Hello, I’m Cydney.
This is the story behind Midlife Nourished.
For nearly two decades, I've coached women to make meaningful changes that support their well-being and the lives they want to cultivate.
For most of my adult life, I’ve been curious about what it means to live well—how we care for ourselves, how we connect with one another, and how the lives we create shape our well-being.
That curiosity has taken me through coaching, health and well-being, teaching, yoga, and education. Across all of it, I’ve seen that meaningful change rarely comes from simply knowing more or trying harder. More often, it begins when we create enough space to pay attention—to ourselves, to what we need, and to what may be asking for change.
Then midlife brought those ideas home in a deeply personal way.
I believe a nourished life isn't found. It's cultivated.
My Path
My earliest work was rooted in environmental studies and education, where I became interested in the relationships between people, place, and the larger systems that shape how we live.
Over time, that curiosity led me more directly into the work of human well-being—as a coach, health and well-being practitioner, yoga teacher, and mentor to other coaches. For nearly two decades, I've worked with women as they navigate change, strengthen their well-being, and make meaningful shifts in their lives.
Then, in midlife, I found myself in the midst of a significant upheaval of my own
The ground beneath the life I knew had shifted. My well-being had suffered, some of what had once worked no longer did, and I couldn't yet see clearly what came next.
That experience brought many of the questions at the heart of my work into my own life. I began questioning what I wanted for myself, what I needed to feel well again, and what I wanted this part of my life to hold.
Eventually, I chose to step away from many of the familiar rhythms of my life and create space to find out. I traveled, hiked, spent long stretches in nature, explored unfamiliar places, and followed my curiosity—including an eighteen-month period I came to think of as my Year of Finding Awe.
It wasn't about escaping my life or finding a new version of myself. It was about reconnecting with myself, restoring my well-being, and paying attention to what made me feel curious, connected, and fully alive.
What began as a deeply personal experience reinforced something I had seen throughout my professional work: we don't always need more information or another thing to do. Sometimes we need enough space to reconnect with ourselves and discover what actually nourishes us.
Midlife Nourished grew from this belief—and from my own experience of creating that space.
What I came to believe
Creating space means paying attention to how we're feeling and how we're living, to what supports our well-being and what doesn't, and to what we want more of in our lives.
From that attention, something begins to shift. We can make choices that more fully support our health and well-being, reconnect with parts of ourselves that may have been quiet for a long time, and become more intentional about what we want to cultivate.
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I've spent nearly two decades working in coaching, health and well-being, education, and entrepreneurship.
In 2005, I co-founded a nationally recognized coaching and mentoring program for young adults and families, where I worked in intensive, long-term coaching relationships for nearly a decade. In 2007, I founded Spirited Nutrition, expanding my work into health and well-being coaching.
Since then, I've coached and mentored people from around the world through private coaching, coaching circles, group programs, and the training and mentorship of other coaches. My work has spanned meaningful life transitions, personal growth, and sustainable health and behavior change—all with an emphasis on creating lives that more fully support well-being.
Before moving fully into coaching, I taught Environmental Studies at the college level and worked in environmental and experiential education. I've also founded and co-founded several businesses and programs throughout my career.
That breadth of experience continues to shape the way I work today: relational, experiential, thoughtful, and grounded in the complexity of real life.
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I hold an M.S. in Natural Resource Management & Administration from Antioch University and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from the State University of New York. I also studied Environmental Education at Unity College prior to completing my B.A.
I'm a Certified Health Coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, where I later spent more than a decade coaching and mentoring students in its Health Coach Training Program. My additional coaching education includes Gaja Coach certification and Spiritual Life Coach training, along with ongoing study in mindfulness, somatic practices, behavior change, personal growth and development, and whole-person well-being.
I've continued to pursue training throughout my career because I believe good coaching is informed by both depth of experience and an ongoing commitment to learning.
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Yoga has been part of my personal practice since 1989, and I've taught yoga for more than 15 years.
My training includes two 200-hour yoga teacher training certifications through My Vinyasa Practice in Austin, Texas, and Gaja Yoga, along with training through Karuna Yoga in Northampton, Massachusetts, Yoga Nidra, and Restorative Yoga, and additional study in yogic philosophy, mindfulness, meditation, trauma-informed, and embodied practices.
Decades of practice and teaching have deeply informed how I understand the relationship between the body, nervous system, attention, self-awareness, and well-being. In my coaching, these perspectives may show up through somatic practices, breathwork, movement, or reflection that supports grounding, inner connection, and the space to hear yourself more clearly.
More broadly, yoga has shaped how I think about presence, connection, and what it means to live consciously and fully. You don't need to practice yoga to work with me, but the perspective I've gained from it is woven into how I approach well-being and how I work with others.
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Some of the most valuable things I've learned don't fit neatly beneath a single professional title.
Being a mother to two young-adult daughters has been among the most formative experiences of my life. Their Waldorf education immersed our family in an approach that valued the whole person, creativity, relationship, rhythm, nature, and allowing each individual to unfold in their own way. Parenting has deepened my understanding of growth and the importance of creating conditions that allow each person to develop in their own way.
My broader background includes travel and wilderness exploration, permaculture design, doula training, Wilderness First Aid, outdoor and experiential education and leadership, and ecologically grounded, place-based approaches to living, alongside decades of personal reflection and contemplative practice.
These experiences may appear unrelated on paper, but I see a common thread: understanding interconnected systems, learning through experience, paying attention to the environments in which our lives unfold, and recognizing that meaningful growth can't always be forced or hurried.
Together, they contribute to the multidimensional, integrative perspective I bring to Midlife Nourished.
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I bring professional training and decades of experience to my work, but I don't approach coaching as the person who has the answers to someone else's life.
My role is to create a supportive space where you can slow down, see more clearly, reconnect with yourself, and listen more closely to what you need and what matters to you.
I'm naturally at ease with people and genuinely enjoy getting to know the person in front of me. My style is grounded and thoughtful, but there's lightness and humor, too. I want our work to be meaningful without making every moment of it serious.
I draw from nearly two decades of coaching and working with people through change, along with a broad background in health and well-being, somatic and contemplative practices, and experiential learning. But the work is always shaped by you—your life, your well-being, and what you want to cultivate.
Experience + Training
The experience, education, and training that inform my work.
A little more about me.
Finding Awe
I'm happiest outside.Nature, travel, hiking, and exploring unfamiliar places have long been some of the ways I reconnect with myself and feel most alive. I'm endlessly drawn to wild landscapes, long walks, unexpected discoveries, and the kind of experiences that make me stop and pay attention. That curiosity eventually became my Year of Finding Awe—and continues to shape how I think about well-being today.
Yoga
Yoga has been part of my life since 1989.What began as, and continues to be, a personal practice, became something I’ve taught and shared with others for more than 15 years. I continue to return to yoga, meditation, and breathwork as practices for grounding, inner connection, and creating space to hear myself more authentically.
Connection
Some of my closest relationships span decades.I value the kind of relationships that grow through shared experience, honest conversation, laughter, and showing up for one another over time. I’m lucky to have a large family and lifelong friendships that are an important part of my life. I treasure a circle of women I met in graduate school more than 25 years ago—we still gather regularly for adventures, reflection, and time together.
Curiosity
I’ll probably always be learning something.Books, travel, conversations, photography, new places, new ideas—I’m endlessly curious about people, the natural world, and what helps us live well. That curiosity continues to shape both my life and the work I bring to Midlife Nourished. Pictured are the journals I kept during my Finding Awe travels.