I’ve been told that I’m easy to talk to, and I hope that’s true of me as a coach. I’m here to make it easy on you to be yourself so that you can choose to do something hard. I spent a lot of time putting effort into things that weren’t right for me because I didn’t trust my own thoughts and instincts. My hope is to use that experience to ease the way for you.
I Stopped Fighting Myself
Six years ago, when we were forced into isolation, I found myself already there: living alone on a farm in the boonies, hiding from the world inside a body that was almost 400 pounds. I wanted to be different, but I was exhausted from trying and failing. I’d lost weight plenty of times before. I’d tried who knows how many diets. They all worked. They all left me miserable from doing things I hated – obsessively counting calories, giving up all the foods that brought me joy, and exercising to the point of pain and exhaustion. It was a fight I couldn’t win.
Without meaning to, a friend showed me another way. She had a new job as a nanny, and every day she’d put the baby in a stroller and walk for miles. Weight started to come off with what seemed like no effort at all. She was just being herself, making changes where they fit into her life rather than changing her life to fit a diet. I saw that and wondered, how might I do this in a way that doesn’t make me miserable?
I had been telling myself, “I can’t do this again. It’s too hard.” When I finally listened to that voice and stopped forcing myself to do things I didn’t want to do, I realized it didn’t have to be the way it had always been. All the energy I’d spent fighting myself could instead go toward changes that actually worked for me. I could do the hard work without the resistance. Somehow it felt full of effort but effortless at the same time.
I Faced What I Truly Wanted
Something else happened when I started listening to my own voice. Clearing away what I didn’t want brought to light deeper truths about myself and desires long denied. When I looked into my center, who I was and what I wanted became undeniable.
It had always been there, that version of myself who dreamed of a different kind of life. If I acknowledged it at all, I assumed it would live forever inside my own mind and never become a reality. But when I noticed how listening to my internal voice created change in my outer world, it was like giving myself permission to pursue something more. The harder I listened, the louder it became, until it issued a demand: Live your life as you truly are.
I Lost Myself While Seeking Connection
Isolation had provided the quiet I needed to hear my own voice and the safety to make those first changes toward becoming myself. What I craved was connection, and that was much more dangerous.
When I started dating for the first time in two decades, I fell back into the same patterns from when I was much younger. All I knew from that period of my life was how to respond to what someone wanted from me. My own needs and desires didn’t matter. To be loved I had to be somebody else. So I spent the next few years fighting another battle between being me and contorting myself to fit what someone wanted me to be.
I barely knew who I was going into my first relationship. I didn’t trust my gut feelings. How could I trust my thoughts with so many voices all shouting at once, at war with each other? I lost a little bit of myself every time I shut one out. With my own mind pulling me in so many different directions, it felt easier to let myself be steered.
The irony of life is that sometimes what we do to keep ourselves safe puts us in a more dangerous position. I learned that lesson the hard way, when my relationship ended in a moment of violence. Sometimes we have to be pulled off center to find our way back again.
I Found My Way Back to Center
When that relationship was over, I felt like a bird who could finally unfurl her wings and fly.
Metaphor aside, the changes happening inside of me as I healed were undeniable. My body relaxed, and I realized how tense I’d been. My gut unclenched. My heart opened. If I had listened to my body from the beginning, I might have left sooner. But my body’s signals had been drowned out by all the voices of all the parts trying to protect me. I learned not to silence them. I learned to be the centered Self that hears them all and accepts their lessons and takes care of the whole. I stopped fighting myself.
My Centered Self has called me to coaching. My purpose is to help my clients live their lives as their whole, beautiful, messy, complicated selves. I want every woman to know the strength she has to do hard things and the wisdom she has to do them in a way that’s not so hard.
Heather Hearn
March 10, 2026
A bird flies low over water at sunset.
The water lends its stillness to the bird,
easing its flight home.