.nutshell
I’m Michele Lisenbury Christensen. I bring infectious joy. Incisive intelligence. Broadband spiritual connection. A luscious, sensual presence. I’m soulful but irreverent. A gregarious introvert. And a discipline-free yogini.
My point in being here is to awaken spiritual bliss in the everyday. That, as Simon Sinek would say, is my Why. I live it every day by helping people I adore to create ease, pleasure, profit, and love in their worlds. My quick brain and born-with-it coach-healer-sage groove help me change lives and businesses quickly, so we can mostly just enjoy hanging out together.
.coach
I’ve coached a lot of people since 1997, all over the world, including stay-at-home moms, bestselling authors, artists, professional athletes, and tons of corporate executives and business owners.
I’m the coach leaders seek when they want a quick mind and a clear voice of truth on their side. Clients say I understand their business quickly, tells them the things no one else will, and remind them of the larger purpose behind the work they do.
Women, in particular, say I inspire their connection to the divine feminine, compassion for themselves, and sweeter intimacy with their loved ones (whether they’ve met those loved ones yet or not).
It’s deeply fufilling to me to be the presence in people’s lives that helps them make the changes they most want, have more fun, build wealth in every way, and give and receive love in huge ways.
.biz
My business background started in middle school, when I began working for my family’s international logistics company. With early and long experience in a hard-driving, primarily male field, I am a powerful coach for men and for women immersed in intense environments. My corporate background spans operations, finance, marketing and sales, and organizational development. By my early 20’s, I was responsible for negotiating complex $100 million contracts with steamship lines.
.soul
My spiritual development began with visits to fundamentalist churches with my grandparents as a small child. I knew God, and my experience didn’t match what I heard other people saying about sin and hell. I taught myself to meditate inside an empty refrigerator box when I was eight, and found “The Book of Ki: Co-Ordinating Mind and Body in Daily Life” in an Asian grocery store when I was twelve. I trained my mind to focus and my body to calm (I’ve slept soundly on a Greek bus full of chickens and loud music, among other places!) and my spiritual training and transcendent experiences continued from there. I’ve been a yoga practitioner since 1998 and a yoga teacher since 2003. Today, my spiritual connection feeds me as I move through a busy life as a mother, business owner, transformational coach, and vibrant romantic partner. My connection gives me a ground from which to guide and support you to be divinely fed in ways that work for you. My clients are Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Baptist, Wiccan, agnostic, and “spiritual but not religious.” I can meet you where you are, too.
.mama mojo
Since I started trying to conceive my first child in 1996, I have been immersed in and fascinated by the journey from woman to mother and all the power, vulnerability, emotion, and intimacy that journey entails. Even before I was on that path myself, I intuitively knew and loved this process and supported a number of clients through these passages. In my own experience, I have blossomed as a wife, come into my body in an entirely new way, rewritten my relationship with work, money, and time, lost my sense of sexiness and juice, and earned it back. Conscious conception, conscious pregnancy, ecstatic birth, turned-on motherhood, and pioneering engaged fathering, receptive mothering, and better-than-ever marriage after children… these are all part of my path and part of my passion with clients.
.credentio-rama
I earned a Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in Economics and Business Leadership. My Master’s Degree in Psychology is rooted in the 5000 year old tradition of Yoga Psychology. I’m the author of “Brain Yoga for Lasting Change: Using Yoga Psychology to Transform Your Habits and Your Life” which merges ancient Yoga wisdom with contemporary Western research on the neuroscience of change. It’s cool, if you want something to be change for good.
My interest in catalyzing others’ career and personal potential drove me – in my early twenties, no less – into a career in transformational coaching, leadership training, and writing. Thomas Leonard, the father of the professional coaching field and an early mentor of mine, called me“23 going on Yoda.” I was among the youngest coaches ever awarded the Professional Certified Coach credential by the International Coach Federation.
A leader in the coaching field for more than 13 years, I am a senior faculty member at CoachInc., the largest coach training organization in the world. My work has been featured in print and broadcast media from the Puget Sound Business Journal to Consulting Today and the UK’s “Today” show equivalent, “This Morning with Richard and Judy.”
.produce
In addition to being the co-founder of Working with Power and c0-discoverer of the 12 Elements of Power, both with Sara Harvey Yao, these are some of the creations of which I’m most proud:
- The amazing Elements of Feminine Power Retreat Sara and I have delivered together nine times and counting.
- My book “Brain Yoga for Lasting Change”
- The year-long program “Success Made Fun” I created with Michael Neill.
- My audio programs “5 Minute Meditations”, “Your Business Can Be a Spiritual Path”
- Sara’s and my “White Space: The Only Productivity Tool You Need” audio program.
- “Succeeding Without Side Effects: Burnout-Proof Your Leadership and Life,” my forthcoming book with Sara Harvey Yao.
.personal
I’ve been married to my best friend Kurt Christensen since 2000 and we were happy to welcome Cooper to our family in April of 2008. The three of us love both the comforts of the house we designed and built in Seattle and the adventures we share, like trekking in Patagonia, visiting archeological sites in Turkey, and kayaking in Alaska.
I love Anusara Yoga, dancing my ya-yas off, Seattle’s year-round farmers’ markets, writing at Neptune Coffee, whipping our garden back into shape after remodeling our 1942 house, reading 3+ books a week (all kinds!), and parenting Cooper (and myself) with the Steiner/Waldorf approach.
.connect
I tweet (sporadically, to be sure!) at @lisenbury. I blog about whatever I want at awakeandgrinning.com. And if someone thinks I might be able to help their business, their life, or both, I serve first and ask questions later, so contact me any time.