
I help people find meaning in the seemingly insignificant things they touch every day. This is my dorky gift to the world. And I’m good at it.
I learned this skill getting elbowed out of church. Not just one church but many.
I asked too many questions. Questions like, “But if God is so loving, why are so many people afraid?” and I invited the wrong people inside to have donuts with me during coffee hour. I figured the aromatic homeless guys were hungry and I believed my pastor who said we should emulate Jesus. I knew I couldn’t turn 7 loaves into enough to feed thousands but I could stir a packet of cocoa.
This didn’t go over well in the church of my youth where a woman in the pew behind me let me know one Sunday how many times I chewed my gum in the span of 60 seconds: 73. I don’t waste my large chompers.
It took me awhile to get the message because I love church. I love the singing. I love communion, I love the kiss of peace. But let’s face it: there’s an inside circle and an outside circle. People are standing in line for a ticket to heaven. Somebody’s got to go to hell if others are passing through the pearly gates. Right?
And that’s where I just couldn’t swallow it any more. I don’t believe in hell.
So that’s when I left. And it was sad. Really, really sad. Because all my friends told me I didn’t belong. They told me in about 80,000 ways. And the whole reason I left was because it didn’t seem to ring true that Love would ever leave someone on the OUTside of belonging.
Then something great happened.
Because all those years spent in church (and wandering from church to temple to ashram afterward) taught me to see altars everywhere I went.
I woke up to it one day when my family was staying at a hotel and I wanted to linger just a bit more at breakfast while they went back to the room. There was an older woman who was fumbling with her change purse near me and I asked if she needed any assistance. Suddenly she was crying and telling me about how this was the first time she’d spent money on her own. She was 76! Her husband had died last month. He’d paid the bills their entire marriage.
The struggle with the coin purse wasn’t about the money. It was about dealing with the idea that she was now facing independence for the first time in her life and she was terrified. We talked for awhile.
When I got back to the hotel room, I asked for a pardon from my family and explained about the woman with the coin purse. “Yeah, yeah,” said my children, “We’re used to strangers crying when they meet you.”
I laughed.
And suddenly I felt like I didn’t have to be quite so lonely for church anymore. Church had found me. I see altars in the grocery store when the gentleman in front of me pulls out a favored pen and we talk for 15 minutes in the parking lot about the business he’s selling tomorrow because the big box store has drowned his sales.
I see altars in people’s yarn, photography, napkins and school supplies. I am the queen of finding meaning in the insignificant.
Aren’t we all looking for a way to belong? Belong most of all to our own life? Let me help you find the altars in your life and the meaning they offer you.

“Rebecca Mullen is a powerful life coach that has inspired my true self to come out of hiding.”
-Betsy S. Washington DC
“Rebecca creates a sacred space for her clients. With her, a person can exhale. With her, a person feels totally okay with feeling whatever they’re feeling, with being whoever they really are. She is gentle, and she is honest, a rare and wonderful combination that helps her clients to get unstuck and move forward!”– Allison, solopreneur and mom of two.
-Steve / WalkWest Productions, LLC
“Rebecca Mullen is a gifted coach who I would recommend without reservation. Rebecca has coached me on a number of occasions in a variety of areas: writing, goal-setting, and every-day life issues. She has a wonderful listening talent and is able to pick up on subtle communication cues, asking the probing questions that help me get to the root of an issue. Rebecca’s intuition and insights have helped me move past whatever obstacles are blocking me, enabling me to move forward with clarity.”–Yvette, Superior Colorado
-Ami, New York City
-Betsy Swanson Hollinger
Ventura, California
“I’ve had the pleasure of both being coached by Rebecca and witnessing her gracefully and masterfully lead groups with her deep insight, playful sense of humor and her open heart.”-Kate
Short Hills, New Jersey
-anonymous
-Margaret Reyes Dempsey, Author of The Benefactor
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