We recently connected with Courtney Dorsey and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Courtney, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker when it comes to decision making, not necessarily when it comes to riding a rollercoaster or zip lining, but I’ve always wanted my life to be a curiously amazing story. Although I am a small town, country girl at heart, I was tired of living a small town life. As a Louisiana native, though full of culture, my curiosity and higher purpose required me to evolve into a more well-rounded person. So on my 25th birthday in 2015, I packed up my ‘04 Corolla, and moved to Atlanta, GA.
It was such an exhilarating move. I had $200 to my name, my air conditioner was broken in the heat of July, but I was determined to see what this new chapter of my life had to offer. It offered me a lot and then some! After 5 months of partying, site seeing, life threatening traffic (atl’s traffic is a nightmare), and adulting, I was hit with the realities of living in a large city; competition, hustlers, and being an outsider.
It was time for me to take off the television sitcom script version of my life I had planned, and rewrite with the realities of what needed to happen; I needed to hit rock bottom to rise from the ashes. I needed to grow up. I needed to be humbled (yes, I was an entitled educated millennial). I needed to stretch my faith. Moving to Atlanta did all of that.

Courtney, 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?

2017-2019 were hard years. I had lost several jobs, couldn’t find one that paid well and honored my degrees (Bachelors and Masters in Psychology). Adulting was driving me anxiously insane, I had to fall out of love with the fake life I created for myself in my mind and rewrite it based on who I had become. I couldn’t do that until I started to heal from past trauma, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and the anxiety-provoking nomadic life of a failing entrepreneur.
I had to grieve my idealistic dreams, and then dream again. My life was not a rom com. It wasn’t Sex and the City with the sexy dates and 4 best friends hanging out every week. It wasn’t Living Single with the two-piece corporate suits, making money in a “nineties kinda world with my girls.” (Quite the opposite because I started losing friends left and right) It was bleak. I had to fix it myself. I had to get into therapy, reprogram my brain from the negativity that had been programmed there, and rebrand into the real me.
But first, I had to accept that I wasn’t particularly fond of the person that I had become, I had to accept that, and then decide what I wanted to AND needed to change. I had to change the people pleasing, over-explaining, overly anxious, low-key perfectionist, embrace her first, and then get to the root of why she was created in the first place. Some of that happened in therapy, most of it happened through homework. I realized going through therapy that it was missing some key areas for women who looked like me.
Black women need to have more voices in the western worldview of psychology, so that authentic healing can happen, and we can be understood in ways that only our eyes have seen. With the limitations of the worldview and the active work in mental health, I saw the gap and need to merge therapeutic practices, education, and coaching. The pandemic gave the world time to think, myself included, and I birthed Life Coach Coe, Coemail Blog, and active treatment plans dedicated to the progression of mental health, anxiety, and depression of black women. We opened in 2020 beginning with an online show and blog. Now it’s a community of black women.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspects of being a creative is just being able to be me and the endless possibilities. While I had to wake up from the dream world of my pre 2015 years, I am still a huge dreamer with expansive curiosity. The difference now is that I’m now more rooted in who I am outside of my family, friends, career etc. and now I’m dreaming with my Creator and me. For the longest time, I was stuck trying to be who others thought I should have been, and what I thought I should have been to be more acceptable. I had suppressed my voice and skills for many years afraid that no one would want to hear what I had to say. For so long, people tried to stop me from being me because I never fit into one box. I know that’s a bit cliche!
I’m a holy hood nerd. By definition, I love the Lord, I love Lil Boosie, but I love learning and education. In artistry, I get to love and be all of those things expressively. Art isn’t judgmental, it doesn’t have to sell, it doesn’t have to be for anyone but that person. I fell in love with writing as an outlet from my parent’s difficult divorce. My parents are baby boomers, so they tried to instill in me that children are supposed to be seen and not heard. That never sat well with their late bloomer baby girl. I didn’t fit into what they were used to; a child that did as they’re told with no questions. I always had questions. I always wanted to understand. Before gentle parenting, there was “authoritarian” parenting, “my way or the highway”. I tried, but I’ve always had a lot to say, a lot in my mind and heart, and a passion to advocate for meeker people. Writing gave me the outlet to do that without getting into trouble. My mouth landed me in detention and spanked way too many times for me to remember, but writing always had my back.

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

Fun fact: I used to be a professional photographer. Go figure! I spent 7 years trying to get my photography business to be lucrative, but for some insanely probably divine reason, it wouldn’t take off. I left one of my plethora of jobs to try to be a full-time entrepreneur. I’m sure I was motivated by some influencer at the time comparing my chapter 5 to their chapter 45. Let’s just say, I eventually despised everything about photography. Chasing the hustle on top of getting thirstily hustled, diminished my love and passion for it.
One day, I called it quits. I kept getting a nagging feeling about writing publicly, but I was terrified because writing was always so personal for me. It was for my eyes only. I didn’t want the hustle, marketing, and business side of it to ruin it the way I let it ruin photography for me. I put it off for as long as I could before I finally took another risk in 2020, and put myself out there. I’ve been blogging consistently ever since. I even co-authored the Amazon best seller Women Connected in Wisdom book. It has been quite a journey to get this space spiritually and emotionally, and I don’t believe it’ll be stopping anytime soon.

Contact Info:

• Website: lifecoachcoe.com
• Instagram: lifecoachcoe
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lifecoachcoe4839
• Podcast: Talk Sessions W/Coe on Apple Podcast, Anchor, and Spotify

Image Credits
Art Spirit Photography