT TRULY MEANS TO HEAL?
A: It has taught me that resilience isn’t simply endurance.
We often celebrate people for pushing through difficult circumstances, particularly women and people carrying significant family, community, or professional responsibilities. But surviving something and healing from it aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Sometimes resilience is persistence. Sometimes resilience is rest. Sometimes it is setting a boundary, asking for help, grieving, changing direction, or deciding that something no longer deserves access to you.
Healing has taught me that strength can be much softer than we imagine.
LOOKING BACK, HOW DID IIN SUPPORT YOUR GROWTH—NOT ONLY AS A COACH, BUT AS A PERSON?
A: IIN encouraged me to look at wellness through a broader lens and consider my own relationship with health and well-being alongside the work I wanted to do with others.
That’s important to me because I don’t believe coaching is about standing outside someone’s life and telling them what to do.
It’s about curiosity, partnership, reflection, and helping people recognize their own capacity for change.
In many ways, the experience expanded the vocabulary I have for something I’ve been exploring throughout my career: What helps human beings thrive?
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE WHO FEELS CALLED TO HEALTH COACHING BUT ISN’T SURE THEY’RE “READY” YET?
A: I would ask them to get curious about what “ready” means.
Sometimes we’re waiting for readiness to feel like certainty. But many meaningful transitions begin before certainty arrives.
You don’t have to know exactly what your coaching practice will look like five years from now. You can begin by learning, experimenting, listening, and paying attention to what keeps calling you.
My own journey didn’t happen in a straight line. Education, leadership, trauma-informed practice, neuroscience, health coaching, entrepreneurship—they may look like separate chapters, but they’re part of the same story.
Sometimes the path makes more sense when you look backward.
LOOKING BACK ON YOUR JOURNEY, WHAT VERSION OF YOURSELF ARE YOU MOST GRATEFUL FOR BECOMING?
A: I’m grateful for the woman who has learned that evolution doesn’t require abandoning who she was.
I’m an educator. A leader. A coach. A parent. A caregiver. An entrepreneur. A woman in my mid-50s who is still imagining and creating what’s next.
There was probably a time when I would have thought I needed to choose one identity.
Now I understand that all of those experiences have been preparing me for this chapter.
I’m most grateful that I’ve become someone willing to trust that becoming isn’t reserved for the young. We are allowed to reinvent ourselves throughout our lives.
WHAT DOES WELLNESS MEAN TO YOU TODAY THAT YOU MAY NOT HAVE UNDERSTOOD EARLIER IN YOUR LIFE?
A: Wellness used to feel like something you achieved by doing all the “right” things.
Today, I understand it much more as a relationship.
It’s my relationship with my body, my nervous system, food, movement, rest, work, purpose, family, boundaries, community, joy, and myself.
Wellness isn’t a destination where everything is finally balanced. Life changes. Our needs change. Our bodies change.
So for me, wellness is the ongoing practice of listening and responding with intention.
WHAT’S ONE DAILY RITUAL THAT HELPS YOU STAY GROUNDED?
A: Getting outside and being in nature grounds me. There’s something about stepping away from screens and responsibilities and allowing my senses to reconnect with the natural world that helps me come back to myself.
IF YOU COULD BE ANY FRUIT OR VEGETABLE, WHICH WOULD YOU BE—AND WHY?
A: I’d be a pomegranate. From the outside, you might think you know what you’re getting, and then you open it and discover all these different jewels inside.
That’s how I think about my life. Education, trauma-informed work, wellness, motherhood, entrepreneurship, travel, drumming—there are a lot of seeds in there! And somehow they’re all part of the same fruit.