2011 - 2017: A dynamic tenure in community building at Yelp gives way to a meteoric professional trajectory in brand and marketing. One day, in 2017, the COO I was working with pulled me aside and said, ”Rachel, your strategy work is out of this world, but I need you to slow down a bit in stakeholder presentations – you’re forgetting that not everyone is gifted like you are.”

Gifted?

The word resonated through my body; some cosmic gong that shook me to my core.

Today, I’m indebted to that manager for his use of the word, because “gifted” was the missing link, the hidden key that helped me (re)connect with my inner world, my unseen differences, and my distinct expression of human intelligence.

At the time, I was a career-oriented dynamo navigating intensen burnout and positive disintegration. The more I fought to hold it together, the worse it all got.

A lifelong self-guided learner, deep thinker, and next-level curious being, it was clear that I was (finally) going to have to turn all of my high-horsepower cognition, curiosity, and inquiry toward the most personal subject of them all: myself.

Why was I so unhappy, regardless of how much external success I achieved? Where were my motivations coming from, and were they even my own? And why was understanding it all cognitively not enough? Why was I experiencing these weird, nebulous physical symptoms that specialists and scans couldn’t diagnose?

First forms came in the form of pathologies and labels, providing temporary relief and opening doors to… more doors, and more questions.

Gifted, and exceptionally/profoundly so. Autistic. ADHD. CPTSD. Aphantasia. Synesthesia. PDA. Highly sensitive, oriented to achievement, and “everything everywhere all at once on the inside” meeting force dynamics, a Cartesian disconnect, and an unconscious prioritization of representational intelligence.

While hard to swallow initially, these labels helped reflect and frame the constant alienation and frustration I had experienced throughout my lifetime. They also provided me with an invitation to get curious, to explore my sense of self, my consciously held identity, and the lack of understanding I was carrying around about what it meant to be human – to be the same, different, and completely distinct, all at once.

Questions led to more questions and depth led to deeper depths. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t easefully or easily find answers, and was led into places in which I learned to make friends with discomfort and unknowing. I learned to dive into and explore my own sub- and unconscious, restoring the physical-existential connections of being human, one step at a time.

Neuroodivergence (neurocomplexity) in the context of neurodiversity was the missing lens through which the rest of my experience could be viewed in proper context. During this rebirth/rediscovery process, a previously hidden talent emerged: my incredible strength in journeying into unknown territory in both the inner and outer worlds. By learning to embrace my unique brand of neurocomplexity while tending to the health of my soma, psyche, and spirit, I learned to balance those worlds, creating harmony and coherence.

The entire experience showed me what my work in the world truly is: I’m in the “business” of nurturing the full spectrum of human intelligence – common, different, and completely distinct at once.

My work is category-defining and meta, focused on aliveness, transformation and expansion, evolution and growth. I work with the living dynamics of human intelligence, of our inner and outer worlds, the relationship between the known and the unknown, seen and unseen. My foundations go beyond reductionism into holistic inclusion, honoring reciprocity and interplay, mutual influence and learning. My focus is on the relationships between story, state, and meta-awareness, on how humans operate and co-create with themselves and each other.

I’m at my best as a thought partner and collaborator to leaders, visionaries, high-achievers, creatives, mystics, and gifted, neurodivergent, and neurocomplex folks.

I’m a guide and (very non-traditional) coach, consultant, facilitator and educator who walks with her clients in creating more flexibility of perception and embodied cognition. I’m an intellectual-existential type who will twist the prism of perspective alongside you, again and again, asking provocative and pragmatic questions while offering incredibly thoughtful reflections, insights, and possible paths forward, nurturing both your capacity and confidence.