Hi! I’m Nicole Marshall Concha,
Your Liberated Life Coach. Through radical (and supportive!) life & body coaching, I’ll help you reconnect with your Inner You.
Fat is not a feeling.
But compassion, care, and courage are – and that’s what I’ll help you reconnect with here.
I get it. You’ve tried all the weight loss schemes and exercise routines. You’re feeling stuck and probably pretty down on yourself for not having yet figured this out. Maybe you even believe you’ve let down others.
“If only I had enough willpower/discipline/self-control,” your critic is scolding.
You’re surrounded by predatory messages that reinforce the scam of the beauty “ideal,” all in the name of “health,” and in the process, the distance from your Self has only grown.
It’s so exhausting, isn’t it?
I just want to hold space for you here for a moment. Take a deep breath. Give yourself credit for making it this far. Think about how brave it is to care enough about yourself to be here and to be willing to learn something new.
I’m so glad you’re here, because ever since I had my own a-ha! moment, I knew it was my mission to empower folks to develop their own balanced relationships with food, their bodies, and themselves.
Can I share that story with you?
Here’s what I’ve learned:
worth is not earned.
We are worthy by virtue of being human.
I’m Nicole Marshall Concha (she/her), a mental health counselor-turned-your Liberated Life Coach. I have a combined 20 years of experience in trauma therapy, family and group counseling, social work, child welfare, Intuitive Eating, Body Trust®, and Internal Family Systems. (Whew!)
I also have a lifetime of experience in a marginalized body. That may be why I knew from a young age that I wanted to work in psychology and in a helping capacity. Prior to doing my own healing work, my entire experience with body image, confidence, and identity was fraught. I remember being bullied as a fat kid and praying to be thin. I “succeeded” at this for some years in my 20s, when I was engaging in disordered eating behaviors.
Because I correlated my worth as a person with my appearance, I was only ever as good as others allowed me to be. Regardless of my physical size, I never felt comfortable taking up space or expecting to receive what I needed. So, when my weight inevitably fluctuated, so did the attention, care, and treatment by others. But praise for being thinner never lasted for long, and when there was no praise, I felt unlovable.
It turns out that diet culture is a thief.
And I let it steal my time, money, and happiness for far too long.
Like you, I used to think that once I was in a smaller body, I would finally start to feel happy. It started with a “goal weight,” then it became about “maintaining” my weight, all the while having to reach a new, ever-elusive fitness target, and finally, a consultation with a cosmetic surgeon to have my “excess” skin removed.
But it turns out that however we try to alter our bodies, it never leads to the Happiness Summit we imagine. That’s because we’ve been deliberately distracted and misled by diet culture, the ultimate grifter.
Life is definitely easier in many ways when you’re in a smaller body, and fat people cannot be blamed for wanting a piece of what is owed to us but is routinely kept from and leveraged against us. But I can honestly tell you, from lived experience and work with many clients over the years, that happiness isn’t achieved through external means; it’s received through being present.
For me, this work started as my own healing process, but it quickly connected me to something much greater. It’s an individual journey and a matter of social justice, which became acutely urgent for me when I became a mom to my two amazing daughters.
This work matters for me, for you, for my girls, and for the state of the world, now and for future generations. I’m so grateful to share it with you.
My values are my promise to you.
The Liberated Life Coach is founded upon…
Presence
You will never be alone on this journey, which is a mutual commitment to make the most of our precious time and produce the best outcomes. I promise to show up and be completely present in our work together, and you will notice progress when you do the same.
Love
Caring for ourselves, our bodies, and each other is an act of love and is of primary importance in this work. In order to create and maintain a safe space in this community, all are welcome and accepted as they are. Judgment will not be tolerated.
Empathy
As a Highly Sensitive Person who has worked with many other HSPs, I know how empathy can feel like both a blessing and a curse. I choose to see it as a superpower. When you are driven by intuition and compassion, good things come from you and to you.
Autonomy
You are the expert on your body and your life. Tuning out external cues like numbers, rigid plans, and “should” statements in favor of reconnecting with your instinct and inner self is the only way to truly be free.
Action
Let’s start making plans for your life that don’t include diet culture. Set clear intentions, create a purposeful plan, take decisive steps, and create a space that you can follow through. Be bold and take risks when they are worth it! Along the way, understanding the harm of weight stigma and its oppressive roots as an ongoing social justice issue will inspire action.
Abundance
Achieve peace in your body by providing yourself with plenty of food, care, flexibility, and support. Manifest the good things in life and suddenly you will see them all around you. Share and be generous, and you will establish yourself as someone ready and willing to receive all that life has to offer.
And one more thing:
this is about self-compassion, but it’s also completely about social justice.
While changing your perspective about yourself and your own life is a big, powerful part of the work we do here, it by no means solves the bigger issues in our culture.
It is totally understandable that many of us who live in larger bodies consider, aspire to, and participate in intentional weight loss, because we know that aspects of life in our culture are made much easier for people who are thin (and white, straight, cisgender, male, and so on).
You won’t be shamed for that here – but we also can’t stand for it.
Fatphobia, weight stigma, and systemic oppression (of fat people, BIPOC, women, transgender and nonbinary folx, and other marginalized identities) loom large in our culture, and that’s why activism has to be part of this work as well.
It’s time to stop “shoulding” all over yourself
Tune out those external directives and reconnect with your Inner You.
Done with hearing about what you “should” be doing? Ready to reclaim your voice? Feeling your wise Self bubbling to the surface?
If I’m the cheese to your macaroni, the glaze to your donut, the mustard to your potato chip (yeah, I said it), then what are you waiting for?!
We all have stuff to work through, and none of us can do it alone. You already have what you need to get to where you want to be – let me guide you through uncovering it.
