Anena Hansen

Never one for the conventional path, I lived the starving-artist life in a quarter of the U.S. states, stumbled into corporate sales and business development in the developing world, and eventually found my niche in female empowerment work. Also working with addiction and trauma. Plus there's coaching and teaching. Bottom line, since 2014 I’ve been helping women thrive by being women.

What with being raised in a religious community where women were systemically disempowered, I guess it’s no surprise I grew up and got all passionate about women’s empowerment work. After leaving the church and running a short-lived marriage aground, I ran away to Kenya (as one does), where I drank alcoholically, adopted a baby, and gradually outgrew my white-savior complex under the mentorship of powerhouse Kenyan businesswomen who were doing bigger work in the world than I’d ever considered. Eventually I quit drinking and set course in the direction of living a life that works.

Eleven years of a beautiful, challenging life in Nairobi finally concluded in 2019 when I moved myself and my daughter back to my hometown in New Hampshire. I found the guy I wanted to grow old with, then lost him two years later to a shocking fentanyl overdose, which was another course-correct for me; I’m now active in addiction-related advocacy at the state and national levels, and I ultimately shifted my coaching focus to recovery and trauma as well. Now I coach high-performance women to get off the hamster wheel and enjoy their lives more, without sacrificing results, by learning the self-regulation that gives us all access to healing what hurts.

I also manage a trauma-informed community project that allows me to promote these principles to families and systems around the region. Took me til I’m 47, but I now love everything I do for a living - and considering I was never supposed to have a career at all, I never take that privilege for granted.

Turns out that little disempowered church girl got just the upbringing she needed to grow up (eventually) into a badass visionary powerhouse. My passion is for helping disadvantaged women find their way out of dark places and discover how powerful they are. I don’t believe for a second that what hurt us before has to cripple us forever! From coaching women to training community leaders to advocating for federal policy, my work in the world is a stand for everyone, no matter how bad it’s been, to discover how good it can get.