Wanna guess the biggest problem I see in the women I get to support?

It’s looking outside of themselves for the answers rather than trusting they have the answers inside 👀

The problem lies not in your ability to know what you want but in the ways you keep yourself busy, distracted, and unable to listen deeply.

For many years I ran away and hid from the truth inside me that knew what I wanted and knew what I was meant to do.

I kept myself busy chasing the next achievement, whether that was the next triathlon or work award.

I kept my schedule so full I never had time to actually slow down enough to really know how I was doing.

I was more closely acquainted with my doubt, criticism and fear than I was with my deep empowered truth.

I did all of these things because I was terrified of admitting that I actually *did* know what I wanted.

Because then I would actually be responsible for making it happen or being disappointed with my life 🔥

Coaching helped me figure out what I really w...

We all have an image in our head of the “right” life, the successful life, the life that means we’ve made it. Depending on how we were raised and the values instilled in us that might look like having THE job, THE house, THE family or some variation of this.

Many sacrifice our souls, values, integrity, and autonomy to achieve this so-called “right” life. But there are many more insidious and harder to pinpoint ways in which we sacrifice ourselves for what is “right.”

This might look like

…Staying late to help out a coworker who never returns the favor
…Going along with our partner’s routines, food preferences, etc while denying our own
…Letting guilt and obligation keep you trapped in unhealthy family dynamics
…Dating people because of what they look like on paper instead of how they make you feel
…Denying your passion for baking or art or helping others because that’s not a sensible job
…Letting your boss, family, coworker treat you poorly because you don’t want to “rock the boat”

Star...

Consistency means a very different thing to me now than it did for the first 30+ years of my life. I used to think consistency meant doing the same thing at the same time everyday forever (how boring!)

If I could search back through old journals, planners, post it notes and documents I know I would find literally hundreds of perfectly planned out regiments for every aspect of my life from study schedules, to workout routines, work routines, to morning meditation and self care rituals to social calendars.

There's one thing all of these plans have in common – I absolutely never followed a single one of them. And I took that to mean I am someone who can't be trusted. I am someone who is incapable of following through.

When actually I set myself up for "failure" by having astronomically high expectations for myself that I couldn't possibly live up to and honestly – thank god I didn't cause it would have been harmful to me to actually do so.

Consistency is something I'm now able to call...

I was born and raised in stress. Growing up I rarely (never?) had an unscheduled afternoon. There was no such thing as sleeping in and reading for pleasure. So "How do I learn to relax" is a question I return to again and again and will likely continue to for the rest of my life.

Given my upbringing, of course I had a hard time relaxing as I got older and was notoriously a menace on school breaks. I would wake my friends up early and demand we go surfing or do something cause I never learned how to "do nothing" and didn't know how to just be. I *did* know how to procrastinate because getting stuck in avoidance was one way I was able to let myself *not* do anything, even if it wasn't all that restful.

A client of mine is on the precipice of leaving her day job after building her business for several years and is feeling rightly unsure about how she'll manage to relax, even with her new spacious schedule. 

She had a realization that even though she's in her late thirties she's never h...

One of my clients just had her first week back at work after having a baby and she's on our weekly coaching call gushing about how amazing her life feels!

This is honestly not how I imagined this call going...

She was worried she'd have imposter syndrome returning to work (totally understandable) but instead she feels more confident than ever, relaxed in her skin, and deliciously self-assured with zero signs of imposter syndrome 🎉

There was one moment in a meeting where she felt a wave of panic but she reached for the breathing tools we'd practiced right there at the table and no one was the wiser as she found her center again.

This is the same woman who admitted her Type A tendencies, insecurity at work, need to prove herself and an immense internal pressure about being an amazing mom and not losing herself in the process in our first few sessions.

So what shifted??

Besides stepping through the immense portal of becoming a mother...

She got really clear about the kind of woman she wanted to ...

I didn't used to understand weeding – like just let the plants grow, right!? Not to mention there are so many beneficial medicinal plants maligned as "just weeds."

Since I've been volunteering at the medicinal herb garden at the community farm, 80% of what we do is weed. If there are plants you'd like to see grow but weeds are taking over the bed, they are using nutrients, resources and physical space your plants need to grow.

When I sat down to write this morning it dawned on me that 80% of my creative and business process is also weeding. Plucking out the mental weeds as close to the root as possible so creativity, possibility and hope has more space to thrive.

This is often what we're doing in coaching too – grasping the doubt, fear and unworthiness by the roots so your dreams and desires don't have to jostle through the fear, wither under the shade of self-doubt and get strangled by unworthiness.

Every weed is different, so too is every person. 

Some weeds just need a firm gra...

I decided to restart The Artist's Way this week. If you're not familiar, it's a self-guided process to nurture your creativity and self worth. It was recommended to me by a mentor who told me I was a deeply creative person when I was at a turning point in my career and life as my father was dying.

I protested that I never felt like a creative person and that was not something that was encouraged or valued in my family. I was the young girl holding it all together who was so scared to make any mistakes and take any risks that in art class when we were meant to create I meticulously traced existing art on the light table and colored it in instead of daring to make my own.

So was I creative? No.

Smart, Thoughtful and Diligent? Yes.

Talented in other ways? Yes.

Creative? No, not me.

When I was first told that I was a deeply creative person I was still working at Google. Spending my days in minutiae designing online learning programs for advertisers. It was a fine job but I was certai...

 I led the opening call for Sacred Self Care this week and I know I was on one cause I got hot and flushed 🥵 which is always what happens when I'm speaking with passion, power and truth about something that needs to be said.

We started with the biggest lie we've all been taught: that human nature is violence, warfare and power struggle, despite the extensive archaeological evidence that refutes this assumption.

Evidence of peaceful, art loving, women and nature worshipping peoples who lived for THOUSANDS of years in peace, no military fortifications, no extensive weaponry, no evidence of warfare found in modern Turkey, Greece and Southern Europe (and more).

The assumptions we have about human nature are wrong and tainted by the system we've been living under for thousands of years: patriarchy.

Goddess figurines were interpreted an male pornographic images 🙄 instead of sacred objects symbolizing the life-giving and sustaining powers of the world in female form.

aka for thousands of...

I am a full-bodied YES! to my life and no, it has not always been this way...

I was sitting on the couch in our living room last night with our gorgeous tree glowing with lights, a fireplace video complete with crackling soundtrack on the TV and my altar of candles and flowers on the hearth, Maggie snoring soundly on the rug while I'm snugged on the couch reading my Ayurveda book

Lucien is unboxing his new VR toy which is making intermittent strange beeps, lights vibrations and whirring noises during the set-up process

And all I can feel is the huge expansion in my chest that almost feels like my heart is being pulled apart and breaking but like in a mostly pleasant way

This is what my body's full-bodied YES feels like ❤️❤️❤️

Past Alyssa would have been *so* annoyed by this deep sacred precious peace being so rudely interrupted as it has often been this football season

Past Alyssa would have retreated to the bedroom, put in her noise cancelling headphones and been a bit icy all n...

We all struggle with decision making from time to time or all the time

From the little decisions like what we want for dinner to those BIG ones like where we want to live, what we want to dedicate our life to and who we want to spend our life with!

And here’s a lil secret: the way we handle those little decisions says a lot about how we’ll handle the big ones!

I’m in the middle of making a big decision and want to let you in behind the scenes to show you what it’s like

If this were an easy decision that wouldn’t be a very useful teaching tool so rest assured this isn’t an easy one!

I’m deciding on the coaching support I want to invest in for myself next year

I want to be strategic about the investment I make and make sure what I choose isn’t coming from a place of just wanting something cause it sounds cool but will actually serve me

So let me break down my process for evaluating my options, which is pretty extensive

I wouldn’t go to this length if this weren’t a decision that ...