About
I didn’t lose my light all at once.
It dimmed slowly, over years through moves, through playgrounds where mean girls taught me that standing out wasn’t safe, through a grandmother who meant well when she told me to pretend it didn’t bother me.
So I pretended. But it still bothered me.
That early lesson — that being fully myself made others uncomfortable — became a pattern I carried for decades without realizing it. I got good at being reasonable. Agreeable. Analytically sharp. I built a career in tech as a UX researcher, studying how people interact with technology. I was good at it. I filled my calendar, stayed busy, optimized everything.
And felt empty anyway.
The turning point wasn’t dramatic. It started with tidying: clearing out objects that carried old energy, including remnants of a past relationship I hadn’t fully released. As the physical space cleared, something else shifted. Life reorganized. I met my husband. I found a new home. My body started to change. The busyness gave way to something quieter and more honest.
What followed was years of going deeper. Transforming my health from the ground up. Learning to move, to nourish, to rest. And then deeper still into emotional clearing, inner child work, energy work, and practices that most people don’t talk about in professional bios.
I talk about them anyway. Because they worked.
Here’s what I’ve learned to trust: I only share what I’ve personally lived. Not studies I haven’t validated. Not experts I haven’t tested against my own experience. As a researcher I’ve seen too many times how data gets misrepresented and how “evidence-based” becomes a way to outsource your own discernment to someone else’s agenda.
My renaissance didn’t come from following the right program. It came from learning to trust myself again.
That’s what Renaissance Rachel is about. Not a guru. Not a prescription. A fellow traveler who’s a few steps further down a road she’s still walking and sharing what she’s finding, in real time, and inviting you to do the same.
I am not perfect in any conventional sense. I am growing every day. I do the work on my language, my patterns, my energy, my presence. And I’ve come to understand something that took years to feel true:
My light dimming wasn’t a failure. It was survival. And I’m safe now to let it shine.
So is yours.
Where are you on your renaissance journey?
We’re not all wired the same way and that’s the point. The Renaissance Spectrum helps you understand your natural cognitive style: whether you lean analytical, intuitive, or already somewhere in between. Knowing where you are is the first step to consciously choosing where you’re going.
✨ Take the Renaissance Spectrum Quiz
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The Renaissance Rachel newsletter is an ongoing conversation about reclaiming your internal authority across technology, wellness, creativity, and relationships. New issues arrive regularly, written from inside the journey, not above it.