At every moment in her life, a woman faces a powerful decision: Will she continue to be who she’s been taught to be, or will she become who she’s destined to be?
Hi, I’m Alicia. I’d like to invite you to get to know me, get a glimpse of the path I’ve walked and where it’s led me…
Perhaps you’ll see reflections of yourself because you share a similar story.
Or maybe your life’s path has been very different from my own, but you resonate with the powerful rites of passage I’ve experienced and you’re going through your own transition at this time or know it’s coming soon.
Very soon.
But who am I really?
I’m the product of my life’s story – and more accurately, I am what I’ve chosen to make of my life’s journey.
My life has been fashioned from what some might consider random swipes and strokes of paint… paint that has helped create the courageous, fiercely loving woman I am today, and a life that has become a masterpiece of art that is ever evolving and ever expanding with vitality, beauty and power.
It’s been a long road to get to where I am today. I feel as if I’ve lived 4 different lifetimes in this one life.
I’ve faced darkness and desolation, and I’ve endured unspeakable trauma and heartache… time and time again. Yet I’ve come out the other side desiring to celebrate life more than ever before. Does any of this sound familiar to your own story?
I’ve learned these dark seasons of life aren’t to be avoided or resisted. Instead, they can become the very things that shape and fortify us, if we will allow them to. It’s how one responds to and digests these less than ideal life experiences that matters most.
I’ve become a woman who dares to shamelessly LIVE, who is willing to open up to life and feel it all. A woman who honors herself and her journey for all that it is.
I now know how to listen to and trust my inner wisdom, to cultivate and deepen my compassion, and to let myself shine brightly, no matter the circumstance, no matter the storm.
Today I treasure my journey and honor the depths of my experiences. And I lead and guide other women to find their way to do the same.
When a woman can learn to honor herself and an experience for what it was, it’s truly liberating. It frees her up to be present in the NOW, and to recognize and receive the gifts that are always present. Life isn’t meant to be about burying the pain of your past or trying to forget your story, nor is it about letting it dictate who you are and what you can be.
It’s about how much you can give yourself permission to be who you really are, beyond the scars and pain, and beyond the judgment and shame.
On my journey, I’ve dealt with sickness and pain, triumphed amidst intense betrayal, violation and abuse, overcome disordered eating and addictions, endured a traumatic birth… and death… and the intense health challenges thereafter. I’ve traveled through a painful divorce, rebuilt my life in the aftermath, and set a new course for my life as a solopreneur and single mother.
I’ve faced and felt it all because deep down inside some part of me has always known that I was meant to really live.
I continue to do the work of un-becoming what I was taught I should be, should do, should like, should want, should ask for, should settle for…
And I’ve learned to follow my desires and trust my power. Maybe you want to do the same.
It’s my intention that the sharing of my story offers you proof that it’s possible to trust yourself enough to choose the life you know you were born to live… no matter what’s been lived up until now… no matter how absurd or far away or impossible it seems.
I want you to see that I’m up to something… different.
And when it’s time for you to choose something different for yourself, I am here to walk beside and support you.
Ultimately, I am here to offer you my guidance, wisdom and love.
My Story
I grew up in the lush Willamette valley of Oregon spending time between 2 cities – Salem and Portland. I spent more hours than I can count in a car traveling between the two locations, but developed a love for both the rural and the urban life. Even today I love exploring wild places and cities to equal degrees. And I LOVE green growing things. Nearly every room in my home has a houseplant, or two.
My love of travel began at a young age with adventures that took me out of my comfort zone to many places around the globe. I learned to love the new experiences that travel encourages, and the gifts that come with immersing oneself in fresh landscapes and new cultures. The kind of travel I’ve done has included backpacking and living outside for months at a time, to unusual, high-end, and even private experiences, all of which have taught me the sacredness of travel… and the beauty of life itself.
At the age of 17 I left my west coast home for college, 3,000+ miles away. At that tender age I was still learning what life was about, and how to find my way in the world. Being a woman from a family where only my grandfather had graduated from college, I stepped into this next life stage believing a college degree would guarantee my future success. Afterall, I loved to learn, and it was what was expected of me. I found fields of study that excited me, and I excelled in all I did during those first two years of college. And then, life had other plans for me. I endured a series of brutal betrayals that led to a deep personal breakdown. My sense of security and self were completely shattered. So I made the decision to take an indefinite leave of absence, return home, and find a way to heal.
During my leave of absence I tried to cope with what had happened using the very limited coping mechanisms I had. I struggled with agoraphobia and deep crippling depression. I numbed myself out with TV and disordered eating. I needed something unusual, radical even, to help pull me out of the depths. I chose to enroll in a 4-month outdoor leadership program in Kenya. I’d had a lifelong dream of traveling to Africa, and this was my opportunity. I hiked, climbed, and navigated beautiful and treacherous landscapes. I had many humbling, some even terrifying, wildlife encounters. I learned to make peace with an ill-fitting 60+lb backpack and lived outside in a tent throughout Kenya’s wild places. My trust in myself and my body was tested again and again, and finally fortified during that time. I experienced many moments of elation and defeat and became acquainted with both my power and powerlessness in the world. Even more significantly, I started to find my voice as a visionary thought leader and got a taste of what it’s like to be simultaneously liberated and misunderstood by being true to myself.
After my outdoor adventures it took some time to reacclimate to living in a city in the US. I took a job at a local kite store and learned to juggle, yo-yo, hula-hoop, and yes, fly kites. I later returned to my studies and almost two years later completed my degrees in Psychology, Women’s Studies and Art History. I taught classes at a local university, volunteered my time at a local shelter for women, led domestic violence support groups, and began to feel human again. I was living a multi-faceted, meaningful life, and learning so much about myself and my capacity. And yet, there was still a disconnect between my true self, and the version of me I presented to the world.
As I entered into the next phase of my life, I realized quickly I wasn’t going to feel fulfilled by pursuing a traditional career in the field of psychology. My life had started to become stagnant and stale. It was time for a change… but what? Where? I had to figure something out. So, I sublet my apartment to a friend, gathered my savings, and embarked on a solo road-trip through the west coast and southwest areas of the US. I camped, hiked, biked and drove a little over 10,000 miles by myself. I listened to myself during those quiet, starlit nights. I had long conversations with people I met, I rocked out to music while I drove those long miles, and after nearly 3-months of traveling I found where my heart wanted to go next. Within 9 months of my return and just before my 26th birthday, I moved myself to Colorado to study massage therapy and energy healing. The next chapter of my life was about to begin.
Massage school was an experience like no other. I learned things about myself, and the human body in general, that I would never have learned otherwise. I started connecting to myself and my body in new, and healthier ways. I experimented with different cleanses and detoxes, and even different ways of eating to learn how to best nourish, support and fuel my body – something I’d never known and really struggled with until then. I began what became 13 years of study with a mentor and Chi Kung master and started my first business as a massage and energy therapist. I learned how to connect with people in powerful and transformative ways, honed my intuitive skills, and learned a lot about business. I took my own personal journey of healing in a new direction that was needed.
I’d confronted and faced a lot of my own personal struggles in previous years, but I’d also relied upon a lot of coping mechanisms that were now starting to hold me back. At the age of 30, I made the decision to stop drinking and start loving my body. I was finally ready to feel and learn from the pain I hadn’t addressed and take even greater personal responsibility for my life and happiness. I addressed my long-standing self-sabotaging behaviors and started yet another fresh, new chapter in my life. I walked away from many relationships and social circles that had become toxic, I stopped numbing myself out, and I went in search of a new way of living that would take me where I knew I was being called to go. Up. It was time to honor myself at an entirely new level, and I was ready.
In the process of cleaning up my lifestyle and body, I dove deep into my yoga practice and simultaneously discovered raw foods. I immediately fell in love with how I felt on such a clean and colorful diet. I loved it so much that after 6-years of eating a high-raw diet, I became a certified gourmet raw food chef and instructor at the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute. My love of all things health and body led me to pursue a new career as a health coach alongside my private massage and bodywork practice. I became a student at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. I also studied with the groundbreaking Dr. Gabriel Cousens and staff at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona; Dr. T. Colin Campbell; The Raw Food Coach – Karen Knowler; and Matthew Kenney and the staff at M.A.K.E., to name a few. I felt passionate, vibrant, and on purpose.
As the focus of my professional life started to shift, I started my first web-based business. “Radiant Possibilities” featured raw food classes, health coaching, and led to many radical client transformations. I knew I’d discovered a greater part of my purpose, and yet it was also clear that this was just the tip of the iceberg of what I could offer and share with the world. It was too soon for me to see the bigger picture, and it was time for me to take a deeper look at myself. I started to ask questions: What was driving me? What was holding me back? What did I really want? And what were the things that were really important to me? Being a big believer in the transformational power of coaching, I started working with a life coach of my own and dove deep to answer these big questions for myself.
For 2 years I did a lot of deep soul-searching, uprooting the places inside of myself where I wasn’t giving myself permission to live my life. I’d lived in fear and paralysis for my entire life – what would others think of me? Was I being too much? Am I selfish? Is it really okay to do these things I want to do? To be the kind of woman I really want to be? To stretch myself, I traveled to Paris for my 40th birthday. I ate, I laughed, I went into those stores that are meant for other women living bigger lives (Givenchy, Chanel, Dior… to name a few). I drank in the poetry and beauty of that city and stepped into a big turning point for myself. I shed my attachment to the judgments, opinions and jealousy of others, and I shifted something inside of myself to really give myself permission to shamelessly live the life I truly desired.
After 7 years of marriage and at the seasoned age of 40, I fulfilled one of my secret desires: I became pregnant. I loved being pregnant and my second trimester was truly magical. But after a 3-week bout with pneumonia in my 8th month of pregnancy, my little body was worn out and depleted. At 38 weeks I was hospitalized for severe pre-eclampsia which rapidly deteriorated into something far more life threatening. I’ll never forget what it felt like to be so certain and willful that everything was going to be okay, but to simultaneously have my body march ever closer to death and be completely helpless to do anything about it. After 4 days of medical procedure after medical procedure, and an additional 65 lbs of water weight gained in those mere 4 days – my body’s valiant and wise attempt to save both of our lives – my son was born via emergency cesarean, and life has never been the same.
For 4 decades my life had been mostly dictated by my ambitious, over-achieving self who loved the rush of pushing through life’s challenges and proving she could do and be and have whatever she set her mind to. But after the birth of my son, I was left severely traumatized, depleted, exhausted, and ill – all while donning the role of mother for the first time. For the first 18 months I ran on adrenaline and relied on my many years of body and health wisdom to get me through those countless sleepless days and nights. I waited for my body to heal and for life to start looking and feeling somewhat normal again, but coming back from death itself takes a lot longer and requires so much more of a person than anyone might think.
Nothing prepares a woman for what motherhood asks of her. Being a very exhausted and ill mother only made the experience more demanding for me, at a time when I didn’t have anything more to give. I was brought to my knees so many times in those first three years of motherhood – both because of the challenge it was for me to physically get through each day, and because I had to completely let go of all of my ideas of what I thought this part of my life was going to look like. I also made the difficult and painful decision to separate from my husband and dissolve our 10+ year marriage. I had to listen to my own truth in the face of other people’s judgments and criticism. And I had to confront all of my “shoulds” – I should do this; this should look like that – to navigate this deeply difficult time in my life. I chose to surrender who I’d been and what I’d been living to become who I knew I was meant to be.
It felt like so many things had come to completion, fallen away, died even, and all that was left was emptiness – a spaciousness I’d forgotten even existed. I grieved, I slept as much as I could, I felt everything… and I stood up to that voice inside of myself that kept telling me I was nothing if I didn’t keep pushing, going, proving. Instead I gave myself time – as much time as I needed – to heal, and ultimately to come home to myself. For the first time in my life I wasn’t concerned with doing things quickly, perfectly, in a specific time frame, or according to someone else’s agenda or expectations. Instead I made myself my top priority, knowing that my son and everyone I loved would only ever benefit from a healthy, happy me. I set stronger, healthier boundaries. I leaned into courage. And I set about recreating my life on my terms, and in alignment with my heart’s desires and truth.
Even though in many ways it felt like my life had come to a screeching halt, I grew in ways I never could have imagined possible. As my body continued to heal and my vitality began to return, I recognized I’d been given an incredible opportunity to live my life in a new way, from a new place inside of myself – a place that deeply respected and honored who I am. After everything I’d been through, I learned that I could handle anything that life put before me. I also realized that I didn’t have to endure anything in my life, anymore. Instead I could choose to live a life that felt amazing, expansive, inspiring and beautiful. I re-launched my business under my own name, designed it in a way that truly suited me, and stepped into my calling as a visionary coach and leader. I found a way to bring all of myself, my wisdom, my gifts, my joys, and my magic to the amazing women I’m so fortunate to work with – all while being the kind of mother I want to be, and living the kind of life I want to live.
Chronic illness, divorce, single motherhood, a pandemic, extended physical isolation… all of these were an invitation to pause, to step out of the false sense of urgency we live in as a culture, and to come into right relationship with the relentless truth that lived inside of my heart. I emerged from the ashes of my former life, and former self, with a ferocity that both surprised and delighted me. I stopped pretending not to know what I knew. I shed the social constraints that had kept me complacent, afraid to speak up, afraid to take imperfect action, afraid to be disliked, vilified and targeted as an uppity, free-thinking, free-living woman. I embraced the revolution I, and my life, had become, and began taking a stand for those whose voices have long gone unheard, who do not have the privileges I do, and who need me to take action.
And so, my journey continues…
As you can see, my life hasn’t been a straight line. It’s been a tangle of threads, a canvas of smeared paint. Out of it all something truly beautiful has been created. I’ve stepped off the treadmill of what has been expected of me and charted my own fantastic, soul-led path. I’ve created a liberating revolution in my own life.
The only compass I’ve had to see me through has been my inner voice of wisdom, and my firm belief that my life, and all women’s lives matter. I know I’m here to fulfill my potential, shamelessly celebrate life, always be growing, and to be a fierce voice and presence for the change I want to see in the world.
I believe this is why you are here, too.
The bodies we are given, and the life force that is in them – they are finite. We only have as long as we have. While we are here, we have a choice:
We can continue to allow the opinions and agendas of the world around us to dictate our lives… Or we can finally give ourselves permission to let go of who we’ve been taught to be so we can become all that we’re destined to be.
All details aside, I don’t think my story is that unusual. I believe life is a journey of awakening to the truth of who we really are and choosing to fulfill the potential of what we discover. Sometimes that journey contains amazing, awe-inspiring experiences, and sometimes there are chapters that are more difficult to grow through.
I don’t believe life is about perfection, or arriving someplace, or even about attaining some sort of ideal. I believe it’s about the journey, and all of the inspiration, wisdom and beauty we get to collect, share and contribute along the way.
As you can see, my life is still unfolding. Each and every day I make choices, all day long, to either celebrate my life by living it to the fullest… or not. I know what it feels like when I get complacent, succumb to fear and play small. I know that’s not the life I’m meant to live.
In your heart of hearts, you know it’s not the life you’re meant to live either.
One day, when you look back on your story as I’ve done here, what will it say about you? Will it say you played it safe? Never stepped out of your comfort zone? Didn’t say or do that thing you wish you’d done? Always wondered what could have been?
Or will it say yeah, there were times when things got hard. Sometimes things got uncomfortable and messy. There were some tough discoveries along the way. And… I lived my life on my own terms. I made my choices and I stand by them. I felt and saw and tasted so many amazing things and learned so much along the way. I’m who I am today because of what I’ve lived, and I wouldn’t change that for the world!
Denying who you are is really the only misstep you can make in your life. Only you can choose to honor and celebrate you.
Don’t wait any longer. Your life is now. Choose to really live the amazing life that you’re meant to live today.
Your life will be as amazing as you allow it to be.
What will your definition of amazing be?
