Hello, Eldest Daughter...

Eldest daughters often struggle with minimizing our own needs because we feel guilty putting ourselves first. I believe self-prioritization begins the moment we stop justifying our own wants and needs.

This work moves at your pace, because changing patterns of behavior established in childhood should be done with care, and is a non-linear process.

It's not about abandoning your responsibilities or the people you love—it's about creating space to honor your needs while still showing up for those around you. You'll have a supportive container to explore, practice, and grow. If that feels resonant or helpful to you, I'd be honored to work together.

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Why "Deepening Creatures"?

"Deepening Creatures” means becoming more of who we truly are. It means learning more about what we want, what we don’t want, what we believe, what we question.

By deepening, we become a version of ourselves that is not dictated by external validation or cultural norms, but through discovering ourselves for ourselves. Deepening can mean getting in touch with our grief, with what we have lost, it can mean feeling our anger or our fear. It can mean discovering more of what brings us joy. And by deepening into who we are, not who we have been told to be, deepening is an act of resistance. It is not always easy, but in my experience it is always worth it.

The name Deepening Creatures was inspired by the Farandolae, ancient microscopic beings who Deepen in order to become who they are meant to be, in Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wind In The Door.

Even More About Alissa...

Thank you for exploring this work with me. It is meant as my offering to others, a way to contribute to the act of becoming more deeply who we are—individually and collectively. As a coach, my role is not one of advice-giver, director or decision-maker for my clients. Rather, I act as a thought-parter, a mirror, a container for my clients to be deeply heard and fully seen. These practices allow my clients to more deeply sense into their beliefs, knowings, questions, ideas and answers.

I come from a lineage of eldest daughters. I am the daughter and grand-daughter of eldest daughters, and I'm raising one.

I’m trained as a coach through the Mind Rebel Training Program, which is certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). I have a Master’s in Leadership for Sustainability, from the University of Vermont. I wrote my final paper on letting go of perfectionism and desire for external validation, and practicing letting go of control and increasing internal validation, through, in part, recognizing and following my own emotions. (Yes, it WAS a lot, and no, it's not your typical leadership program!)

A child of the Upper Great Lakes region and a Midwesterner at heart, I currently live in beautiful northeastern Vermont with my husband and two kiddos.

A few of my favorite things include:

Being alone in the quiet darkness of the early morning, before anyone else is awake.
Rolling in the snow after sitting in a hot, hot sauna.
Watching the sunrise over my favorite lake in Minnesota.
Lying in bed reading.
Long, intense conversations with my dearest friends.
Spontaneous, loud, uncontrollable laughter.
Flourless chocolate cake.
Pondering the true nature of consciousness.

These are some of the additional beliefs that inform my work:

Everyone is capable, whole, creative and resourceful. We all have answers and intelligence inside, and we can all benefit from having a trusted person as a sounding board to help us discern our truest and most authentic wisdom.

Many of us, particularly women, are taught from a young age that what we do, who we serve, and how we look give us our worth. We are taught to receive validation from something or someone outside ourselves. Because of this conditioning, it is an ongoing process to validate ourselves and see our needs and wants as worthy from an internal perspective.

Sometimes, cultural expectations and institutions strip us of identifying, knowing, and claiming our unique desires. We are given a script to follow that tells us what we are supposed to want. Trained almost since birth to set aside desires our caregivers deem inappropriate, we become accustomed to prioritizing desires marked as appropriate by broader culture, our caregivers, friends, and partners. Often, we are so accustomed to functioning this way that we do not even notice it is happening.

And finally, these lives of ours are fleeting, temporary. No one is going to claim our desires, dreams, wants, and needs for us. No one can give us a feeling of true self worth except ourselves.