Why “Ascendance”?

Ascendance: the act of rising or moving up, or the state of being in a higher position

The name of my coaching business ultimately stems from my own experiences of rising beyond surface-level expectations of myself and my body and moving toward embodiment.

I imagine myself in 2016 looking forward to now, in 2025. At the time, I was just getting into exercise and had started making changes to my eating habits, believing body transformation would give me peace. I was so fed up with what I saw in the mirror, and I thought I knew the ultimate solution: just lose weight. Simple. Yet that journey led me to more pain and lessons than I could have ever anticipated. It also led to growth, empathy, and compassion far beyond what I would have been able to access in the absence of those experiences.

I mistook my struggles to meet my own high expectations for weakness. I was stuck in a cycle of disordered eating, thinking that if I could just get myself to be more disciplined, I would finally reach my goals. Now I understand that my body was simply protecting me, but I did not have the wisdom to acknowledge that and move forward. My mistake was thinking that I needed to transform my body when what I really needed was to transform my relationship with my body and myself.

Over the years, I experienced ascension from pain into wisdom —just as the phoenix in the Ascendance Coaching logo symbolizes. My younger self could never have anticipated where I would end up or the type of coach I would become. I aim to foster an empowering sense of self-efficacy in my clients—one that does not capitalize on insecurity but instead acknowledges the pain and discomfort that people often come to coaching to escape.

The conventional coaching model, which places excessive emphasis on appearance, weight, macros, and discipline, simply does not satisfy me. Rather, I want to move forward with a coaching model rooted in compassion, curiosity, and reflection. This is my mission for Ascendance.