Hi, I’m Pauline
I'm a self-leadership coach for purpose-driven women leaders in humanitarian aid, human rights, and social impact at large - who want deeper impact in the world — and deeper intimacy in their lives. Real power and real love. Both. Without choosing.
My core belief: real power and real love come from the same place. My work is built around helping women find it.
Why I do this work
I spent years leading humanitarian programs in some of the world's hardest contexts - Darfur, Congo, Gaza, Haiti. High stakes. High responsibility. Constant urgency.
I was strong, capable, effective. And completely disconnected from myself.
I knew how to lead in crisis. I didn't know how to rest, receive, or let myself be met in love. I was operating on urgency and control - and paying for it in my body and my relationships, in ways I couldn't fully see at the time.
Stress eventually forced me to stop. What started as a break became something I didn't expect. I went to India. I spent over a year living in an ashram - studying, teaching yoga, returning to my body. To sensation. To myself.
That's where something shifted. Not just in how I felt - in how I understood power.
Later, that journey deepened into worthiness, self-leadership, and love. I began to understand how years of warrior mode had shaped my relationships - the proving, the over-functioning, the difficulty receiving. When I learned to trust myself and take full responsibility for my inner experience, everything changed.
How I led. How I loved. How I chose partnership.
I stopped chasing love - and became available for it.
Then I started coaching. I expected to help women find love. What I watched instead was something larger — when they did this inner work, their leadership changed too. Less drama, more peace. More authenticity, more authority. The two were never separate. That became the foundation of everything I do.
Today I live between Brazil and the south of France with my partner and our young son. This life - the work, the love, the presence - is what I help other women build.
What I know for certain
The women I work with aren't struggling from lack of ambition or intelligence. They're struggling from a wound that says they have to earn their place - at work and in love. And they're carrying everyone else's weight on top of their own.
I see it everywhere: brilliant, heart-centered women dimming their light or burning themselves out - paying for impact with their bodies, their health, their relationships.
This is a waste. And it's not necessary.
You can have deeper impact and deeper love. Not by becoming more — but by coming back to the place inside you that most coaching never touches.
How I work
My work rests on three keys.
Self-sourced worth — feeling enough exactly as you are, no achievements required. Dropping the proving mode. Leading from self-trust rather than from the need to earn your place again.
Emotional and mental sovereignty — owning your inner world. Taking back the emotional weight you've been absorbing from your team, your partner, your world. Learning the difference between what is yours to carry and what was never yours to begin with.
A grounded connection to your body — coming home to your body as a source of wisdom, regulation, and power. Accessing presence and intuition. Using your energy instead of fighting it. Most self-leadership work happens from the neck up. This is what makes mine different.
The feminine and masculine energy dynamic runs through everything. My clients are brilliant in alpha mode — effective, visionary, capable. And it's costing them in their bodies and in love. The work is learning to access both energies — and to know which one the moment actually needs.
These are not three separate projects. They are one return to yourself.
Training & professional background
My work is grounded in both lived experience and extensive professional training:
Master's degree in International Law
Master's degree in International Humanitarian Aid
Sex, Love and Relationship Coaching Certification - Tantric Institute for Integrated Sexuality
Trauma-informed somatic work - Biodynamic Breathwork and Trauma Release System (BBTRS)
Advanced embodiment, meditation and consciousness training - yoga teacher training in India, Vipassana meditation, long-term spiritual practice
This work changed how I lead and how I love, without asking me to become someone else.
— Monica, Communication Director
Real power and real love come from the same place.
This is the work that makes them yours.