Christie Ellis is a Positive Psychology coach who works with women who have survived hard things, built a life, and still feel miserable, exhausted, or empty — and can’t figure out why. Certified through the University of Pennsylvania, she is the founder of five companies featured on the Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, Harper’s Bazaar, and the New York Times.
At 32, I sat my husband down and told him the pain I was living in was on an egg timer.
I had been in pain for five months; a migraine that never stopped. I had developed dementia. There was a day he had to pick me up from work because I was afraid I would get lost on the way home.
I was in the first months of the best job I’d ever had, Chief Operating Officer for the first time, and I was hiding all of it from everyone around me.
The diagnosis eventually came: neurological Lyme disease. Treatment followed and my health came back, but I was not the same person who had gotten sick.
During that time I met a man in his late twenties who had glioblastoma and two small children. He knew what was coming and roughly when.
We talked the way people can only talk when there is nothing left to perform — about what makes a life worth the pain of living it, about who we are when achievement is no longer available as an answer.
What he understood, and what he gave me, was this: we are all dying. That part isn’t a choice. The only question any of us actually gets to answer is who we want to be while it’s happening.
I have never stopped thinking about that, or him.
Before I got sick, I measured my worth almost entirely by what I could produce.
The hours I could work, the problems I could solve, the titles I could earn; Dementia took all of that away, and what I found underneath it was that I was still here; still someone; still worth something; completely apart from what I was able to do.
That realization didn’t come from a book. It came from having to ask, at 32, the questions most people don’t face until they have no choice: What is the value of my life? Who am I if not my mind? How much joy does a life need to be worth living?
When I came out the other side, I went looking for the science behind what I had survived. I trained in Positive Psychology at Penn, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, CBT, and somatic interventions like vagal nerve stimulation. What I found was that joy is not a reward you earn when the work is done — it is a practice, specific and learnable, that changes how your brain operates. Ten minutes a day. That practice became Joyful Life Design.
Who I Work With
You’ve been holding everything together for so long you’ve forgotten you’re allowed to put some of it down.
Some women arrive here after something cracked it open: a loss, a divorce, a diagnosis, kids leaving home, perimenopause. The event didn’t create the problem. It just made it impossible to ignore.
Others never had a single moment. Just pressure building so slowly they almost didn’t notice, until one day it was more than they could carry alone.
I am not afraid of what you’re carrying. I’ve already been to the place you’re afraid to look. And I found my way back. Found joy. Not as a concept. As the only option that embraces how big, beautiful, messy and heartbreaking life can be.
That’s what I offer you.
“Christie is a coach for the zombie apocalypse — capable of fighting off all the monsters while making tea and bringing a blanket for her clients. Both fearless and comforting. One step ahead, thrashing through the marshes and making the way so that someone can follow the path.”
Today Show (NBC) · ABC World News Tonight · Harper’s Bazaar · New York Times
5x Founder. Four still running.
Certified in Positive Psychology — University of Pennsylvania
Certified in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
Somatic interventions including vagal nerve stimulation
iPEC Certified Coach · ICF Member
Credentials
Frequently Asked Questions
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Christie Ellis is a Positive Psychology coach who works with women who have survived hard things, built a life, but were never taught how to be happy. Certified through the University of Pennsylvania, she integrates Positive Psychology, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and CBT into a whole-person approach to building joy from the inside out.
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Christie works with women who have survived something hard and built a life on the other side of it — but were never taught how to be happy. They are accomplished, deeply capable, and exhausted by the performance of it. Some arrive after a major life event cracked things open. Others hit a wall slowly, under pressure that built so gradually they almost didn’t notice. Both arrive at the same place: a life that works on paper and a person who is done running it the way she has been. If that’s where you are, you’re in the right place.
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Christie works with clients one on one, weekly, in 50-minute sessions with between-session support and a daily ten-minute practice customized to each client's life. Her method integrates Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, CBT, and somatic practices including vagal nerve stimulation. The focus is not on Christie's idea of what you need. It is on what you want, and what is standing in the way of it.
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Christie has built five companies across five industries. Four are still running. She has been featured on the Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, Harper's Bazaar, and the New York Times. She has lived the experience her clients are in: high achievement, deep responsibility, and the discomfort of a life that looks right but doesn't feel that way. She is not afraid of what you're carrying. She has already been there.
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Christie is a synthesizer and a pattern recognizer. She sees quickly what most people can't see at all. And she is completely fearless — comfortable sitting with your scariest thoughts and feelings for as long as it takes to find a way out of them together.
"Christie is a coach for the zombie apocalypse — capable of fighting off all the monsters while making tea and bringing a blanket for her clients. Both fearless and comforting. One step ahead, thrashing through the marshes and making the way so that someone can follow the path." — Shawn R., Son-Rise Mom, Memoir Editor
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Schedule a free call. If Christie can help you, you'll both know it quickly. If she can't, she'll tell you that too.