Elizabeth Perlman
I am a story coach. I support teenage girls, women, and gender-expansive people in the process of owning their story — reclaiming their power as the authors, creators, and heroines of their own lives — because
how you tell your story is how you live your life.
We are all storytellers. Everything we think, say, and believe is a story. But some of our stories are less empowering than others. Without realizing it, a lot of the stories we tell ourselves—silently, in our heads—can be quite painful and limiting. (I know this all too well.) It is through writing—and then sharing our words with a compassionate witness—that we "break the spell" of old, outdated stories, connecting to our unique talents and strengths and creating the life we’ve always wanted to live.
Whatever you're struggling with, whatever you want more clarity on, this kind of coaching can help. Through both talking and expressive writing (which includes list-making, cathartic rants and whatever you get to get off your chest!), I will lead you through a playful, creative process of reconnection: reclaiming your intuitive wisdom and rediscovering your own authentic voice. (Your wisdom and power has always been there! It's just that, as women, most of us have been trained to doubt or discount it.) The magic of the process comes from the fact that the answers are always inside of us—and we find them when we write.
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Every week for the past eleven years, I have had the great honor and happiness of writing with teenage girls, women, and gender-expansive youth through my organization, The Intuitive Writing Project. This is where I cultivated my coaching method, integrating the life-restoring kindness of the Amherst Writing Method with a life time of personal study and self-recovery work, exploring the connection between creative and intuitive development and the principles of transformative personal healing.
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Whether I'm leading groups or working one-on-one, I believe this is "my soul work," the work I was born to do.I am here to bear witness, to reflect back the unique magic and power I see in each person, and to support everyone in their own self-reclamation process. My job is just to ask a lot of questions and mirror back your own magic, shining a light on your brilliance till you can see it, too.
For me, I dream of a world in which we are all empowered to love, trust and express our most authentic selves, a world in which everyone is taken care of and everyone can thrive.
Story Coaching
Find your voice. Tell your story.
Women and girls are inherently magical, powerful leaders. Unfortunately, every female-person I've ever met has struggled with lost confidence. Because of my own struggles with self-esteem and self-trust, I know how painful it is, and also what it takes to heal and recover your voice. As e.e. cummings once wrote,“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch."
As I often tell my teens, I am not here to teach them or tell them what to do. I believe we are all the experts of our own heart and that my job is just to support each person in re-connecting to what she already knows—her own intuitive wisdom—and then to help her build the resilience to stay connected, to develop the inner-authority and self-trust she'll need to grow and thrive.
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Rate: $100/hour or $270 for 3 sessions
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To schedule a free consultation call for yourself or your child, email me here.
Career Coaching
Discover your strengths. Follow your heart.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive—and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive!” — Harold Thurman
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Because it took me twenty years to find my own path, I have spent a lot of time reading career books, working with career counselors, and journaling about the big, existential questions: who am I, why am I here, what are my strengths, and how can I use my strengths in service to others? In the process, I developed a series of self-empowering tools I love to share with anyone who's seeking more clarity or focus in their lives.
In this work, I draw upon wisdom from The Myers Briggs Type Indicator, The Enneagram, The VIA Institute on Character Strengths Test, Brene Brown’s “Dare To Lead” List of Values, The Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0, The Seven Personality Archetypes by Dr. Elizabeth Puttick, What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles, and various creative writing prompts, including questions about what you loved to play (and why) when you were between 8-10 years old, the years girls are most authentically themselves— before puberty wrecks havoc. Most importantly, I use my empathy and intuition to help each person recognize and "own" their unique talents and strengths and how they want to use them. (As it turns out, one of my unique strengths is my ability to recognize the unique strengths in others!)
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Rate: $100/hour or $270 for 3 sessions
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To schedule a free consultation call for yourself or your child, email me here.
College + Grad School Essay Coaching
Tell your story in a powerful way.
Essay coaching is about empowering each student to find their own authentic voice. I am able to do this by creating a safe, encouraging space for sharing and self-reflection. Then I mirror back what I hear, affirming each person's unique strengths and values as the heroes and heroines of their own life story. In this way, I am able to focus on the qualities colleges and universities value most including independent thought, self-awareness, emotional resilience, social intelligence, and personal leadership.
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This kind of essay coaching is about helping the writer think creatively and strategically about the most important experiences of their life—and then how to tell their story in a brave, inspiring way. Ultimately, my focus is on supporting writers holistically, to help each student speak their truth and feel confident about who they are and where they're headed.
I am proud to say that every student who’s written with me has been accepted into one of their first-choice schools, including Brown, Northeastern, Northwestern, Tufts, the University of Michigan, USC, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly, NYU, Rutgers, Haverford, Smith, Bryn Mawr, American University, Duke, and the Universities of Colorado, Oregon, and Washington.Truly, a well-told story can change your life.
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During the first session, we talk through, outline, and complete a first draft of the personal essay, which usually takes two hours.
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Subsequent sessions (especially with supplemental essays) can usually be completed in one hour.
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Rate is $150 per hour.
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Edits and revisions are offered via Google docs for FREE!
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The pace of our meetings will be determined by the writer.
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To schedule a free consultation call, email me here.
"You have done SO much for my daughter’s confidence and self-discovery through your appreciation of her writing and encouraging her to speak from her true self and her true voice. Thank you for providing her and all your young writers a safe place to be their real self without judgment!”
— Parent, Lamorinda, CA