Iris Fernandez Valdes

Inviting you to be real with yourself and real with each other, I help you grow the courage and calm required to generate well-being as you define it. Holding a perceptive, thoughtful, and warm presence, I promote curiosity – a place for you to strategically play and compassionately challenge yourself and be positively transformed in the process. Together we get to the bottom of who you are and what you seek and then develop a game plan that feels manageable and productive, building your confidence along the way. In our coaching sessions, my goal is to move alongside you while getting out of your way, supporting your wisdom and expertise of self to step into the spotlight and take the wheel. My STEM education comes together with a deep appreciation for storytelling arts and a personal mindfulness practice to foster refreshing and thought-provoking conversations that help establish clarity, shed old and draining habits, and curate an energizing and inspiring lifestyle that only you could dream into reality. Graduated from Brown University with a degree in Computer Science (B.A.), I am a Wellcoaches Certified Health and Well-being Coach (WCHC) and a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC). I am also a teacher, speaker, and facilitator increasing awareness in the coaching field about the intersections between Trauma Informed Care and DEIJB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Belonging). Personally, to live is to dance; I embody wellness in relationship with harmony, poetry, and rhythm. I’m passionate about healing intergenerational trauma in community with people we love while doing things that fulfill us. As a queer Puerto Rican self-actualization is a political statement, and my vocation is to champion coaching as a tool to promote community organizing and self-determination. My transgender experience informs my core belief that we can all reclaim our deepest sense of agency and write our story. I am a survivor of suicide ideation and am building decentralized grassroots networks of mutual trust to prevent suicide by collectively destigmatizing the will to die and amplifying the will to live.