ABOUT VANESSA DODDS

Your story is still yours to unfold

I am Vanessa Dodds, a Trauma-Informed Health & Life Coach and founder of Life 2 Unfold. My coaching focuses on the personal well-being of people navigating life after health changes or significant life transitions.

I coach adults beyond active crisis whose lives have been changed or are continually shaped by illness, injury, diagnosis, or health trauma. I also support parents and guardians navigating the impact of a child's health circumstances, as well as individuals seeking clarity and direction during pivotal transitions in their lives.

I help people reconnect with who they are beyond what has changed, clarify what matters now, and define what they want next as they build toward what is still possible.

My philosophy is simple: Your story is still yours to unfold.

As a Health Coaching Institute-certified Life Coach and National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) certification candidate specializing in trauma-informed coaching, I bring over 22 years of executive leadership and behavior change experience, along with a personal understanding of navigating life through a significant and ongoing health condition.

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Getting to Know Vanessa

Beyond the diagnosis, there is still a life to live

Getting to Know Vanessa

Beyond the diagnosis, there is still a life to live

For over two decades, my work has centered around helping people and organizations navigate change, recognize their strengths and capabilities, and move forward with greater clarity and purpose. Throughout my career as an executive, entrepreneur, strategist, educator, and advocate, I have always been drawn to work where I could make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.

I chose to take that work in a new direction for a very personal reason.

I have lived with an inoperable benign brain tumor and hydrocephalus for most of my life. My health experience has always been part of who I am, but for most of my career, I kept my personal health journey separate from my professional life. Outside of my advocacy work, very few people knew my personal health journey and story.

Living with a neurological condition has given me a perspective that professional experience alone could never provide. I understand what it feels like when health circumstances change the life you knew, how closely identity can become tied to what changed, and the uncertainty that comes with trying to understand what life looks like when your health condition requires value-grounded pivots in how you live, work, and show up.

What I bring to this work comes from more than one place. My lived experience gives me a personal understanding of what it means to navigate changed health circumstances. My professional experience has taught me how to listen deeply, ask thoughtful questions, look beyond what is immediately visible, understand what may be getting in the way, and help people recognize the strengths and capabilities they already possess.

I chose to take that work in a new direction for a very personal reason.

My coaching brings those experiences together.

Our health circumstances may change aspects of how we live. Still, they don't erase our values, strengths, experiences, accomplishments, relationships, aspirations, or our ability to keep creating a meaningful life. Sometimes we need the space to reconnect with those parts of ourselves and discover what they can mean for the life we are living now.

Life 2 Unfold grew from my desire to bring my professional and lived experience together in a way that could serve others.

I create space for people to understand what has changed without losing sight of who they are. I help them reconnect with the values that matter most, recognize the strengths and experiences they still carry, and explore what their life can realistically support now. From there, we begin looking forward, not from the expectation of returning to who they were before, but from a deeper understanding of who they are now and what they still want for their life.

My trauma-informed coaching work is deeply personal to me, but it is also grounded in more than my personal story. It's grounded in two decades of success helping people navigate change and build capability, while benchmarking progress to show how far one has changed, grown, and developed into a new way. Together, those experiences shape how I listen, how I ask questions, how I create room for reflection and self-discovery, and how I help someone see possibility without minimizing the reality of what they have experienced.

My health condition is part of my story, but it has never been the definition of who I am. That belief sits at the heart of Life 2 Unfold.

Our life stories can change in ways we never anticipated. We can change with them, reconnect with what matters, recognize what remains, and continue building from there. This is why I deeply believe that there is still more of the story to write, more possibility to discover, and more life to unfold.

Here's to "Building from Here!"

My coaching brings those experiences together.

Life 2 Unfold grew from my desire to bring my professional and lived experience together in a way that could serve others.

My health condition is part of my story, but it has never been the definition of who I am. That belief sits at the heart of Life 2 Unfold.

Here's to "Building from Here!"

HOW I SHOW UP

A grounded, evidence-based approach

Coaching that meets you where you are. Moving forward at a calm, steady pace, centered on the life still ahead of you.

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Trauma-Informed

Safety, choice, and pacing guide every conversation and every exercise we do together.

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Client-Centered

You are the expert on your life. I bring structure, curiosity, and space for what matters now.

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Forward-Focused

Together we build from here and move forward toward clarity, meaning, and what is still possible for you.

WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER

Meeting you at every stage of the journey

From self-guided exploration to sustained private coaching, Life 2 Unfold offers an experience designed for where you are right now.

Reconnect → Recognize → Reassess → Rebuild → Redefine → Move Forward

SELF-GUIDED COACHING

Start from here: Digital VIDEO Experience

AWARENESS + EMERGING DIRECTION

Guided mini-videos, worksheets, and self-exploration are Life 2 Unfold's starting point in our private digital portal.

You may know that life cannot simply return to what it was, but you may not yet know what moving forward looks like.

The plans, expectations, or goals you once worked toward may no longer fit in the same way.

START FROM HERE™ gives you a structured place to understand what has changed without letting the health circumstance become the definition of everything that comes next.

What you gain: A clearer picture of how your health circumstances have affected your life, what remains available to build from, what matters now, where life feels out of alignment, and what you are ready to explore next.

SUBSCRIPTION-BASED COACHING

Aligned from here: Individual Coaching

MOVEMENT + ALIGNMENT

Focused 1:1 sessions in a structured 6-week coaching engagement for adults whose lives have been changed, disrupted, or continually shaped by a health condition or circumstance and who are beyond active crisis but know they cannot keep living exactly as they are.

ALIGNED FROM HERE gives you access to a 90-minute launch call, six weeks of 1:1 coaching sessions, focused work around 1-3 priorities in each subscription month, tools & resources, and access to the Life 2 Unfold private social community + weekly live Q&A sessions in the community to collectively discuss progress, stumbling blocks in your progress, and gain support from fellow Life 2 Unfold clients.

What you gain: A clearer understanding of what has been keeping you from changing what you already know needs attention, what you are choosing differently, and what aligned movement looks like in this season of your life. More importantly, you will have begun testing and making practical changes in the one to three areas we chose to focus on together. Six weeks is not designed to solve every area of your life. It is designed to help you move from emotional paralysis into intentional movement in 1-3 priority life areas, and experience what it looks like to begin living differently.

SUBSCRIPTION-BASED COACHING

Life transitions: Individual Coaching

MOVEMENT + ALIGNMENT

Focused 1:1 sessions in a structured 6-week coaching engagement built for adults and professionals

navigating a meaningful life change and seeking structured support to understand what the transition affects, reconnect with what matters now, and move into the next season with greater clarity and intention. The transition may be expected or unexpected. The work is not centered on trauma. It is centered on change, adjustment across the 8 dimensions of life, choice, and forward movement.

LIFE TRANSITIONS gives clients access to a 90-minute launch call, six weeks of 1:1 coaching sessions, focused work around 1-2 life dimension priorities in a subscription month, tools & resources, and access to the Life 2 Unfold private social community + weekly live Q&A sessions in the community to collectively discuss progress, stumbling blocks in your progress, and gain support from fellow Life 2 Unfold clients.

What you gain: A clearer understanding of how the transition is affecting the different parts of life, what still fits, what needs to change, and what matters most in the season ahead. They make intentional decisions, begin practical changes in the dimensions requiring attention, and leave with clearer direction and a workable way to keep moving forward as the transition unfolds.

6-MONTH PRIVATE

1:1 COACHING PACKAGE

BUILD FROM HERE: INDIVIDUAL COACHING

REBUILDING + INTEGRATION

Focused 1:1 sessions with a structured coaching engagement for adults who have reached a moment of awareness that the way they are functioning across their life is no longer working for this season.

Fear and uncertainty connected to a health condition or health circumstance may still be present, but the client is ready to move beyond organizing life primarily around what happened, what might happen, or what life was supposed to be.

BUILD FROM HERE 1:1 COACHING helps individuals understand how the eight dimensions of life function and affect one another, determine what needs to be rebuilt, and make structured, values-aligned changes over time.

The 12 1:1 sessions are individualized and move element by element, sometimes addressing dimensions in tandem when the client’s real life requires it, with the ability to progress through the asynchronous journey of the Life 2 Unfold video vault, and access to the Life 2 Unfold private social community + weekly live Q&A sessions in the community to collectively discuss progress, stumbling blocks in your progress, and gain support from fellow Life 2 Unfold clients.

What you gain: Meaningful changes across several important areas of life, with greater alignment between how you are living and who you are now. You have real-life evidence of what works, a clearer understanding of how the dimensions of your life affect one another, and a stronger way to keep building as life evolves.

The goal is not to claim that your entire life is rebuilt in six months. The goal is meaningful rebuilding and integration in the areas that matter most, with enough time to implement, observe, adjust, and strengthen change rather than only talk about it.

6-MONTH GROUP

PARENTS/GUARDIAN COACHING PACKAGE

BUILD FROM HERE: PARENT & GUARDIAN SUPPORT

REBUILD YOUR LIFE WHILE MAKING ROOM FOR THEIRS

Group coaching sessions for parents & guardians whose children's health circumstances are no longer in active crisis. You recognize that your child's health condition, diagnosis, illness, injury, disability, health trauma, or health circumstance changed you too.

You know fear, uncertainty, or protective patterns still influence how you live or parent. You're ready to look at what belongs to you, what belongs to your child, what your own life needs now, and how to support your child's continued development without letting fear define either person's future.

BUILD FROM HERE GROUP COACHING helps parents/guardians to reframe and rebuild your own life without pushing your fears and uncertainties onto your child, while learning how to support the life your child is growing into without allowing emotional paralysis or fear to define either of you.

The 12 group sessions use the empowered well-being dimensions as a whole-picture snapshot to understand how your child's health circumstances affected your life, where rebuilding is needed, and how changes in one area may affect the rest of your life and family. This package includes access to the Life 2 Unfold private social community + weekly live Q&A sessions to collectively discuss progress, stumbling blocks, and gain support from fellow Life 2 Unfold clients.

What you gain: A clearer understanding of how your child's health circumstances have affected you, what you are still carrying, and how what you carry may be affecting your child's development and independence through protective responses and uncertainty. You've begun making and integrating meaningful changes across important areas of your life while developing a more intentional way to support your child.

12-MONTH PRIVATE

1:1 COACHING PACKAGE

WHAT COMES NEXT

LIVE INTO WHAT IS POSSIBLE. KEEP UNFOLDING WHEN LIFE CHANGES.

12-month future-forward coaching engagement for adults whose lives have been changed, disrupted, or continually shaped by a health condition or circumstance, who have done the deeper work to understand what they have been through, recognize that the familiar no longer serves them, and are ready to intentionally create, pursue, and live into what they want next, but do not yet want to navigate that movement alone.

With a long-term thinking and accountability partner alongside you, the year gives you room to expand what you believe is possible, make values-aligned choices, pursue meaningful opportunities and experiences, and learn through actually living those choices.

When fear, what-ifs, old habits, triggered memories, or uncertainty resurface, coaching helps you re-center, reframe, adjust, and continue forward. Through that process, you also strengthen the grounding and resilience to find your footing again if life or your health circumstances change in the future.

MADE FROM HERE is when you are ready to use what you understand about yourself and your life to actively create, pursue, and live into what you want your life to become. This is not another year of solely rebuilding. It is a year of sustained forward living with accountability, as you strengthen your ability to keep unfolding. Access to 24 private coaching sessions approximately bi-weekly, a private Life 2 Unfold community, a video vault, and exclusive WHAT COMES NEXT weekly group Q&A sessions with Vanessa.

What you gain: The ability to actively live into a future you once may not have believed was possible. You pursue what matters, make choices grounded in who you are now, and create a life bigger than what your health circumstances changed. You trust yourself to keep moving, and when fear, uncertainty, or life changes the path, you know how to re-center, find your footing, and continue unfolding.

LET'S CONNECT

Ready to explore what's still possible?

If any part of Life 2 Unfold's coaching resonates, I'd love to hear from you. Schedule a discovery call, and we'll find the right first step for where you are right now.

Schedule a Discovery Call

Your story is still yours to unfold

Beyond the diagnosis, there is still a life to live

Beyond the diagnosis, there is still a life to live

A grounded, evidence-based approach

Trauma-Informed

Client-Centered

Forward-Focused

Meeting you at every stage of the journey

Start from here: Digital VIDEO Experience

Aligned from here: Individual Coaching

Life transitions: Individual Coaching

BUILD FROM HERE: INDIVIDUAL COACHING

BUILD FROM HERE: PARENT & GUARDIAN SUPPORT

WHAT COMES NEXT

Ready to explore what's still possible?

Discovery Call

Select a Date and Time

Vanessa AI