We were lucky to catch up with Sharae Hardy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sharae, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

How Pen & Purpose Coaching Came to Life

Honestly? I thought it was a crazy idea.

I remember sitting with the thought of becoming a coach and almost laughing at myself. Me? My life is messy. I struggle. I have hard days, complicated seasons, moments where I’m not sure which direction is up. Who on earth would trust me to walk alongside them through their healing?

It was my therapist who stopped me in my tracks. She looked at me and said something I’ve never forgotten. That those very qualities- the humanness of it, the fact that I wasn’t above the struggle- would make me the perfect coach. Not in spite of my lived experience, but because of it. She helped me see that I wouldn’t be standing over my clients, pointing the way. I’d be right there beside them, doing the work too.

That conversation changed everything.

From there, I started with what I knew. I’ve always been a writer and a journaler, so I went back to the page. I started asking myself hard questions: What do I actually know? What have I lived through? Who do I want to serve? The answers pointed me toward women navigating heartbreak, people-pleasing, and the kind of toxic relationship patterns that quietly steal your identity. I knew those rooms. I’d sat in them.

So I got to work. I researched certifications because showing up with lived experience is powerful, but showing up with lived experience and credentials felt non-negotiable to me. I pursued training in grief coaching, CBT coaching, trauma-informed practices, anxiety, emotional wellness, somatic healing, and more. I wasn’t collecting certificates for a wall. I was building a framework I could trust, so my clients could trust it too.

Then came the naming, the branding, the figuring out what this thing was actually going to look like. I landed on Pen & Purpose Coaching because writing has always been my way through. Journaling has been my therapy, my mirror, my release. I wanted that to be woven into every part of the work. The tagline — You are the work. You are the reward. — came to me and just felt true.

Building the actual structure of the business came next: the coaching pathways, the methods, the session frameworks, the onboarding process. I created three core healing pathways: Reclaim for women healing from people-pleasing, Held for heartbreak and identity loss, and Unbound for recovery from narcissistic and unhealthy relationships. And the work kept expanding from there. I added Redefined for women who are ready to step into a reimagined future, and Flourish for women navigating the identity shifts and emotional transitions of midlife. Beyond the pathways, there are other offerings too… smaller, more intimate experiences for women who need something different in the moment. And because I’ve built a deep well of certifications and training across so many areas of emotional wellness and healing, I can also work with clients to create something personalized with a package that meets them exactly where they are.

Then I set up the pieces that make it real: the booking system, the client contract, the welcome experience, the social media presence. No website yet. I kept it simple. An email. A Linktree. A genuine voice. Even an audio podcast on Spotify and a digital store on Payhip where I sell digital journals.

The whole journey has been one of building while still being a human who’s healing, learning, and figuring it out. And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s the whole point. I’m not a coach who’s arrived at some perfect place. I’m a coach who knows the path because I’m still walking it.

Sharae, 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’m Sharae Hardy, a Women’s Self-Rediscovery Coach and the founder of Pen & Purpose Coaching. I work with women who have made it through something hard- a heartbreak that shook their foundation. A relationship that slowly eroded who they were. Years of shrinking themselves to keep the peace. They’re on the other side now, safe but a little lost. They’re out. They’re okay. But they’re not sure who they are anymore or what comes next. That’s exactly where I come in.

I came to this work the way most coaches do, through my story. I know what it feels like to lose yourself in a relationship. I know the quiet exhaustion of people-pleasing, the disorientation of heartbreak, the slow unraveling that happens when you’ve spent too long in an unhealthy dynamic. I’m not a coach who studied these things from a distance. I lived them. And I’m still doing the work, every single day. I journal. I heal. I grow. I struggle sometimes, too. That’s not a disclaimer. That’s the whole point.

At the heart of everything is writing. I’ve always kept a journal, and I believe deeply in the power of language to unlock what we carry inside. That’s woven into every pathway, every session, every tool I offer. Pen & Purpose isn’t just a name. It’s a philosophy.

My core offerings are five coaching pathways, each with its own proprietary method and a three-month arc held virtually via Google Meet or phone.

What sets me apart? I think it’s the combination of things that don’t always go together. I’m trauma-informed, but I’m not clinical. I’m professional, but I’m not polished to the point of being unrelatable. I use evidence-based tools like CBT, somatic awareness, nervous system education, and guided journaling, but I deliver them in a way that feels warm, human, and accessible. And I walk alongside my clients. I’m not above the journey. I’m in it too.

What am I most proud of? The women I work with. The ones who came in not recognizing themselves and left with something solid to stand on. The ones who started a session not knowing what they felt and ended it with words for it. That’s everything to me.

What do I want people to know most? That this work is for the woman who has already done the hardest part, surviving. Pen & Purpose is what comes next. It’s the space where you stop just getting through it and start actually coming back to yourself. You don’t have to have it all figured out to begin. You have to be ready to show up.

And if you’re reading this and something in you is stirring, that’s enough. Reach out. Let’s talk.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My resilience story isn’t a single dramatic moment. It’s quieter than that. And it’s still unfolding.

I started Pen & Purpose Coaching in my 40s, which already tells you something. This wasn’t a young woman’s leap of faith with nothing to lose. This was a woman who had lived, who had lost people she loved deeply, who was still navigating grief while trying to figure out what her life was supposed to mean now. Still catching herself people-pleasing in her own relationships. Still learning, in real time, the very lessons she was building a practice around.

That’s the part people might find surprising. I didn’t launch Pen & Purpose from a place of having it all figured out. I launched it from the middle of my own becoming. Some days were definitely more challenging than others.

But I kept going. Not because it was easy. Because it was purposeful. Because I knew that the women I was being called to serve didn’t need a coach who was perfect. They needed one who was real.

Resilience for me looks like building something meaningful while still being human enough to struggle with it. It looks like choosing purpose even when grief is sitting right next to you at the table. It looks like still being a work in progress at this stage of life and deciding that’s not a reason to wait.

I’m still healing. I’m still growing. And I’m still here. That’s the story.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For a long time, I believed, deep down, that being needed was the same as being valued. That saying yes, showing up for everyone, making myself available, making myself smaller, making myself whatever the moment required, was just what you did if you were a good person. A good friend. A good partner. I didn’t have a name for it back then. I just thought that was love.

What I know now is that it was people-pleasing. And it was costing me everything.

There was a season in my life, inside a relationship that I gave far too much of myself to, where I slowly stopped recognizing who I was outside of what that person needed from me. My wants felt selfish. My boundaries felt like conflict. My happiness felt like something I’d get to eventually, after everyone else was taken care of. Eventually never really came.

The unlearning didn’t happen overnight. Honestly, it’s still happening. I’m still learning to say no without guilt chasing me afterward. Still learning to name what I want and actually go after it without shrinking. Still figuring out what makes me genuinely happy and permitting myself to prioritize that. Some days I get it right. Some days the old patterns show up, and I have to catch myself and start again.

But that’s exactly why this work matters so much to me. Reclaim, my people-pleasing recovery pathway, was born directly from this story. I’m not teaching women something I read about. I’m walking them through something I know from the inside out.

The backstory is my life. And the lesson is still being written.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/penandpurposecoaching
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61584286223338
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/033hgjEpIA3BgN2okaw1tP?si=QalYZVmNST6LA2sGRbdTXw