Today we’d like to introduce you to Clarice Paulson.
Hi Clarice, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My business began as an extension of my own healing. After struggling with disordered eating throughout high school and undergoing hospitalization and residential treatment for bulimia, I realized how deeply people need support not just with food, but with the thoughts, emotions, and self-worth that surround it. That experience led me to become a certified life and weight coach through The Life Coach School in 2020, and later, a trauma-informed coach through Moving the Human Spirit in 2023.
What started as a personal recovery journey became a professional mission—to create a safe, individualized coaching space where clients can untangle their beliefs, reconnect with their bodies, and build lives that feel intentional.
Over the years, I’ve grown my practice to focus on disordered eating recovery, emotional wellness, and mental clarity. My coaching is deeply personalized, grounded in both lived experience and professional training. Today, I support clients in building sustainable habits, strengthening self-trust, and creating change that lasts—not just in their relationship with food, but in every part of their lives.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
With anything, the best things come from struggle. My own personal journey is ongoing, and you might think it would be harder for me to coach others through severe eating disorders, disordered eating, depression, or anxiety without being triggered. But coaching has actually been a safe space—for me, and from what I can tell, for my clients too. When I’m in session, my own experience is set to the side. I’m able to show up fully for them, while still holding an empathy that comes from lived experience.
Clients often find relief knowing that I’ve been through something similar, even if our stories are different. There’s a shared understanding that builds trust and safety. Coaching isn’t about reliving my own past—it’s about using what I’ve learned to support others in their present.
One of the ongoing struggles has been wearing all the hats: showing up for clients, while also running the business—marketing, managing finances, and building a brand. Another challenge is navigating misconceptions. Having lived experience with an eating disorder doesn’t make me a clinician, and I’m clear on those boundaries. I’m a certified, trauma-informed coach—not a therapist or dietitian—and I take care to work within my scope while still offering deep, compassionate support.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
My business is rooted in helping people feel safe in their minds and bodies again. As a trauma-informed life coach, I specialize in helping individuals with their thoughts around food, emotional wellness, and helping clients untangle harmful thought patterns so they can live with more confidence, and self-trust. I work 1:1 with clients in personalized coaching sessions that focus on their specific goals—whether that’s healing disordered eating, learning how to process emotions in a healthy way, or just actually thinking about their thoughts every day.
What I’m known for is creating a space that feels both grounded and personal. I’m not here to fix people—I’m here to walk with them. The work we do is collaborative, honest, and intentional. I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all healing. My clients know they can come as they are and be met with compassion and given the space to go through what they are going through.
What sets me apart is a combination of lived experience and relatability. I’m 24 (almost 25) years old, and that matters more than people realize. A lot of moms reach out to me on behalf of their teenage daughters because they know I’ll “get it”—I understand what today’s girls are facing, extreme pressures from the diet culture that is still so heavily saturated and the ever persistent thin-ideal. College students feel like I actually know the pressure they’re under, because I’ve lived it too. I’m not coming from a removed, clinical place or thinking I know more than they do—I’m coaching from right here, alongside them. Life coaching isn’t about giving advice—it’s about creating space for you to hear yourself, make aligned decisions, and build the life that feels most true to you.
Brand-wise, I’m most proud of the integrity I bring to every interaction—showing up authentically, creating a safe space, and holding the belief that healing doesn’t need to be perfect to be meaningful and powerful. My current focus is on 1:1 life coaching, offered both in-person and virtually, with an emphasis on emotional regulation and thought work grounded in a holistic mind-body-spirit approach. I’m also in the process of creating a recovery course to reach more people, and I’m pursuing my birth doula certification—just for fun—to hold space for women in another important chapter of their journeys.
If readers take away anything, I want them to know this: Life can be lived intentionally and vibrantly—the work is part of the journey, and it’s exciting to become yourself fully. You can learn to trust yourself enough to grow through whatever you’re facing, discovering real purpose and your deepest self-truths along the way.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Spending warm summer months in lush Gig Harbor, WA with my two older sister and younger brother; we’d catch crabs under rocks, paint the sand dollars that would wash up on the rocky shore outside our home, and never say the water was cold as we learned to waterski in the Puget Sound.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://balancedrecovery.coach
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachingbyclarice/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarice-paulson
