We recently connected with Emily Jameson and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, appreciate you joining us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

I am a two-time fire total-loss house fire survivor. When I was 17, our family lost our home to a fire, and that ended up having a profound impact on me in my quest to more deeply understand spirituality, psychology, trauma, and how to navigate loss.

I ended up becoming a life coach in 2017, and hung my shingle out full-time in 2021 adding more certifications in trauma and neurolinguistici programming to better support my clients.

In February of 2023, my own little family lost our home to a fire. I ended up using this experience to develop a signature program to serve and support other women who experience this unique loss so that they can build their live back better than before.

Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a 41 year-old mom living in Yakima, Washington. I spent 15 years working in nonprofits before opening my coaching business full time in 2021.

In 2014 I had a deeply impactful experience working with life coach and it made me think that maybe someday I could also do something like this. I had no idea that it would become a reality as quickly as it did, and in 2016, I took a risk and enrolled in a coaching program.

In 2017, I also experienced the dissolution of my marriage and found myself as a single mom raising a one-year-old boy on my own.

I kept working in nonprofit jobs trying to stabilize us, but dreaming of eventually working on my own for myself so that I could participate more fully in my son’s childhood.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of existential questions up for me – as it did for many people – and I decided that I wanted to go all in on at least trying to give my dream a chance. I also saw that one big piece missing from my “coaching toolkit” was adequate training on working with trauma. I enrolled in another training program and learned the tools of Neurolinguistic programming as well as how to work with trauma. These pieces together have really provided me with effective tools to help my clients experience the life changes they are looking for, and it has been so fulfilling.

When my own house burned down, I naturally looked for a coach with experience helping fire victims. I didn’t find anyone. It took months before I realized that I could fill this very specific niche and that I had very practical tools to help people take back their stories and experiences of loss so that they can find their way through.

My 12 week program, RISE, incorporates the healing stages Restore, Integrate, Strengthen and Emerge.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

On January 26, 2023 I launched my fresh coaching website. I had spent the better half of 2022 rebranding my self as coach for women’s sexual sovereignty. I was excited and nervous launching this new evolution of my coaching services.

And the next week the house fire happened, and I lost everything.

I found myself from one week to the next profoundly changed. I was suddenly NOT that person who had created that website. It didn’t matter to me in the way that it had before. I didn’t have those clothes, was deeply grieving the devastating loss of everything I had ever owned, and trying to figure out what to make of everything.

In the summer I was given the opportunity to join a marketing course for coaches, and it was clear to me that I needed to re-identify my niche. I worked through many ideas and finally landed on the deeply specific niche of helping women just like me navigate their house fire loss, so that they could navigate this difficult passage in a way that helped them become deeply attuned to their strength.
When I realized how I could redeem my own deep losses and personal experiences with fire into something that could profoundly help others, I cried.

And the work of creating this program has felt inspired and right. Working with other fire survivors has been deeply gratifying.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One huge lesson I’ve had to unlearn is really to challenge patriarchal and capitalistic notions that people have to be grinding and exhausting themselves all the time to be productive or successful.

For me, this whole business carries the element of “experiment”. Experiments don’t have to be proven. We are really comfortable with the idea of testing, hypothesizing and saying “what if?” with experiments. And there is the element of excitement with experiments too! Will it work?? will the whole thing blow up??

My “what ifs?” are:
What if I could create a business based in being vs. doing energies?
What if I could consciously work less hours and earn more money?
What if I could find a way to be a good mom, and a fulfilled working woman without complete adrenal fatigue?
What if I could allow my feminine philosophies to come front and center – to celebrate collaboration and connection, rising together versus competition?

I’m still in the process of this “experiment” but my “work” feels more lighthearted, playful and exciting when I think of it all this way.

Contact Info:

• Website: emilyjamesoncoaching.com
• Instagram: theemilyjameson
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-jameson/
• Other: From Ashes to Empowerment

Image Credits
Kellene Leone