hi :) i'm

NICOLE
TORRES

Burnout & Leadership Coach

Trauma-informed somatic healing and coaching for ambitious BIPOC leaders and mission-driven teams ready to create sustainable success - without the burnout!

I'm the coach who names what's really going on with burnout — it's intersectional, somatic, and systemic — and my work is to guide you or your team from survival to aligned liberation.

FROM BURNOUT TO BREAKTHROUGH

Over a 13-year career, I landed my dream jobs at top billion-dollar media and streaming companies. On paper, I was crushing it - educated, experienced, hitting goals, climbing the ladder.

On the inside? I was a hot mess. Exhausted, frustrated, and misunderstood.

I was raised to believe if I worked harder, I'd succeed. I'd be seen, appreciated, rewarded. But once I got inside those companies, I was usually one of a handful of women on the team - and almost always the only Latina. Microaggressions were excused as misunderstandings... My nervous system started to freeze under pressure.

I pushed through for 10 years, trying to "be successful." Each time I hit a new milestone, the joy was... short-lived. Mostly...empty. Nothing like I thought it would feel. I got really good at repeating my own pattern: over-achieving, anxiety, stress, overwhelm, crash, shame spiral- REPEAT.

At the time, I didn't know how much I was carrying: first-gen trauma, systemic oppression, sexism, workplace trauma, and imposter phenomenon. I anchored in to "working harder", doing more to BE MORE. I didn't know how to regulate my nervous system - I didn't even know that was a thing!

No one was coming to save me. Honestly, I didn't even know what I needed - I just knew something had to change.

Our ancestors struggled so we could have a better life. We ARE their prayers answered. And still, when we're "the first" to carve a new path towards generational wealth and safety, it's incredibly hard to navigate a life that's not created from the same fear, survival, or scarcity mindset they might have modeled for us.

If you are - or want to be - the cycle breaker in your family too.. Welcome! You're in the right place, amiga.

SERVING WOMEN OF COLOR

My approach honors a hard truth: systemic oppression affects women of color differently and disproportionately.

Meanwhile, a lot of mainstream coaching and spirituality "gurus" gloss right over it - bypassing real pain with "love and light" or "how bad do you want to change" rhetoric, only to cause more harm.

As a woman of color I experienced those spaces and thankfully a few that made me feel welcomed and understood with little explaining on my end.

This is why it became so important for me to pay it forward and create similar spaces where women of color can be and express authentically - without being spiritually bypassed, without carrying the burden alone, and without shrinking themselves or their own pain into a more palatable or "less aggressive" tone.

Here, you get judgment-free empathy, sisterhood, amigahood, and real support from someone who gets it.

MY APPROACH

My own healing led me to dive into - and then train in - the healing modalities that supported the biggest shifts of alignment in my life. Reclaiming the connection to my body and intuition has been the most important - and the foundation of my coaching.

I gently guide clients through the somatic experience - which is simply connecting with their bodies - to trust what they're feeling and bring intuitive, emotional, and physical awareness to the ways extreme stress and trauma affect us.

My work is grounded in nervous system regulation, polyvagal theory, and cognitive behavioral coaching, inner child healing, and internal parts work - using both "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to move through the emotions and triggers that come up.

As we unravel the internal knots, I weave in energy work when necessary to help release what you've been carrying from past hurts. Energy healing is gentle and non-invasive - and unlike some talk therapy, it often doesn't require you to re-live the hard stuff.

Being trauma-informed means I move forward gently and meet you exactly where you are. I know there's more to real change than "positive thinking." My role is to hold space for the weight that systemic harm has placed on first-gen and women-of-color clients - and to remind you that none of it was your fault. I hold that weight with you, and I help you keep going.

My vision is a world that normalizes healing - one that no longer shames us for having feelings, being vulnerable, or choosing a different way. We're not "too much," and there's nothing wrong with us for wanting better. Let's build lives so full of joy that we get to live our ancestors' wildest dreams.

Let's work together

BOOK MY CONSULT

EDUCATION & TRAINING

"When our thoughts, words and actions match - we are living in alignment! But first, we must feel safe to do so."

My deepest love and gratitude to the teachers, healers and brujas who came before me - especially my mamma - my greatest teacher.

Dec 2023 - Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certification, The Embody Lab (60-hr training with leaders in the somatic field: Peter Levine, Deb Dana, Dr. Ruby Gibson, Manuela Mischke-Reeds, Nkem Ndefo, Dr. Arielle Schwartz, Dr. Scott Lyons, and more)
May 2023 - The Art of Healing Relationships: Resolving Trauma & Restoring Connection, Trauma Solutions (Dr. Diane Poole Heller & Terry Real)
Feb 2021 - Left film/TV career to pursue Ouroboros Healing full time
Oct 2019 - Certified Advanced Akashic Records Reader
2019-2020 - Training in Transpersonal Spiritual Coaching
July 2019 - Certified Emotion Code Practitioner
Jan 2017 - Certified Usui Reiki, Level 1

HEALING IS NOT LINEAR, IT'S CYCLICAL.

The Ouroboros

[or-uh-BOR-us]

The Ouroboros [or-uh-BOR-us] is one of the oldest known symbols, with roots tracing back to Egyptian iconography - even found in the tombs of King Tutankhamun.

The Ouroboros represents transformation - the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth.

Lore says, the serpent feeds on its own tail when it's gone too long with nothing left to eat. It can sustain itself and become its own source of life and strength - or it can consume itself too quickly and cause its own destruction.

I chose the Ouroboros because it reflects a choice point - one we all face in life - which is to decide if we will be our own source of power, or be consumed by the circumstances - whether they be of our own doing or not.

We face that choice again and again, because healing, growth, and evolution aren't linear. They're cyclical.