Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandy Sciacchitano.
Hi Mandy, 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?
I have always known that I wanted to help people, I just didn’t always know what form that would take.
As a kid, I was always mediating playground arguments and helping the younger kids when they had their feelings hurt. I was empathic, very self-aware and introspective, which made me quite socially awkward and feeling like I never really fit in. Even though my intuition was always loud and sometimes I went rogue and followed it, usually I would just try to check all the boxes of what I was “supposed” to do, not ruffle feathers, and be the perfect, straight-A student and president of all the clubs so that others would like me. I wanted so badly for people to see my heart, and I didn’t realize that by trying to conform and be perfect, I was covering it up. As a result, I battled with disordered eating, anxiety and depression, which carried over into my adult life.
While I was studying Spanish as an undergraduate in college, I spent a semester studying abroad in the Dominican Republic, and I fell in love with the country. That experience gave me the idea that I could serve others as a career. At the time, nonprofit work seemed like the best avenue to do that, so when I graduated, I moved to the Dominican Republic and landed a job working in international education and exchange at an international nonprofit. I spent seven years at that job, living in between Santo Domingo and the second office in New York City and working my way up to manage three research and exchange programs. During that time, I also went back to school and got a Masters in Nonprofit Management, thinking I would move back to the DR and start my own nonprofit one day.
But I ended up getting so jaded with the nonprofit industry during that time. I was in a toxic work situation, I didn’t feel like I was making an impact, I was unfulfilled, and no matter how many jobs I applied to, nothing seemed to work out. Every time I prayed about it, I kept hearing “leap and the net will appear,” but I didn’t really have a relationship with my intuition at that point and that just sounded crazy.
Eventually that is what I did, though, when I reached a breaking point where I could no longer continue working in a place that felt so detrimental to my physical, mental and emotional health. I quit without a plan. I assumed I would get another nonprofit job, but then I moved to L.A. and hired my first life coach to help me figure out my career situation, and it was like my eyes were opened for the first time. I had been seeing therapists and counselors of all types for most of my life, but working with a life coach showed me a whole different way of seeing myself and the world. Instead of just staying at baseline survival mode like I had in therapy, life coaching opened the door for me to be introspective and soul searching, but then take action toward changing and creating a powerful future for myself. It opened me up to get to know myself on a deeper level and really become conscious of patterns and choices that I was making that were holding me back from feeling how I wanted to feel and living how I wanted to live. For years I had used the mantra “My struggle is my service,” but it took new meaning when I decided to become a life coach and help people with the kinds of things that I had struggled with all my life: perfectionism, people-pleasing, body image, connection with my intuition, and really knowing and trusting myself.
I knew right away that life coaching was what I was supposed to do, so I got two different certifications and then eventually also became a certified breathwork facilitator, as I heavily leaned into that modality as a somatic complement to talk coaching and it left me awed and inspired by the power to heal that I possess within my own body.
Now I also practice energy healing and I weave the three modalities together because I have discovered that they really work together to support transformation at a mind-body-spirit level. Now my work centers around empowering people to know themselves, trust themselves, and heal themselves so that they can make the big, scary choices to follow their intuitions and souls, as that was what I had to lean into on my own journey.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t been smooth at all! I have had to overcome many challenges, the biggest one being the fact that I didn’t know anything about running a business when I started. I discovered quickly that it would not be sustainable if I treated it like freelance work, and the only other successful coaches I really knew of were big-name “influencer” coaches on Instagram. Those were my models, so I thought that that was what I had to do in order to be a successful coach as well. I got really absorbed in trying to be like them– buying their courses and programs telling me how to do what they did– and I ended up spending thousands of dollars in these courses and not seeing any tangible “results” in my business. I was frustrated and angry and felt like a failure until I had a total lightbulb moment and realized: following that path was completely antithetical to who I am at my core and what I guide and coach others to do.
I don’t want to be an influencer because I don’t believe in influencing. I believe in sovereignty and standing in your power. I believe in people using their own values and intuitions as their compass.
Now I am really passionate about building a new paradigm for doing business in the world, one that is less prescriptive and more intuitive and that centers people, values, and heart-centered invitations rather than sales. It took me a while to build the courage and self-trust to break the mold and do things differently, but now my business practices feel really in integrity with my work, and that is what is most important to me.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a spiritual mentor, coach, and breathwork and reiki guide, and I love to support women on soul journeys who seek deeper fulfillment and are called to do life and business outside of the conventional paradigms. Helping people to navigate life transitions and make big leaps with groundedness, trust, and connectedness is my specialty.
What makes my work different is that I don’t believe that I have the answers. Every single session is lead by the client’s own soul. I weave together coaching, breathwork, and energy work to create holistic healing, transformation, and energetic refinement to help others feel like they are living authentically aligned with their souls. It’s a little bit woo-woo, but I always ground everything in practical actions to bring the spiritual, intuitive, intangible things to life.
I believe that the way to healing and ultimate fulfillment is through connection, so even though I do a lot of 1:1 work via videoconference with people from all over the world, I also love to curate experiences for people to connect in communities where they are safe and supported in being vulnerable and authentic. I host an online membership community called The Deep End, where we meet on the full moon and the new moon for moon manifesting and breathwork healing and to engage in meaningful and vulnerable conversation about topics important to our individual and collective growth. I also host breathwork and other events in the Miami area a few times per year.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I used to roll deep in self-help books and podcasts, but I found that it was drowning out my intuition and actually making me feel worse about myself. Now I am very selective about what I read and listen to and prefer to spend time reflecting and creating on my own. When I do need a hit of inspiration, I usually turn to one of Brene Brown’s books or podcasts or Glennon Doyle’s podcast “We Can Do Hard Things.”
Contact Info:
- Email: mandy@mandysciacchitano.com
- Website: www.mandysciacchitano.com
- Instagram: @mandy.shock
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mandysciacchitano
Image Credits
Bernadette Marciniak
