I didn’t set out to become a leader or a coach.

When I discovered my job was destroyed in the Lahaina fires and my entire life had changed in a single day, I was in shock. I remember sitting out by the pool at my apartment, grilling with coworkers because the power had been out all day, and everyone needed food. That’s when the news started coming in. More and more people showed up, saying the fires were bad.

Eventually, I decided to take a walk to see for myself. I saw thick black smoke rising from Front Street in Lahaina. My heart sank. I had no idea how devastating the fires would end up being—cell service cut out before they began, putting us in a media blackout—but I realized then that it must be bad. My daughter said her eyes were burning. I felt it too. The wind was making it too difficult to get any closer. We turned back.

When I was walking back towards my apartment, I ran into a close friend who had barely made it out alive. He told me they had less than 15 minutes to escape — and that everything was in flames. He said he doubted there would be anything left of Front Street or the Lahaina Luna neighborhood. As far as he could tell, it was leveled to the ground.

Over the next 24 hours, the reality set in. We drove around looking for cell reception and found it at one spot on a beach. I called my friends back to let them know that I was alive. A friend who was leaving for two months offered us his place as a temporary safe haven. With a sudden scarcity of resources, it was actually the most helpful thing that I could do at the time—not be an additional burden to the already strained system. But I couldn’t forget about the hundreds of people sleeping in cars and on the street, or my friends who had lost everything. I felt a strange kind of survivor’s guilt. I kept asking the Universe, asking Maui… How can I help? What can I do?

Leadership and coaching were the answer.

I didn’t become a coach because I wanted to. I became one because I had no other choice.

Thirteen years ago, I got sober by looking in the mirror and begging, “God, please help me.” The Universe answered, and I finally stayed sober after years of trying and failing. Five years into my healing journey, I felt called to help others heal, too. I made a pact with Mother Earth: I asked Her to make me a healer. She asked what I would offer in return. I told Her my life in service. She accepted — and from that moment on, my life was no longer just my own.

My process wasn’t born in a classroom; it didn’t come from coaches or certifications. It came from real-life initiation: surviving trauma, emotional abuse, spiritual crisis, and the kind of darkness that swallows most people whole. I built my program from the ground up, forged in the fire of experience. It’s not something you’ll find in books or trainings. It came from those long, sleepless nights and countless prayers, when I cried out to the divine for a way through, and the guidance came.

When the Lahaina fires displaced my daughter and me, I knew I couldn’t go back to how things were. It wasn’t even possible. I asked again, How can I help? And the answer was clear: Start now. Share what you know. Start your business. Build a program.

While I had already begun building my coaching program, the fire and everything that followed gave it shape, purpose, and power. I did not fully understand the value of what I had to offer before. The fires gave me clarity. It’s not just about resilience. It’s about alchemizing trauma through the soul.

My flagship course, Rise Above, isn’t therapy — and it’s not just mindset work, although mindset is part of the journey. It’s a step-by-step process I created through divine guidance and lived experience — a holistic path that weaves mindset, nervous system regulation, soul healing, and intuitive self-leadership. It teaches people how to walk through fire (literally or figuratively) and come out stronger, bolder, clearer, and more aligned.

I don’t teach resilience as a concept. I embody it. And now I offer it to those who are ready to rise, too.

XOXO,
Juniper