Founder

Emerald Goddess was not born from theory.
It was born from lived experience.

Long before coaching, retreats, or credentials, Tanya learned the hard way what it means to survive, to rebuild, and to begin again. A high school dropout who navigated addiction, domestic violence, complex trauma, and devastating loss, she knows what it feels like to have your life fall apart and to stand in the wreckage asking, now what?

What followed was not a straight line — but it was a devoted one.

Tanya returned to school as a mature student and went on to earn a B.A. Honours with Great Distinction (Magna Cum Laude), completing most of her undergraduate work in Religious Studies before transitioning into History. 

Her academic training focused on religion, culture, and lived spiritual practice — studies that mirrored her own search for meaning, embodiment, and resilience.

She later completed a Master’s degree in Pacific & Asian Studies, where her research explored Japanese pilgrimage traditions, particularly goshuin 御朱印 — sacred temple and shrine seals collected by pilgrims. Her thesis, Seals, Script, and Sacred Sites, examined these practices as living records of devotion, movement, memory, and belonging. At its core, her work has always asked the same question: How do humans make meaning — especially in times of transition?

Tanya went on to pursue doctoral studies in History, completing advanced graduate coursework in Medical, Global, and Environmental History. Her research evolved into an interdisciplinary project examining goddess-centered healing traditions in colonial South India, exploring how ritual, plant medicine, trance states, and embodied spiritual authority became sites of resilience and resistance in the face of colonial and patriarchal power.

But credentials alone do not heal people.

Alongside her academic path, Tanya sought training that honored the body, the nervous system, and lived experience. She is a Certified Ocean Therapy Practitioner, integrating nature-based reflection, somatic grounding, and water-based practices into her work. She is also a Certified NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Coach, trained through David Key’s NLP Coaching program, supporting clients in shifting patterns, navigating transition, and reconnecting with their inner clarity.

There came a moment when Tanya made a courageous choice to leave academia and follow the work that felt truest. Not because the path was easier — but because it was honest.

Tanya’s work is shaped by extensive travel and lived experience across cultures, including time spent in Indonesia, Taiwan, China, Cambodia, India, Japan, and Mexico. Her connection to Mexico runs deep — as a child, she lived in Tijuana with her father, learning adaptability and resilience early in life.

Years later, she undertook a defining journey — driving more than 7,000 km from Saskatoon, Canada to Cancún, Mexico — carrying only what mattered, and consciously choosing to begin again. That journey — both literal and symbolic — continues to inform how she walks beside others through change, uncertainty, grief, and reinvention.

Tanya does not offer quick fixes or hollow inspiration. She offers presence, honesty, and grounded support. She knows how to hold space without rushing, and how to guide without overriding your inner knowing.

If you are seeking someone who understands transition not as a problem to solve, but as a sacred turning point —
you are in the right place.