We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Berry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.

Ashley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

One of my first jobs out of college was working as a Research Assistant conducting in-person interviews for a National Institute of Health-funded study on drinking behavior. In this role, I would go into the homes of people all over the SF Bay Area and ask them to tell me their life story and what their relationship to alcohol had been across their life. The subject matter was very personal and sometimes quite sensitive depending on the participants’ life experiences and the interviews would often last anywhere from 2-4 hours. I interviewed every kind of person from wealthy and highly privileged individuals to people living within some of the most marginalized communities in American society, and what I found as I sat and spoke with each person that I interviewed was that everyone craves being seen and heard. Everyone is on a journey that is complex and miraculous, and that it can be potently cathartic for people to simply share their story with someone who will hold it, not only without judgement, but as something to be honored. I think that it is really easy to look at people and their choices in black-and-white terms when you don’t really know them, but if you really listen to anyone’s story and take the time to try to understand where they’re coming from, learn about what they dreamt of as children, witness their joy when they speak about their triumphs and their pain when they speak about their losses, you come to understand that we truly are all doing the best we can with what we’ve been given. I think that wisdom has served me well both in my personal life and certainly in my ability to hold space for my coaching clients.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an Intuitive Coach and I work remotely with clients across the globe who want to take a deep dive into their inner world and how it is impacting the life that they are creating for themselves. My focus is on empowering people through supporting them in cultivating self-awareness, mind-body connection, clarity around their visions, and the courage to take bold steps toward bringing those visions to life. My sessions focus on deep listening, compassionate reflections, intuitive guidance, and a variety of somatic practices and spiritual tools that I have studied including breath work, energy clearing techniques, meditation, healing movement, grounding techniques, and simple lifestyle shifts to bring the mind, body, and spirit into alignment and pave the way for whole-being wellness.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I always knew I wanted to work with people in a way that supported their wellness as individuals and the wellness of our society as a whole, so I originally pursued a career in Marriage and Family Therapy. I completed all of my graduate coursework and was halfway through my clinical practicum, in which I worked with therapy clients in a training clinic, when I realized that, while the Western psychotherapeutic model has many benefits and can be effective for certain issues, it has a lot of limitations as well. I wanted to be able to work with clients in more dynamic ways, to offer tools and practices from a variety of fields, and to focus more on how to move forward in an empowered way rather than circling the past. I made a bold choice and decided to leave my graduate program, so that I could carve a new path for myself. I began studying nutrition, fitness, personal development work, and alternative forms of healing and eventually found that I could best bring these approaches together as an Intuitive Coach. I love that my work draws from so many different backgrounds and that I can work with my clients in completely personalized ways using the tools that best suit their specific needs and goals.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think that authenticity and integrity are two of the most vital components for anyone working in the coaching world. There are, unfortunately, lots of prominent coaches and coaching programs out there that will tell you to follow a specific formula or to present in a certain way to be successful and while some of those approaches may work for a short time, they aren’t sustainable. I would rather have a smaller roster of clients who are really ready to show up and do the work than an email inbox full of people who want to work with me because they think I have a magic solution or that I am going to “fix” them. I don’t pretend to have all the answers or to have a perfect life and I think that, ultimately, people appreciate my honesty and transparency. It helps them feel comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities and lets them know that our work is about creating a life that feels good on the inside, as opposed to one that just looks good on the outside.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.helloashleyberry.com
• Instagram: helloashleyberry

Image Credits
Olivia Klein