MY EXPERIENCE
I'm not handing you a program. I don’t hold a title that says I've got this all figured out and you don't. What I bring is a life that's required me to rebuild more than once, and the practical, spiritual and creative range that produced within me.
If you're wondering whether I'm someone who can actually be in this with you, here's where I’m coming from.
Key Highlights
30 years work experience in arts & entertainment, storytelling, master planning & project management
20 years one-on-one mentoring experience to help women recover from the effects of alcoholism in a family member or friend
5 years writing and podcast hosting experience creating a safe, open, and healing space for women’s stories (Stories That Sparkle)
The work I do draws on more than twenty years of one-on-one experience supporting women through recovery and major life transitions—work that regularly moves into deep, body-held material, including trauma. While I'm not a licensed therapist, I do bring attunement developed and honed over time—including the ability to recognize when something calls for more support than I can offer, and to say so plainly. For some women, this work runs alongside therapy. For others, it picks up where talk therapy reached its edge and moves into what the body still holds that words alone couldn't quite reach.
Over my career, I managed PR offices, supply chain and customer service operations, ran an art gallery, and did master planning for museums. I co-hosted “The Hella Fabulous Show” on East Village Radio and briefly launched a collection of t-shirts under the name Fabulous Babe. I was also a one-time tour manager for the rock chanteuse Shara Nova and her band My Brightest Diamond.
Alongside working with women one-on-one in my somatic practice, I write on Substack where I delve into my experience with starting over in life, and host The Stories That Sparkle podcast, long-form intimate conversations with women about starting over, reclaiming their voices, inhabiting their bodies, navigating grief, and building community. To learn more about that work, visit hellarader.com
When I am at home, I lovingly cultivate a pollinator garden that I planted in my backyard, and watch the birds outside my sunroom swirl around the bird feeder.
Education
I’m currently deepening my training at the Institute of Core Energetics in New York City, in a multi-year program in integrative body psychotherapy.
I hold a B.A. in English and German with Distinction from the University of Virginia and a M.A. in Media Studies with Distinction from The New School. For my master’s degree, I wrote, produced and edited several shorts including “Smooth Grief” (about the process of loss and grieving) as both an audio-only and video piece, and “Secret Dance” (about privacy in the age of surveillance) as an audiovisual piece. Before I graduated, I presented a paper titled “Media Literacy: Pushing Participation Towards Change” at the Critical Themes in Media Studies conference in April 2000. You can read it here if you’re interested.
During my academic years and beyond, I have always agitated for social justice. In particular, I have been an advocate and campaigner for women’s rights, body autonomy (I was president of Students for Choice at UVA), abuse survivors and suicide prevention.