No one knew it at the time, of course, but I was born an iNtuitive-Feeler (INFJ)… a very rare bird, in a Sensing-majority world. As a child, the things I thought and did consistently elicited responses like, “You’re making that up!” … or…“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” … or… “Don’t get too big for your britches!” Looking back, I realize that from the age of seven, I have longed for a place to feel accepted and seen for who I am...like a village where each neighbor would patiently hear my story and help me grow into my mental and emotional complexity.

An emotional zombie by fourteen, I was incredibly lonely and depressed. I knew how to project a poised manner, so I could fake social competence, but inside, I felt anxious and silently alienated. I was secretly terrified that I would NEVER find a place to rest in a sense of true ‘belonging.’ In high school, my considerable talents and abilities saved me from feeling completely side-lined by my Sensing-majority, teenage peers, but it was my creative drive and my undying curiosity about what makes people tick that kept me connected to life.

In my twenties, I gave birth to three children, continued my higher education, engaged in a self-directed study of psychology and spiritual systems, and toggled together the earliest stages of what was to become my life’s work. By learning about, and teaching what I needed to learn, I helped other secretly marginalized people like me embrace the notion of self-love as essential to our ability to thrive. Coming into the age of women’s lib, I showed home-bound mothers how to express their discontent by splashing paint on canvas and how to ease themselves with the calming effects of yoga.

This chapter had me creating transformative group experiences and large-scale events, as a musician and visual/performance artist. In my thirties, and before the age of cell phones and social media, I formed the vision that would pull me into my future: To use distance learning to help people transform their concept of self, by providing exceptional resources and hands-on support they can easily afford.

I launched my first coaching company at 44, working with highly creative entrepreneurs who felt inspired as free spirits, but tied down by convention. This is how I came to know that the clients I would serve best were to be iNtuitive personality types. Many had suffered, as had I, from the pain that Sensing-majority programming and cultural censure had caused.

My fifties had me framing complex ideas into simple metaphors, to craft tools for experiential self-evolution. Revising and sharing them again and again over twenty years has helped me capture and apply all that I’ve learned about iNtuitive-Thinkers and iNtuitive-Feelers … sometimes coaching them one-on-one, and sometimes facilitating live retreats and trainings.

The turn of the century and the age of smart-phones and social media had me working by phone, with groups of free, self-directed individuals who wished to slough off limiting self-concepts that were culturally imposed. So that they could fully honor and value themselves, with a genuine generosity of spirit toward others.

The COVID years showed me, without a doubt, that my truest wisdom connection is with iNtuitive-Feeling women. In general, I find we tend to be brilliant, deeply caring, and altruistic people. My long-wished-for, perfect family has arrived, here within the warmth of the Bravely Being You Virtual Village.