I promised myself I wouldn’t lose myself the way the women around me did.

I did anyway.

It happened slowly, in a million-little-paper-cuts kind of way. I was living by rules I never chose: be easy to love, put everyone else first, don’t ask for too much, and keep the peace. Most of us learn those rules before we’re old enough to question them, from our families, our faith, the movies we grow up on, and the women who show us how it’s done.

Every season of my life asked me to follow them a little harder and disappear a little more. In marriage I kept the peace, in motherhood everyone’s needs came first, and through divorce and the years of co-parenting that followed, I second-guessed every word. Leaving the faith I grew up in showed me where so much of it started, because that faith had taught me to make myself small in the first place. Then I started dating again and caught myself falling into the same old patterns, and I finally saw it: I was fluent in everyone else’s needs and a stranger to my own.

That undoing, and the long, unglamorous work of finding my way back, taught me everything I teach now. The credential that matters most to me is that I lived by those rules until there was almost nothing left of me, and I found my way back.

Why I do this

I care so much about what happens to women, and some of what I’ve seen lights a fire in me. I’ve watched so many women give their earning power, their careers, and big pieces of themselves to raising a family, only to find out the system was never built to count any of that as work. Caregiving doesn’t come with a paycheck or a retirement account, so when a marriage ends or a relationship turns controlling, a lot of women find themselves with less money, less confidence, and a long list of reasons to doubt themselves. I see the same thing at work, where women take on the extra tasks, the emotional labor, and the keeping-everyone-happy, and rarely get credit for any of it.

If your confidence feels smaller than it used to, please be gentle with yourself about it. It got worn down one small moment at a time, by being talked over, second-guessed, and told what you need, and it comes back the same way, one moment at a time.

Watching women carry all of this is what keeps me in this work. I want women to see that system clearly, so they finally understand what they’ve been carrying, and then I want to help them set some of it down.

How I work

Part of finding my way back was understanding how I actually work. I feel everything deeply, connect dots faster than I can explain them, and need to live something before I can teach it. For a long time I thought that meant something was wrong with me. It didn’t. I was just in the wrong rooms.

Now I teach what I had to learn the hard way: how to catch a pattern in the moment it fires. My method, Catch the Hook™, is built on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and mindfulness, and I also draw on positive psychology, somatic practices, Human Design, and the Enneagram, whichever helps you see how you’re wired.

Who I work with

Most of the women I work with are in the middle of losing and rebuilding themselves after a relationship, a role, or a version of who they used to be. Others are past the crisis and still caught in the same dynamic, knowing exactly why and doing it anyway. If either one is you, you’re in the right place.

I work 1:1 with a small number of women, on purpose, because deep work takes real attention, and because I want to stay close to the women I do this for: the ones who were just like me, wanting something more true and needing someone to remind them it’s possible.

Ready to talk?

Tell me where you are and what brought you here, and I’ll send you a link for a video chat and a short application.

Book a free call

Not ready for a call yet? Start smaller with Where Are You Stuck Right Now, a focused 20-minute written read on the one thing you’re stuck on.

Or find me on Substack at 💌 Love Letters by Em, where I write for the women who are still figuring it out.

Credentials & words elsewhere

I hold an MA in Women’s Studies and Humanities from Old Dominion University and a certificate in positive psychology from UC Berkeley Extension, and I’m trained in REBT, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and trauma-informed care. I’ve spent more than thirteen years teaching in high school and college classrooms.

My writing has appeared in Elephant Journal, Tiny Buddha, Filterfree Parents, and DivorcedMoms. I’m the founder of GRLPWRDEN and host two podcasts, EvesDropping and The GRLPWRDEN Podcast. My book, Love Notes: How to Tend to Your Broken Heart, Navigate Your Emotions, & Befriend Your Inner Child After a Bad Breakup or Divorce, is available on Amazon.