I’m Glad You’re Here! Tracie Kutner-Merwitzer, MEd/EdS, Certified Life Coach & Hypnotist

In the early 1990s, I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Master's and Specialist's degrees in Counselor Education from the University of Florida because I knew I was meant to help people. Life took me on several detours, including becoming a mother to a daughter and two sons, helping my husband start and run two retail businesses, being a Mary Kay Sales Director, a Pure Romance Consultant and Sexual Health Educator, and becoming a Marine Insurance Investigator, Adjuster, and Manager of a small marine investigative firm. In every role I played, I used the counseling skills I learned. But deep inside I always knew I was a healer. I was meant to use my natural and learned skills and knowledge to help others.

It took finding out the episodes originally diagnosed as panic attacks were really partial temporal seizures to push me to take the leap back into the mental health field.

Like a caterpillar, starting with my own physical and mental health, I began spinning my cocoon, re-evaluating what was important, dissolving myself, healing past traumas, and discarding old coping strategies which had outlived their usefulness, and growing my wings as I crafted a more "on purpose," balanced life with a passion for helping others do the same.

I became a butterfly.

Now I am a Master Certified Life Coach and Certified Hypnotist. Through a variety of coaching and hypnotherapy techniques, couched in my mental health background and training, and from a holistic perspective, I help women define what their ideal, balanced life looks like and create it for themselves.

I believe we already know deep inside how to be the woman we want to be; like a caterpillar who has to completely dissolve herself to become a butterfly,  we also are BORN with our butterfly wings. We just have to go through our "messy middle" to find them! In my experience, a woman who has embraced who she truly is, and created the life she desires, also has the ability to create positive change in the world at large.

I am also a strong believer in the healing power of women in community. Women have been told for so long we should be able to do it all, on our own, and not complain. The truth is, we are so much better when we work together. The more we share, the more we find out we are not alone, the more empowered we become. This applies to everything from how difficult it is to get up in the morning and shower some days, to issues and concerns with our bodies that we have been too embarrassed to discuss, to parenting concerns and aging parent concerns. It is not only my desire to create a safe place for my clients individually, but also to create a safe community where women can support one another.

While my coaching/hypnosis practice is generally focused on people who identify as women, and I identify as cis-gendered and hetero, I and my practice are LGBTQA+, and always a judgement free zone for all races, ethnicities, religions, spiritual practices and lifestyles.