My Story

I’m an explorer at heart — curious, analytical, and endlessly fascinated by what makes us tick. I love hiking with our dog, traveling, spending time with family and friends, and learning everything I can about health, consciousness, and human potential.

I’ve been married to the love of my life for 38 years and am a proud mother and grandmother. Motherhood has been my greatest teacher — a mirror, a challenge, and a profound source of joy. Some lessons came easily; others arrived through heartache and grace. All of them deepened my faith in transformation and the quiet power of love and compassion.

Like many women, I’ve had seasons that cracked me open, personally and professionally. Those moments led me toward the work I do today: helping others navigate change with curiosity, compassion, and resilience.

My Path to Coaching

Before becoming a life coach and board-certified health coach, I spent almost a decade in healthcare management where I served on the executive team of an acute-care hospital, leading medical-staff programs that supported collaboration and education. Later, my husband and I co-founded a national commercial construction company that grew to nearly 50 employees, where I laid the foundation for finance, IT, legal, HR, and operations. It was rewarding work, but also demanding.

Like many women balancing career and motherhood, I carried a lot — deadlines, long nights, and the invisible load of caring for everyone else. Chronic stress became my normal, and over time I began to see how easily even the most capable, well-intentioned women can lose connection with their own health and energy.

I also have ADHD. Like many women of my generation, I wasn't diagnosed until well into adulthood. There was no hyperactivity, no obvious signs. Just decades of wondering why consistency, follow-through, and the gap between knowing and doing felt so much harder than they seemed to for everyone else. I ran on determination and all-nighters, and paid a real physical price for it.

The diagnosis reframed everything — not because it gave me an excuse, but because it finally gave me a place to look. I stopped trying to out-willpower a nervous system that was wired differently, and started actually working with it.

What I've learned since is that how you care for your body changes the game entirely. Sleep, nutrition, movement, and managing stress have done more to steady my focus and energy than anything else I've tried. Not as hacks or workarounds — as foundations. The research backs this up, and so does lived experience.

The same brain that made certain things harder also drove me to earn an MBA, build a business from the ground up with my husband, and ultimately pursue this work. When it came to building the infrastructure of our national construction company, I didn't just manage it, I thrived in it. The ability to hold complexity, see across systems, and make connections others miss isn't incidental to ADHD. For me, it's been central to it.

ADHD isn't a superpower in any simple sense. But dismissing it as just a deficit misses the whole picture. It's a different kind of wiring — one that, when you stop fighting it and start understanding it, can do things other brains genuinely struggle to do.

That's the intersection I work in now — the place where understanding your brain and supporting your biology together create the change that willpower alone never could. It's why I'm particularly drawn to women who are smart, capable, and still mystified by why certain things feel so much harder than they should. Diagnosed or not.

My lifelong interest in wellness, psychology, and behavior change eventually led me deeper — into functional medicine, mindbody science, and the understanding that self-compassion, not self-criticism, is what truly restores balance.

Today, I help women 45+ rebuild that connection to vitality, using science, curiosity, and compassion as the foundation for sustainable change.

What “Rooted in Being” Means

Rooted in Being reflects the foundation of my coaching philosophy: sustainable health begins when we reconnect to our deepest awareness — the calm, steady part of ourselves that exists beneath constant thought and striving. From that place, choices align naturally with what the body and mind truly need. My work helps women return to that grounded state, where change unfolds with clarity and ease.

What I Believe

True change begins with awareness — not willpower. We can’t hate ourselves into healing. Self-compassion is the foundation of growth.

My approach is rooted in curiosity, kindness, and partnership. I don’t tell you what to do; I help you uncover why things feel out of balance and how to create sustainable change that fits your life.

In Joy and Health,

Suzanne

Education & Training

M.B.A., St. Mary's College, Moraga, California
B.Sc., San Francisco State University
NBC-HWC, National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach

Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor - 10 month program, Functional Nutrition Alliance (see end of page)

Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, Functional Medicine Coaching Academy — 12-month certification program developed in collaboration with The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM).

FMCA/IFM, 2021–2025, selected to coach physicians and healthcare professionals through FMCA's Coaching Advancement Initiative.

Certified Life Coach - 8 month program, Martha Beck International

Tiny Habits Certified Coach - 8 week behavior change coaching program created BJ Fogg, Stanford Behavior Scientist, and Linda Fogg-Phillips.

Some of My Additional Training/Coursework

Professional & Advanced Training Programs in Mind Body Medicine - The Center for Mind Body Medicine

Journey of Intrinsic Health - 8 week course with Zach Bush, M.D.

Cultivating Compassion Training - 8 week Stanford University program taught at Spirit Rock Meditation Center

…plus countless meditation retreats and day-longs.

Member, Institute of Coaching, Professional Association - MacLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School Affiliate.  (The Institute of Coaching was established in 2009 with the mandate to cultivate the scientific foundation and best practices in coaching.)