"There is nothing as whole as a broken heart.”
~ Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
Holding that paradox as the ever-present current beneath the surface of life is a felt sense that came alive in me early—not all at once, but in endlessly spiraling layers.
My curiosity has always been drawn to the patterns through which transformation unfolds. My path has wound from the outer layers of textile, costume, and image, through the inner life of character, story, and theater, into the innermost territories of deep spiritual practice. The culmination of this lifelong devotion informs the holistic coaching I offer today.
The Invisible Curriculum
There is a quality of attention that can only be earned through lived experience: through crossing cultures, continents, and entire ways of being; through building, dismantling, and rebuilding a life more than once; and through intimate proximity to both birth and death. That quality of attention is what I bring into every coaching relationship.
My journey was not linear. I was born in Istanbul—where East meets West across the Bosphorus—into a Sephardic lineage that knew, in its bones, what it means to survive rupture and begin again. I grew up in the aftershocks of that history, spending much of my youth getting into trouble. Yet I was held by the pull of the creative impulse in all its mercurial forms, and driven by the enduring question of what it means to be fully human.
Living the Question
As a young artist fascinated by the relationship between inner reality and outer form, I studied textile and costume design in London. Returning to Istanbul, I founded an award-winning designer label, wrote on the symbolic imagination, created layouts for Harper’s Bazaar, and designed for theater, film, and music.
As the city around me stripped itself down to ideological certainties, I moved in the opposite direction—adorning multiplicity and weaving it into form.
Even then, I was practicing the art of holding paradox without forcing a resolution.
Presence, Rehearsed
In the late 1990s, I moved to New York City. I completed the conservatory program at the Atlantic Theater Acting School, trained with the Saratoga International Theater Institute, and performed in off-Broadway productions—including plays of Beckett and devised ensemble theater—as well as PBS productions and films screened at MoMA and Sundance, while also sharing my own writing on stages like The Moth.
Theater taught me far more than performance. It taught me how to remain present in my body, listen beneath words, move through intensity, hold complexity, and question certainty—capacities that fundamentally shape my work as a coach.
Receiving the Teachings
Not long after arriving in New York, an unexpected phone call shifted my trajectory. I was invited to transcribe the teachings of a Kabbalah teacher in exchange for receiving them. I accepted without hesitation.
What followed was a thirteen-year immersion in a rare amalgam of early Hebrew and technical Kabbalah, Chassidus, alchemical theory, and the living doctrines of non-duality.
The structure, discipline, and depth of formal spiritual practice gradually reorganized my relationship to life.
The Coach Before the Title
During those years, I also entered the contemporary art world as a curator. Over the course of curating more than a hundred exhibitions across galleries, art fairs, and residency programs worldwide, I collaborated with thousands of artists—from emerging voices to internationally renowned figures.
Yet my work was never only logistical or aesthetic. Again and again, I found myself helping people move through uncertainty, clarify vision, overcome creative blocks, and bring their work into alignment with who they were. Long before I called myself a coach, I was midwifing what wanted to emerge.
Hermitage and Humility
When my teacher withdrew into retreat, I followed in his footsteps, moving into a tantric hermitage in the Midwest where he had once trained in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition. There, I lived in semi-retreat for another thirteen years. My outer life became radically simpler while my inner life revealed an ever-deepening richness.
During that period, I taught young children and cared for hospice patients—the bookends of human life. Sometimes I held a newborn in the morning and sat beside someone taking their final breaths that same afternoon.
Accompanying people through thresholds where sound first takes shape and where it returns to silence taught me how to soften into what is, meet vulnerability without looking away, and hold profound transition with tenderness and clarity—stripping away any remaining interest in force or formula.
The Doorway
And still, I encountered an anguish that lay beyond anything I knew how to meet. Earlier therapy had been valuable, but it had not reached this layer.
Core Transformation® became the doorway.
Through it, I came to recognize that every fear, compulsion, protective pattern, and rejected part of ourselves is a portal through which another facet of our intrinsic wholeness is revealed. At the core of every strategy of self-concern lives a natural state of inner peace, love, presence, and fullness longing to be realized.
This naturally led me into The Wholeness Work® which reaches even subtler layers of the unconscious, gently restoring what has been split or exiled back into the whole of who we are.
Experiencing how directly these processes access and integrate the elusive dimensions of the psyche was a profound homecoming. Training to guide others through them became less a decision than a natural unfolding that had already begun.
The Practice of Becoming Home
People often come to me with what they have carried alone for years—even within intimate relationships.
You may arrive having spent years understanding yourself, improving yourself, or trying to transcend yourself—through therapy, personal development, spiritual practice, or sincere effort. You may have genuine, hard-won insight, and yet still sense that your deeper structures have not shifted—that the same patterns quietly reassert themselves beneath everything you know.
That is the layer where my work lives. Together, we allow your inner world to reorganize itself from the inside out. Not by analyzing it endlessly, reasoning with it, overriding it with willpower, or bypassing it altogether—but by meeting it directly, with precision and warmth, until it finds its own way home.
This is why people also entrust me with their professional and creative challenges. Having built an award-winning designer label, established a professional acting career in New York City in my second language, developed an international curatorial practice spanning four continents, published a body of written work, and created consulting frameworks for both startups and established organizations, I understand the architecture of vision and the inner landscape of the creative process.
I know its uncertainty, vulnerability, rapture, and demands. I understand what it costs to bring something authentic into the world, the loneliness that leadership can bring, and the realization that external achievement does not resolve inner conflict. Our unconscious patterns shape every conversation, decision, relationship, and opportunity we either cultivate or undermine.
An Invitation
Whether you are navigating a life transition, a growing business, a creative frontier, a relationship, or a return to yourself after a long detour, I walk alongside you—not as someone with a map, but as someone intimately familiar with the terrain.
I offer a treasury of precise and proven methods to transform what is stuck into aliveness. An ear for what is truly at play. A deep trust in the unknown. And a willingness to remain in and as the question.
What if the wound itself is the doorway?
The broken heart—forged in the struggle to inhabit the paradox of being human and discovering essentiality within it—is both the threshold and the offering.
What Clients Are Saying
“Thank you so much! I really value your help.”
∞
“…And you know what, it’s really upped my pickleball game! A noticeable difference! I don’t get stuck in that mindset of being perfect in every play.”
∞
“It’s been over a month and I’m still feeling so good and so light. I love Core Transformation. It really has made a big difference in my life, and of course having such a great facilitator.”
∞
"Tchera is elegant and thoughtful. Her experience with both technical and the artistic side of life are masterful and uplifting!"
∞
“Struggling with a deeply rooted issue for years, I was haunted by a persistent, self-fulfilling prophecy that seemed to affect me profoundly. The Core Transformation process is deep and kind, and under the intuitive, graceful, and compassionate guidance of a coach like Tchera, it turns into a magically transformative journey. “
∞
“Even as I continue to double check the transformation within myself, I find that everything has become clearer. Where there was once stubbornness, now there is understanding and tranquility. I’m immensely grateful for your presence and our encounter, Tchera!”
∞
"Tchera has the ability to take an ordinary subject and transform it into a captivating and personal statement. Her process does not exclude divergent opinions--she is able to assess and incorporate them comfortably.”
∞
“As far as what we worked on, wow, it’s been a major shift! I am so much kinder and more self-compassionate. All feelings are valid. I don’t see myself as weak for having any feelings. I don’t shame myself or feel guilty. “
∞
"It has been a real pleasure working with Tchera. She is professional, kind and very talented. Her choices are progressive, inspiring and enlightening. I am looking forward for an opportunity to work with her again."
∞
"The ability to touch the psyche in this way is truly profound."
∞
"Tchera always follows through and puts clients' needs on the top of her priority list. She is as kind as she is straightforward. She is not afraid to speak her mind and express her true opinion. I enjoyed working with her as she brought laughter to the office, and helped the company grow…”
∞
"It's really fun and wholesome and so connected with natural healing flow."
∞
"Tchera has a great understanding of life and she is sensitive to the clients that work with her. She is very creative in her ideas and has an open and innovated mind."
∞
“… Funny how I'm writing about my own opinions but you're helping me figure my life out.”
∞
“This whole experience gives me a real sensation of our burgeoning edge of self-healing. Thanks!”
∞
"Pleasant, intelligent and dedicated to the field. Highly recommended."
∞
“Thank you so much! I really value your help.” ∞ “…And you know what, it’s really upped my pickleball game! A noticeable difference! I don’t get stuck in that mindset of being perfect in every play.” ∞ “It’s been over a month and I’m still feeling so good and so light. I love Core Transformation. It really has made a big difference in my life, and of course having such a great facilitator.” ∞ "Tchera is elegant and thoughtful. Her experience with both technical and the artistic side of life are masterful and uplifting!" ∞ “Struggling with a deeply rooted issue for years, I was haunted by a persistent, self-fulfilling prophecy that seemed to affect me profoundly. The Core Transformation process is deep and kind, and under the intuitive, graceful, and compassionate guidance of a coach like Tchera, it turns into a magically transformative journey. “ ∞ “Even as I continue to double check the transformation within myself, I find that everything has become clearer. Where there was once stubbornness, now there is understanding and tranquility. I’m immensely grateful for your presence and our encounter, Tchera!” ∞ "Tchera has the ability to take an ordinary subject and transform it into a captivating and personal statement. Her process does not exclude divergent opinions--she is able to assess and incorporate them comfortably.” ∞ “As far as what we worked on, wow, it’s been a major shift! I am so much kinder and more self-compassionate. All feelings are valid. I don’t see myself as weak for having any feelings. I don’t shame myself or feel guilty. “ ∞ "It has been a real pleasure working with Tchera. She is professional, kind and very talented. Her choices are progressive, inspiring and enlightening. I am looking forward for an opportunity to work with her again." ∞ "The ability to touch the psyche in this way is truly profound." ∞ "Tchera always follows through and puts clients' needs on the top of her priority list. She is as kind as she is straightforward. She is not afraid to speak her mind and express her true opinion. I enjoyed working with her as she brought laughter to the office, and helped the company grow…” ∞ "It's really fun and wholesome and so connected with natural healing flow." ∞ "Tchera has a great understanding of life and she is sensitive to the clients that work with her. She is very creative in her ideas and has an open and innovated mind." ∞ “… Funny how I'm writing about my own opinions but you're helping me figure my life out.” ∞ “This whole experience gives me a real sensation of our burgeoning edge of self-healing. Thanks!” ∞ "Pleasant, intelligent and dedicated to the field. Highly recommended." ∞
If You’re Ready, I’m Here
I invite you to schedule a free 30-minute discovery call. We’ll explore what you want to change, and discuss how I'd approach it. Together, we’ll have a sense of whether coaching with me is the right fit for your situation.
No obligation, no pressure—just an open, honest conversation about where you are, where you want to be and how I can help to close the gap in between.
Artworks from top: [Merve Hasman, Hilton7], [Tchera Niyego, Kill the Witness & Lev], [Bob Dylan, Train Tracks], [Anna Lieb, Kunzang Yabyum], [Jenn Shifflet, Miracle], [Michele Benzamin-Miki, Sky Gazer],[Andrew Wyeth, Wind from the Sea]