My Story

Meet Renée

Meet Renée, your transformational guide in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Renée leads Cacao Ceremonies for rites of passage like birthdays, graduations, empty nest, career changes, marriage and divorce, and grief counselling.


A life-long spiritual explorer, Renée views all of life as a journey to expand and grow in love and gratitude.  Her biggest teachers have been the challenges she has met along the way, including depression, an eating disorder, emotional abuse and cancer.  She is now dedicated to helping other women transform their lives by releasing the baggage of the past so they can dream bigger, and turn those dreams into reality. Blending intuitive insight with grounded practicality, she guides her clients through transformational conversations and healing practices to find meaning and live healthy, fulfilling lives.

Renée'S STORY

My Spiritual journey began in childhood.  Stridently anti-religion, my mother felt her own mother had been taken advantage of by various churches. My attorney father worshiped at the altar of logic and reason. In search of depth and connection, I would invite myself to the religious services of all of my friends, from synagogue to Catholic Mass in Spanish.


While my material needs were met, what lacked was a sense of meaning, connection, and purpose. Unable to find a spiritual “fit”, by adolescence I concluded that I had a “hole in my soul” and took my angst out by binge eating and hair pulling. Clinically depressed, I went on antidepressants for a time and did my best to suppress my relentless drive towards spirit. I earned an MBA from London Business School and jumped on the corporate ladder.  However, a second bout of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after the birth of my daughter showed me that I was rushing 100 mph down the wrong road.  Ooops!

Finding A New Road

I quit my job, even though I had no idea what was next. For fun, I took a seminar in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and my calling found me (NLP was the foundation for Tony Robbins’ techniques). I discovered I had a natural talent for working with others and was amazed by the power of the transformational tools I was learning. They worked so much faster than anything I had experienced before. I felt a calling to help people free themselves from anxiety and unwanted thoughts and behaviors by healing the deep roots of their suffering. 


The tools I learned helped me finally end my own weight struggle. I had developed Binge Eating Disorder as a teen and even in my 30's still suffered from eating and body image issues. My new tools allowed me to fully heal. I worked with many during my 14 year run as a transformational life coach. Along the way, I created a podcast that quickly topped the Apple podcast charts called “Inside Out Weight Loss”. I authored a book called “Full-Filled: The 6-Week Weight-Loss Plan for Changing Your Relationship with Food-and Your Life-from the Inside Out”. I also earned a PhD in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) where my dissertation research identified three limiting beliefs that prevent healing, and the three empowering beliefs that hold the keys to healing.

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Knock Knock Who's There?

Cancer...

Cancer who?

Sh*t


That chapter of my life abruptly ended when my husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2015. Suddenly nothing else mattered. I shut down my practice and put all my resources towards supporting him. Madly in love with him since we met when I was 25, I was shocked to discover that the strain of the cancer journey revealed deep fault lines in our relationship. 


As his condition worsened, so too did his treatment of me. No matter how hard I tried to anticipate his every need and desire, it seemed like every move I made elicited criticism. I felt like a complete screw up. I had long held a limiting belief that I wasn’t good enough and didn't have a right to exist unless I earned it by pleasing others. Now, that belief was reinforced through almost every interaction with him.

Cancer as a Sacred Fu@&!#$ Teacher


Cancer showed up as a sacred fu@&!#$ teacher as I dealt with his condition, but it also showed up a second time as a scare for me several years into my husband’s struggle. I started bleeding vaginally and didn’t stop, for a month at a time.  I had one inconclusive biopsy, then another.  My healing mentor and friend Robert D. McDonald happened to call me shortly before my third, more invasive biopsy.  Within minutes of talking, the tears spilled out. I realized that life had become so painful that I didn’t want to live anymore. My body offered the phrase “death by a thousand cuts” to describe the cause of the bleeding. Each criticism and insult from Stephen cut a little deeper. Added together, I was bleeding to death. Until then, both Stephen and I reasoned that I didn’t have the right to have any complaints at all while he was fighting for his life.  It was all-hands-on-deck. Of course he was grumpy.  Look at what he was going through. How dare I ask for anything at all?


The conversation with Robert woke me up. Out of nowhere, I realized I actually did want to live, God D*mit! But not the way I had been living. Over the next months, Robert expertly coached me to start standing up for myself, with kindness and compassion for both Stephen and me. The first time I did this, I was utterly terrified of his reaction. This was the toughest thing I had ever done. My husband hated the changes.  After all, he asserted, I had caused his cancer in the first place (that’s another story, related to an ill-fated reality TV debacle). 


Nevertheless, I persevered because my own life was also at stake. My friends, who normally stayed silent, started speaking up about what they saw and urged me on. And my husband pulled out every trick he could find to get me back in line, including trying to disinherit me from his half of the marital assets. To that, I said “so be it”. I continued to love him and care for him until the end, but I set clear boundaries about how I was to be treated, or I would walk away.


It’s Raining Blessings


In the end, in those blessed last few days, when he finally accepted that he was going to die, he shifted. He told me he could finally see things from my perspective and forgave me. He died a beautiful death, surrounded by our two kids and me. 

My life started anew after that. I began to figure out what my own tastes were. I honestly didn’t know because I had always yielded to him or the strongest personality around (my father, my brother). I had to figure out some basics like how to run my own finances and how to finish a house under construction. It was then that the shamanic path called me to it and I began my formal studies. 


Today I blend the many powerful tools with my native intuition, including psychology, intuitive reading and healing, life coaching, NLP, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), The Destination Method, Rapid Rewire Method, and shamanism. I also blend my financial and real estate experience to bring  grounded practicality to my work. 

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Embracing Transformation: Blending Wisdom and Practicality

With a background in psychology, shamanism and business, Renée guides others to dissolve their limiting beliefs and achieve personal transformation. Her unique blend of spiritual wisdom and grounded practicality allows her to offer a holistic approach to her healing work. Her mission is to help others live authentically and overcome the obstacles that hold them back from a fulfilling life.


Renée holds a PhD in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and an MBA from the London Business School.  She has completed an intensive one-year shamanic training program and completed level 2 shamanic practitioner training with The Power Path School.  She has trained for two years as an intuitive (psychic) reader.  She has over a decade of experience as a practitioner of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), and is a Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).  She is Level 2 certified in the Rapid Rewire Method (RRM).  Her podcast, Inside Out Weight Loss topped the Apple podcast charts for several years, and she is the author of "Full-Filled", 2013, Simon and Schuster.


As you can see, she's a learning and personal transformation junkie, always studying something, and constantly mining her experience for spiritual lessons and growth. She speaks fluent Spanish.



Credentials & Asociations

Her intentionality and presence supported me in reconnecting with myself in a very grounded way.

Suzanne Berens

Thank you Reneé!

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