We recently connected with Anshu Stephen and have shared our conversation below.

Anshu, appreciate you joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

I am thankful to have had so many experiences that are daily reminders, that encourage me to constantly question my intentions, actions and conversations with curiosity. Growing up, my grandparents role-modeled for me to embrace joy in simple things. They had traveled the world but chose to build their life as educators in a small village in India while growing their own food. My formative years from the ages of 13-16 were spent in multiple cultures, as my parents made the hard choice to leave the familiar to follow their passion for community engagement in South-East Asia. I witnessed my parents develop and implement programs led by local leaders around solar energy and women’ health equity in Cambodia’s countryside. Their love for sustainability and equity found its foundations in everything I do.
As I began to explore who I am through my travels, education and training I found genuine alignment in my identity and my work with people.
And it wasn’t until the day I lost my job as a social worker that I started to question who I am without everything I do. Was I enough and worthy of unconditional love without contributing?
That is when Fill Your Jar Coaching found its roots, it was then that I realized that I had to confront my traumas, fears and doubts. I wanted to be enough and worthy of unconditional love by just being me. I started to work on my healing and learned to prioritize investing in myself. The more I dedicated my resources to my growth , the less validation I needed from external resources. The more whole I felt, the more I felt the freedom to create and contribute authentically, not focusing on others’ agendas. Fill your Jar started as a trauma-informed practice for myself that became a space for everyone else who was in a similar space as me.

Anshu, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a trauma-informed coach with a Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Science, a certification in Trauma-informed Coaching and TESOL education. I provide 1-1 coaching sessions for trauma survivors. I also develop and facilitate professional development for organizations and/ companies to foster trauma-informed culture, environment and practices.
I have also created a 60 day trauma-informed journaling tool box.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

I would absolutely choose to work with people again. I love being a social worker, adult educator and a coach that gets to walk with people in their valleys. I believe everyone is an expert in their lives and has so much resilience through their stories but sometimes we just need someone to remind us that we got this!
And once we are at that place of knowing that we are enough, we can break down barriers and build that in our communities with others, sharing our tools and learning from others’.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

As an entrepreneur, I have learned to prioritize my professional development and commit to constantly learning and collaborating. I read books that challenge my worldview and nudges me to keep empathy at the center of everything that I do.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

The Body is not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor.

Landed by Gayathri Shukla

These are a few of my favorites.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fillyourjarcoaching.square.site/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fillyourjar/?hl=en