We recently connected with Berkeley Clements and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Berkeley, thanks for joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

In my mid twenties I worked a corporate job (which I swore I would never do… but the cost of living was incredibly high so I relented) as an Executive Assistant to the Marketing and some sub departments. Due to the nature of the work we often would work closely with the Legal team. A very kind woman within that department noticed that I was asking all the “right” questions about the terms that were being provided or not provided as hundreds of contracts passed over my desk each week. I found that even though I was detail oriented the amount of work was too much even for the most savvy of EAs! Ultimately, I ended up tracking all of my work for two weeks and the countless interruptions I received daily while supporting 3 different departments and a team of over 25 people. The department heads knew I wanted to do my best work but being torn between all of the demands was making it impossible to provide them with the support that they needed. So after speaking with each of them, I met with our HR department and asked for advice on how to manage the workload and further pointed out that I was the only other EA in the company at the time handling such a large / high demand team with multiple departments. Ultimately, this lead to hiring two more EAs.
Lesson #1: Be honest about your limitations and it’s ok to ask for help.

Back to working with the Legal team, the department (because the previous EA had been so overwhelmed) had to outsource a company to manage all of the contracts. And now, since my plate was a little less loaded we had asked that they all be sent in so that we could take them back over. Mind you, the company I worked for was paying over thousands of dollars a month for this company to manage the logistics of obtaining signatures from the appropriate parties and ensuring everything was up to snuff. Well 300 contracts landed on my desk and most were partially executed… meaning, they didn’t have complete signatures and were missing key pages…. As you can imagine that company was immediately fired and we cleaned up their shoddy work.
Lesson #2: You don’t know what you don’t know if you don’t look / ask.

The entire experience at the company reaffirmed that I still indeed (no surprise here) have no desire to work within a corporate environment. But, because of that experience, the people I met there, I have more confidence in sharing my limitations vs assuming I have to figure everything out alone. I am much more aware of why a detailed contract matters down to the point of having every “t” crossed and “i” dotted when it comes to contracts – which is an incredibly important lesson as a small business owner. Sometimes, the diversion off our path provides us with lessons and tools that we will need further along the way to our chosen destination.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’m Berkeley Clements, the founder and sole practitioner of Berkeley Creative Co., a somatic healing, sound healing, breathwork, and intuitive arts practice based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I’ve been doing this work since 2019, though honestly, it has looked different at almost every stage, which feels very on-brand for the kind of transformation I facilitate. What started as a quiet calling has grown into a full ecosystem of offerings, private sessions, group experiences, corporate and private event work,

My path here wasn’t linear, and honestly, I think that’s part of what makes the work land the way it does. I spent years in executive assistant, project management, and leadership roles, high-functioning, high-output, and always holding the details for everyone else. I was good at it. But there was a version of me underneath all of that efficiency who was a singer, an artist, a deeply intuitive person who had learned to quiet herself to be useful in rooms that didn’t have space for that. Healing this practice became the bridge. It brought those two parts of me, the structured, capable builder and the creative, feeling, spiritually rooted woman, into the same room. And now I help other people do the same.

What I offer spans a few different entry points, because I believe people come to this work at different depths of readiness. I offer private one-on-one sessions that blend somatic healing, breathwork, intuitive reading, and Reiki. These deeply personalized containers are for people who want real transformation with someone who holds both the spiritual and the embodied simultaneously. I facilitate group sound healing and breathwork experiences because I believe community is one of the most healing forces available to us and one of the most underestimated in the way we tend to structure modern life.

For corporate and private events, I offer Empowerment Intuitive Readings, a unique experience that brings the intimacy of a personal reading into group settings, whether that’s an intimate gathering of eight or an event of several hundred. And then there’s The Spiral — a seven-session, immersive program that I launched earlier this year, which is probably the work I’m most proud of bringing into the world. It takes participants on a guided journey over the course of several months, combining somatic practices, intuitive facilitation, community, and deep self-inquiry. It’s the most complete expression of everything I do.

The problem I solve, at least at it’s core, is disconnection. My clients are often high-functioning women, frequently in or approaching midlife, who are successful by every external measure and still feel like something essential about themselves has gone quiet. They’re not broken. They’re not in crisis, necessarily. They’re just… far from themselves. And they sense it. The work I do creates a pathway back. Not through talking about it endlessly, but through the body, through breath, through sound, through the kind of honest intuitive reflection that cuts through the noise faster than almost anything else.
What I think genuinely sets me apart is the integration. There are wonderful practitioners who do somatic work. There are gifted intuitives. There are skilled sound healers. I do all of it simultaneously, and it’s not a menu, it’s a method. The somatic work helps the body release what the mind has been protecting. The intuitive layer names what’s underneath. The sound moves it. The breath anchors it. And the structured programming, The Spiral, the session arcs, the client touchpoints means nothing is left to chance. My background in project management didn’t disappear when I became a healer. It became the infrastructure that makes the healing sustainable.

What I’m most proud of right now: is The Spiral, launching a founding cohort of a multi-month program from scratch, holding the container for that first group of women, and watching the work actually move people. That’s something I’ll carry with me regardless of what comes next. One of my near-term visions is a shared studio space for this kind of work where aligned practitioners can gather, collaborate, and serve the Murfreesboro community together. That conversation is actively unfolding, and I’m always open to connecting with the right people.

What I want potential clients to know: You don’t have to be in a breakdown to deserve this. You don’t have to have the right vocabulary, or know anything about Reiki, or be sure you “believe” in any of it. You just have to have a sense that there’s more of you available than you’ve been living from. That’s enough. Come curious. Everything else unfolds from there.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’d be lying if I said the path to Berkeley Creative Co. was a graceful leap of faith. The truth is messier and, I think, more honest than that.

Before I built this practice, I had a career I was genuinely good at. I helped grow an e-commerce brand to over two million dollars in revenue. I showed up, I delivered, I gave everything I had. When I was ready for a change, I made what felt like a values-aligned move into nonprofit work. I wanted to put those same strengths toward something that meant more to me. It didn’t go the way I planned. The environment was difficult, and I found myself out of a job.

That moment could have derailed me. For a while, honestly, it did. I drew from my retirement savings just to stay afloat. But what it also did was crack something open because for the second time in my career, I had been reminded that I am not built for other people’s structures. I am built to build my own.

So instead of jumping off a cliff, I built a bridge. I went back to what I knew, operations, project management, leadership, executive support, but this time entirely on my own terms, as a contractor. I set my own schedule. I charged what I was worth. And I used that stability to slowly, intentionally grow the work that actually fueled my soul. Berkeley Creative Co. didn’t happen overnight. It happened in the margins, and then it happened all at once.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The most defining pivot of my career wasn’t a strategy shift, it was an identity shift.

I spent years being the person who made things run. I was skilled at it, recognized for it, and on paper, successful at it. But there was always a version of me running quietly underneath all of that output, an artist, a singer, someone deeply attuned to energy and intuition, who had learned to stay small to be useful in rooms that weren’t built for her.

Getting laid off from what I thought was a meaningful role was the pivot I didn’t choose but clearly needed. It forced the question I had been quietly avoiding: what am I actually here to do?

The answer wasn’t immediate, and it wasn’t comfortable. It required rebuilding from a financial low point, doing contract work to keep the lights on while I earned certifications in somatic healing/breathwork, and slowly trusting that the thing that felt most like me was also the thing I was meant to offer. I didn’t burn anything down to get here. I made small transitions, held both worlds at once for longer than felt glamorous, and kept moving toward what was true. That’s still how I operate and it’s exactly what I help my clients do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.berkeleycreativecompany.com & www.somaticwellnesscollective.com
• Instagram: @berkeleycreativeco
• Facebook: @berkeleycreativeco
• Other: Pinterest: @berkeleycreativeco

Image Credits

Carley Marmen Photography & Sammi Brooke Photography