Claire is a woman of many talents and passions, many of which she draws on in her role here at CFEH. Her first passion, and the one she’s been at the longest professionally, is growing food. Claire graduated in 2009 with a Bachelors in Ecological Agriculture from the University of Vermont, and ever since then has been engaged in growing food in some capacity. She ran her own small CSA and market garden in Central Vermont fresh outta school, she’s interned and worked on organic farms both domestically and internationally, and even spent time as a private organic gardener for a couple seasons here in Maine at a 2 acre permaculture garden at a private residence. Now Claire keeps her own flock of laying hens, she built and maintains our Forest Garden at the CFEH headquarters, and she also grows row crops for the Forest Garden Farmstand on a large plot out in Arrowsic, ME. When you attend a gardening workshop or a workday at CFEH it’s our home office and Forest Garden where you get to learn and dive deep with Claire into what it is to be a caretaker of and connect to the Earth.

 

After a few years of farming, Claire became a licensed massage therapist and manual lymphatic drainage therapist (because why not?!), practicing massage and lymphatic drainage now for over 8 years. During that time she received specialized training in Oncology Massage from Isabell Adkins at Massage Therapy Institute in Davis, CA. Because of that specialized training, she was hired to work as the oncology massage therapist in the bone marrow unit of Sutter Hospital in Sacramento, CA. An experience that still deeply informs much of the work she does now, with us, at CFEH.

 

During her time in the bone marrow unit, Claire spent countless hours with patients who had been given little hope for a healthy future. Claire felt honored to provide relief and relaxation to these individuals, and also heartbroken as she watched the western medical system fail them time and time again. After losing patient after patient to some of the most aggressive forms of cancer,  Claire couldn’t stand by and watch people fail anymore, she had to do something. She knew there was more we could do to care for our bodies than what we were being told by our western medical system. At the same time that was happening, Claire was navigating her own health journey where she was beginning to heal her gut, regulate her blood sugar, heal her food sensitivities, and uncover the root cause of her fatigue, skin issues, and decrease in overall vitality. So, in light of all this, Claire sought out health coaching training and in 2019 received a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach Certificate from the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. She then sat for her boards that same year and became a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach.

 

For the next two years, from 2019-2021, Claire worked as both a massage therapist and a health coach in her private practice in Freeport, ME. During her health coaching sessions she was finding with client after client that it didn’t matter how much empowering information they received, how much incredible work they did to create their own wellness plan, or how much they felt they wanted a change, if they didn’t believe they were worthy, they plateaued. It became clear that if we don’t feel love for ourselves and treat ourselves with unconditional positive regard, then making positive change is a slog. So in 2021 Claire shifted her coaching focus from lifestyle modification to begin supporting people more in changing their mindset around themselves, and healing old emotional wounds that were keeping them stuck in old patterns, so that they could finally succeed in making the lasting changes they were wanting.

 

How did she do this? You know, it’s funny, since Claire was a teenager people have been telling her she’s an old soul, wise beyond her years. Since that time she’s been engaged in her own journey of self discovery, learning from great leaders and teachers like Brene Brown, Peter Crone, Tony Robbins, Louise Hay, Eckhart Tolle, and more. It’s from these teachers, her clear connection to Source and her intuition, and her practical lived experience, that Claire developed an emotional healing framework called Intuitive Emotional Healing. (There’s a much longer story about how that process evolved, and if you want to hear that, hop on over to our What Is Intuitive Emotional Healing page.) So now, at CFEH Claire is our Intuitive Emotional Healing Guide offering workshops, programs, and one on one sessions to aid all humans in discovering deep love, connection, and fulfillment as they dive deeper into their own healing journey.

 

When you put all these things together, growing food, caring for our bodies and our Being, as well as deep emotional healing, you get Claire’s project that she calls Healing Your Human. Her mission reads “Aiding you in creating loving relationships with yourself, your body, and the Earth.” So that’s what Claire does here at CFEH, she aids all of us in reconnecting to the beautiful beings that we are, the awe-inspiring ecosystems we dwell in, and the bodies that carry us through this incarnation. She’s our relationships person, a communicator, and a deep feeling heart person, and we couldn’t do it without her.