Meet the Holistic Health Coach Who Works With Women of Color to Achieve Their Dreams
When your business’ success depends solely on how much work you put in, and you find yourself playing the roles of social media manager, CEO, customer service rep, and warehouse manager at the same time, it can be hard to make the time to look after your mental health. If we constantly forget to prioritize health, how can we ever be ready to face whatever terrifying task or daunting meeting our iCal throws at us the next day?
That’s where Kitty Wu, holistic health coach and founder of Kitty Wu Coaching comes in. She was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was just two months old. She and her family lived just outside Philadelphia, but Wu grew up with strong ties to her Asian roots: “I had Asian friends, went to an Asian church, and had dinner with my family every night.”
Being part of a minority group with a different culture than the one around her made her stand out, and it was something she was reminded of often. “As women of color, we have a unique set of experiences around growing up a minority, being treated differently, and having a different ethnic cultural identity from the majority of the culture around us. I believe that to step into our full potential in our health we need to identify and heal any limiting unconscious beliefs around these unique experiences.”
Her career took a few different turns before finally realizing that holistic health coaching was her calling in January, 2021. Since then, she’s dedicated her time to helping women of color heal any unconscious limiting beliefs they might have in order to manifest their healthiest potential. “Pain will show your superpowers”, she says. She works hand-in-hand with her clients to help them integrate all areas of health into their daily lives, however busy those might be.
“Stop getting in your own way,” she says. “Business is a game of self-awareness.”
Need help building a fitness plan that fits your busy lifestyle? She’s got you. Need help establishing clear goals for your personal growth and your business? Yep, she can help with that, too. Wu has built her platform and successful business by helping entrepreneurial women of color achieve their goals and overcome anxiety and burnout, but her own career path wasn’t always so clear. After doing the painful and hard work of healing her own trauma, she realized what brought her joy: helping others achieve their own goals. Working through the pain and trauma of her childhood helped her become the best version of herself, so that’s exactly what she’s trying to do for her clients.
“Most entrepreneurs have a certain level of self-awareness and discipline,” Wu writes on one of her Instagram posts, “but arguably the hardest part of the business is still ourselves, specifically getting in our own way.”
It’s true, I’ve experienced it firsthand with my own business. Realizing that I won’t meet the goals and numbers I had planned for any given month tends to send me into a panic, trying to frantically fix a month’s worth of work in a few hours. Instead of my usual panic, though, Wu recommends slowing down and listening to our intuition in times of deep stress.
It’s hard not to get caught up in the all-or-nothing mentality and the never ending feeling of needing to do more, but it is important to learn how to take a step back and acknowledge the emotions that we are experiencing in times like these, according to Wu.
“We react emotionally as a defense mechanism when our ego feels threatened. Most people attempt to step back from the situation and suppress their feelings in order to avoid reacting emotionally, when in reality, analyzing those feelings can present some of the best opportunities to learn more about ourselves,” she says.
Despite the fact that much of her work revolves around mental health and healing trauma in order to achieve our goals, Wu is very clear in one thing: “coaching isn’t therapy.”
Sure, they can complement each other, but a holistic health coach’s job is to help with things like breathwork, meditation, journaling, and dealing with emotions. “Therapy is a healing process, while coaching provides clients with guidance and direction in their lives,” says Wu.
When asked what are some ways she recommends entrepreneurs start their own journey of healing and holistic health, Wu suggested finding a job or business venture that aligns with one’s calling. Taking the time to figure out and develop whatever natural skills you might have will pay off in the future. “Stop getting in your own way,” she says. “Business is a game of self-awareness.”
