HEY THERE, I’M CAROLYN. BUT YOU CAN CALL ME KOA.
Bring the same self home that you brought to work today.
Bring the same self home that you brought to work today.
I believe that in work, in life, and in our growth—there is no separation.
So, why do we all keep agreeing to this same old story that pigeonholes us into small roles and disconnects our “work selves” from what we truly value and what gives us purpose in the rest of our lives? This story makes us promises that if we could attain some ideal of work/life balance then we’d finally be happy and feel fulfilled.
Instead, this story has us believe that abandoning ourselves at the front door to the office—or the virtual meeting—makes us more professional, more efficient or more productive. When in reality, it’s disconnecting us from our own humanity and separating us from ourselves and one another.
I call bullshit on that story.
So, let’s write a different one, together.



I am wise. I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am pure knowledge. I am pure spirit.
I am not just this body, this mind, these emotions, these thoughts or beliefs.
I forgive myself.
I want you to know this too—deep inside your bones.
I am Koa Elder and I’m here to kindly, compassionately and no-holds-barred call you forth to step into your work, your relationships and your life. They are, after all, one and the same.
When we have the courage to face the ways we’re unconsciously separating ourselves from ourselves and making sliced-up, hollowed segments of our lives, we find the courage to put ourselves back together again. Our relationships back together again.
Our needs become non-negotiable.
Our ideas and desires pour out of our heads, our hearts and our guts and come to life in our lives.
You are not broken.
You are meant to be whole.
And I am your Guidess. I help you bridge your perceived gaps in life, and work, through mindful self-exploration, experience-mapping, ritual and realignment practice founded in the principles of Hakomi method and Ayurveda.
She can’t help it … she sings out randomly.
She speaks from a
place of courage when it’s especially hard.
And when Life brings her tears , her pen
is her voice’s true advocate
.
Her wisdom knows that turning toward relationship
is the way through anything and everything.
How we’ll rewrite the work narrative together.
In one-on-one sessions together, we study the story you’ve been holding and the ones you’ve been left holding. The beliefs you’ve bought into. The mindsets that you’re managing a messy world with. The unconscious behaviors that belittle your own voice that longs to be whole. To be fully yourself. To be free and to feel love for your work and your life, because there is no longer separation between them. Instead they are in relationship and they feed one another and you along with the relationships you hold most dear.
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I work with people-people, no matter your role. We all have the capability to be a leader in our own right no matter our age, our experience level or the title we’ve been given. And, no matter our department or team, the service we offer or the product we build, at the heart of every organization is its people and their relationships. I’m a people and relationships kind of gal. And I believe the best leaders are courageous ones who stay connected with themselves and their teams through both word and deed — especially when it’s hard.
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I help small business and startup teams—from People Ops to Engineering, Product, Customer Support and Marketing—define and build more mindful Cultures that engage us all in the practice of self-reflection, service, non-violence, mindfulness and ultimately, growth and deepening for the whole system. So, the system can become a reflection of the wholeness of its parts.
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Because I love communicating both authentically and strategically, I offer Conscious Content Strategy and Content Design for small businesses and startups. If you sense that approaching your digital content from a misaligned place will ultimately create more misalignment, we should chat. Let’s touch in with what really matters most to you and your customer—and let that guide us.
Have a conscious product, service or technology for an awake audience? Connect with them from the heart and mind with digital content that’s both beautiful and meaningful. Check out my Conscious Digital Content Development & Management services.
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And, through conscious writing, I plunge into the depths of how we keep ourselves separated inside ourselves, and why it hurts so badly to see that same separation in the world around us. I offer thoughtful, narrative-confronting articles bringing the experiences of people like you front-and-center so we can all learn together to heal together, along with meditations, contemplations and daily mindfulness practices.
“You don’t drown by falling in the water;
you drown by staying there.”
EDWIN LOUIS COLE
My own painful path to conscious awareness
I am a published writer and senior technical program manager for a SaaS product who’s been writing and consulting for more than a decade with startups, nonprofits and conscious businesses, digital agencies, and fortune 50s to 500s in the Top 50 list.
A freak car accident in 2011 quickly and painfully ushered me onto a path of conscious awareness and mindfulness, calling me to look at all the ways my life and my work was out of integrity with my spirit. Not able to brush my teeth, wash my own hair or cook food for myself, my own self-reliance strategies gave way to a slow and stubborn surrender to help with the most mundane and personal daily routines that we all take for granted.
From this forced physical surrender came my mental surrender. Caught in the fear of wondering how much I had been fractured by the accident, I finally met myself. I viscerally felt and heard my own wisdom for the third time in my life through presence with my pain and connecting to my own breathe. This wisdom was able to diagnose my injuries six hours before five medical staff, x-rays and an ER Doctor could.
What helped me tune into my inner wisdom that day as I was rushed to the nearest ER while it rained inside the driver’s side door of my Father’s now totalled car?
It was mindfulness meditation.
That day and many thereafter have shown me time and again how powerful a mindfulness practice can be in our lives. From there I invested deeply in my own mindfulness practice and education as a Sahaja yoga/meditation guide and two-time apprentice of spiritual teacher and humanitarian, Vanessa Stone.
I then went on to become an Ayurvedic Sadhana Consultant, having completed training in 2018 under my teacher, Maya Tiwari. Maya served for two decades as a Vedic monk belonging to India’s prestigious Veda Vyasa lineage, and is founder of Wise Earth School of Ayurveda.
I’m currently immersed in my practicum after graduating from a two-year comprehensive Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy practitioner training through Hakomi Institute Southwest.
Founder of Conscious Content, my intention is to bridge the gap between the various realms I exist in (professional, personal and spiritual), being a guide to others who sense it’s possible to bring more of who they are to their work and their relationships and start showing up to their lives more fully.
“Hakomi is a path taken by those who work
to go beyond the half remembered hurts and
failed beliefs that linger unexamined in the mind and body,
hurts that act through barely conscious habits and reactions.
This work is a part of that heroic labor,
a cousin to sitting meditation,
to singing bowls and chanting monks.”
RON KURTZ
Testimonials
I’d love to do the work with you.
You don’t have to know all the details to know you need support and you’re ready to ask for it.
My offering is unique and will be customized to your individual, group and organizational needs.