Ten years ago, if you’d asked that question, the answer would have been about my professional life, with little reference to the life that informed that identity. In fact, in any one of  my “previous lives” – Audiologist, Trainer, Business-Owner (Focus On Space), and Feng Shui Expert –  among others, I would have given you a resume of sorts.   But in 2011, I closed the door (or so I thought) on my professional  life and dropped straight into post-conflict Uganda and the uncharted territory of Peace Corps Volunteer.

So this part is NOT a professional resume – because you can read about what I offer on other pages. This is about the life that informs what I bring to my work and you, should you become a client.   Still, for those who need it, a resume is attached.

In all likelihood, if you are feeling a dissonance in your life that guides you to my services, I have also lived it,  felt it, and navigated through it.  Frankly, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to try to advise people on challenges you know nothing about.  It’s a little like a priest guiding couples on sex, marriage and child rearing, when there is no common language or point of reference.

To continue, shortly after stepping into the minimalist life of a Volunteer, I simultaneously  stumbled into the wilderness of my psyche, where most of the trappings that identified me meant nothing in an environment where nearly everyone had endured unimaginable horrors. Each of those wild-lands was equally daunting as-moment to moment, I encountered a never-ending barrage of physical, emotional, and intellectual challenges. That, in turn, ushered in the multi-year process of  deconstruction and re-assembly of my former self.

Which brings me to now. Today, when confronted with the question,  “Who is Nancy,” I now include:  Southern girl, mother, divorcee-X-2, grandmother, Intuitive, dyslexic, gypsy,  Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Experiencer, and awakening-old-soul.   In  the mainstream or corporate vernacular, these might be seen as irrelevant, but the inclusion and acknowledgement of these roles form a more authentic story of what has contributed to the lens through which I view life and the broad spectrum of acceptance and hopefully, wisdom, that I bring to the conversation and my work.

A quote from my book,  I Miss the Rain in Africa, might go further in describing how I navigate through life and how I might help you do the same, if that’s your desire:

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“Although I was born in the Panama Canal Zone, most of my growing up happened in Baton Rouge, immersed in the rich cultural-gumbo of South Louisiana.

My memories are of a world of extremes where spirituality, religion and witchcraft mingled, life was cadenced by hurricane season and fueled with strong dark roast coffee and Cajun food. The Ku Klux Klan marched, the paranormal was normal and I sensed a boogeyman around every corner. An ever-present social divide made real the metaphor wrong-side-of-the-tracks. I know, because we lived there, though the emotional punch of it wasn’t felt until, as a pre-teen, we joined an upper-crust downtown church. It was there that I began to witness the variance in access and attitudes, and that learned awareness became a barometer of sorts for later life.

Nothing was quite as it seemed in my childhood world, and it seeded a tendency to question everything. I learned early on that truth is relative, and that both the seen and unseen worlds hold equal sway over life. Over time, my paranormal abilities—inherited from both sides of the family—surfaced, and the need to understand them became a life path and, later, a business.

Road trips to California, Mexico and the Grand Canyon exposed my sister and me to a larger world, and tales of my folks’ post-wartime lives in Panama and Trinidad no doubt fueled our drive to discover that larger-world for ourselves.

Understanding and integrating this continuum of curious events, and the cognitive dissonance it created, predisposed me to seek information and understanding in unconventional ways.”

And…

“When I’d come home from Africa, I felt like a total stranger in the life and world I’d left.  All of my reference points—physical and emotional—had changed;  things I’d taken for granted had become treasures, and those I’d once valued had become irrelevant. The events that made up the stories [in I Miss the Rain in Africa]  … became a catalyst for distilling life-going-forward into its most relevant and sacred parts.

As I wrote, the muse took me into the deep recesses of memory, firing dormant neural networks that took me into a house-of-mirrors, where it was difficult to distinguish reflection from the real thing. That triggered a re-evaluation of both past and present, ultimately leading me to a different truth and a more authentic self.

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So, this is me, coming out of my own metaphorical closet. Maybe some of the tools I’ve developed along the way can help others unlock their own doors.

Finally, I want to share what is possible in healing family history.  I’d like to share the tools that helped me find a different lens through which to view life, to open new doors and to embrace the idea that we really are fully responsible for ourselves. As we heal, everything else heals.

Instead of viewing that responsibility as a burden, it’s incredibly liberating.

Once you know the tools you can say “what if” and just go for it.

It’s never too late!