What You Can Expect in Our Work Together

When you step into a session with me, you’re not getting some polished, perfect version of a coach who has it all figured out. You’re getting a real human who’s navigated her own messy transitions, who’s cried through the hard parts, and who won’t pretend that transformation is pretty or linear.

This isn’t traditional therapy where we analyze your challenges from a comfortable distance. We get real, we get vulnerable, and we practice new ways of being together in the messiness of actual relationship. I’ll lovingly challenge you when needed, and I expect the same honesty from you. You’ll discover what it feels like to be truly seen and heard, not the sanitized version of yourself, but the raw, complicated, beautiful truth of who you are.

Each session is tailored to whatever messy, complicated thing you’re navigating; whether that’s perimenopause making you feel like a stranger in your own body, relationships that have you questioning everything you thought you knew about love, or that deep, uncomfortable knowing that the life you’ve been living isn’t actually yours.

We don’t just address surface symptoms. We dive into the deep end of the patterns that keep you stuck, the stories you’ve been telling yourself about what you deserve, and the ways you’ve learned to make yourself small to keep others comfortable.

The Transformation You Can Expect

The women I work with don’t just report feeling “better”, they describe feeling like they’ve finally come home to themselves. They stop apologizing for taking up space. They start having conversations they never thought they could have. They learn the difference between being nice and being kind, between keeping the peace and actually creating relationships worth having.

This work changes everything because when you finally stop abandoning yourself to keep everyone else comfortable, your whole world shifts. The people who were draining you either step up or step back. The relationships that survive get deeper and more real. And you? You finally get to show up as who you actually are instead of who you think you should be.

Meet Leah Martinson: From Invisible to Empowered

I’m a Somatica-trained coach with degrees in Psychology and Integrative Health Coaching, but honestly? My real credentials are the years I spent feeling completely lost, the nights I questioned whether I’d ever figure out how to trust myself, and the slow, sometimes difficult process of learning to listen to my own inner wisdom.

I’ve walked this path myself, from chronic people-pleasing to something that actually resembles authentic living. I’ve navigated divorce when I could barely navigate my own emotions, figured out single motherhood while questioning every decision, and survived early perimenopause when my body felt like a complete stranger.

I lived for over three decades as a ghost of myself, trying to squeeze into boxes that felt like they were suffocating me. I followed every rule, checked every box, and still felt empty inside. I was that woman who said “yes”' when I meant “no”, who smiled when I was dying inside, who believed that being “low maintenance” was somehow a virtue.

I was chronically anxious, constantly reactive, and kept choosing relationships that drained the life out of me because I genuinely believed I should be grateful that anyone would put up with my mess.

Everything shifted when I had my daughter. Becoming a mother while recognizing that my marriage was no longer serving who I was becoming made it clear that something fundamental had to change. Looking at my daughter, I realized I couldn’t model what I didn’t know myself, how to live authentically. The decision to leave was one of the hardest I’ve ever made, but I knew I had to choose the uncertain path of rebuilding over staying in a relationship that had become wrong for both of us.

Leaving my marriage as a blind woman with an infant felt like jumping off a cliff without knowing if there was ground below. But staying felt like dying slowly, and I knew I couldn’t model that kind of soul-crushing compromise for my daughter. So I jumped. Navigating single motherhood while learning to trust my own judgment was its own profound transition. I thought the hardest part was behind me.

I was wrong.

When My Body Forced a Reckoning

At 36, while rebuilding as a single mother, my body began signaling another major shift. Severe anxiety, night sweats, hot flashes, brain fog, mood swings, insomnia all seemingly out of nowhere.

For years, medical providers dismissed me, with responses that lead me to feel as though I was being too dramatic about what I was experiencing. Supposedly, I was “too young” for perimenopause. It was just stress. I needed to exercise more, maybe try some antidepressants. I started wondering if I was losing my mind, if maybe they were right and I really was just falling apart for no reason.

The truth is, if men went through perimenopause, we’d have comprehensive research and immediate treatment. Instead, women suffer in silence, dismissed by a medical system that ignores our experiences.

When I finally found providers who took me seriously, I realized that healing this transition required more than just addressing the physical symptoms. It meant completely re-imagining my relationship with my own body and trusting my experience even when others questioned it.

The Path to Real Healing

Through my training in integrative health coaching and the Somatica method, I learned true healing addresses both physical and emotional aspects of transitions. The Somatica approach taught me that transformation happens through real relationship, with myself and others. Rather than just talking about changes, I learned to experience them in my body and practice new ways of being in authentic connection.

My additional training in trauma-informed practices, bodywork, and mind-body medicine allows me to support women through the complex intersection of midlife transitions. Whether that’s perimenopause, divorce, career changes, empty nest, or other significant life shifts.

Today, I live with intentionality I never knew possible. Do I still get triggered? Absolutely. Do I still have challenging symptoms? Sometimes. The difference is I’m aware of what’s happening in my body, I have tools to support myself, and I course correct quickly.

Why This Work Matters

I believe these major transitions aren’t just challenges to endure, they’re opportunities when life forces us to reckon with decades of putting ourselves last. My approach combines embodied awareness with relational healing, helping women reclaim these challenging transitions as pathways to profound personal empowerment through deepening their connection to themselves and others.

The women who find their way to this work aren’t broken, we’re just strong women who learned to be everything to everyone while completely abandoning ourselves. We’re tired of shrinking, tired of apologizing for our needs, tired of relationships that require us to be less than who we are to keep everyone else comfortable.

If that sounds like you, and if you’re ready to do the real, messy, transformational work of coming home to yourself, I see you. And I’d be honored to walk this path with you.

Ready to Begin?

If you’re navigating any major life transition; whether your body is doing things that make you feel like a stranger to yourself, your relationships have you questioning everything you thought you knew about love, or you’re just tired of living someone else’s version of your life, transformation is possible.

Your experiences matter, your instincts are valid, and you deserve support that honors the full complexity of who you are. No sanitizing required.

Ready to stop abandoning yourself to keep everyone else comfortable? Let’s get real about what it means to actually live your life instead of just surviving it.

Interested in working together? Fill out some info and I will be in touch shortly. I can’t wait to hear from you!