WELCOME!
I’m Aarti (Aar-thee)
Coaching is my life’s purpose. I’m a natural nurturer and a spiritual seeker who cares deeply about people. I’ve fostered and mentored lots of young people and I’ve held nurturing and healing spaces for thousands of adults.
My spiritual training began growing up as a Hindu. In my 20s, I worked for a Buddhist meditation center in Chicago where I counseled many people and held meditation and spiritual programming. I was deeply involved in interfaith work and trained in spiritual tools from a variety of wisdom traditions.
I moved to the Appalachian mountains on Cherokee land, Boone, NC. in May 2023 from Chicago, with my partner, Matt and our cats. I’m getting to know small town living, the south and how to care for land. We are currently building an everyday modern spiritual intentional living community, Moya.
I’m a natural born connector, collaborator and space holder. I have a nurturing, playful, and direct style and I enjoy helping people. I’d love to meet you and explore if we’re a good fit for each other.
MY STORY
FINANCE TO BUDDHISM…
My journey started when I was in my 20s working in the financial and tech industry. After 10 years of going to work and climbing the corporate ladder, I finally had a epiphany in 2008.
The financial industry was not doing well and they were laying people off in my company. I was given the opportunity to stay in the job I was in and take on more responsibility or leave with 3 months pay. It was one of the scariest decisions I have ever made in my life but I realized I wasn’t in my dream job and I knew there had to be more to life than what I was in...
I took the money and went on a one month silent meditation retreat to better understand who I was and what I wanted.. When I came back, I went to work for Shambhala, a Buddhist meditation center in Chicago. For 7 years, I trained in mindfulness, heart centered practices and tantra in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
BUDDHISM TO COACHING…
Working at an urban Buddhist center meant encountering all kinds of people with all kinds of situations going on in their lives. From anxiety, depression, stress, excitement, and joy to the death of loved ones, the fear of being new parents or new job situations or job losses and homelessness, you name the situation and I coached people through it.
Although I didn’t call myself a coach at the time, I was definitely a spiritual doula or a kind of chaplain. My training in the practices gave me trememedous ground to be able to handle whatever situation came my way. It was hear that I learned the power of listening people into their own wisdom.
COACHING TO MENTORSHIP…
In 2013, our community began to recognize we had become too insular and that it was important for the practices we had to reach new audiences who could benefit from them. We began a journey of trying to understand why our city suffered from gun violence.
We met with 25 non-profits who worked with youth violence in Chicago and co-created a conference with them. Shortly after the conference, which we named “Imagining Peace,” many of the young people impacted by violence chose to continue to work with us.
An open mic night and youth program were born. It was here that I became a mentor to many young people who I am still in touch with today.
MENTORSHIP TO FACILITATION & PLAY…
As many new people, including inner city youth began to become part of the community, it became clear we needed more community facilitation so that we could better understand each other. We went from a mostly middle class, white community to becoming a middle and low-income center with many people of color. Our community began to struggle.
I had been given a new role - The Director of Social Engagement, and as part of that role, I decided we needed more tools. Soon, we were recieving training in the Art of Hosting, Interplay, Restorative and Transformative Justice, and many of the tools that I currently use in my facilitation today.
After leaving my position at the center, I continued independently with many of these communities that taught me valuable tools to work with communities, including when conversations become difficult.
FACILITATION TO RITUAL & ANCESTORS
I grew up in a Hindu family. Ritual was part of life from birth. My name, Aarti is one of the biggest fire rituals in the Hindu tradition and I did the Aarti with my mom everyday as a child.
In my 20s, I abadoned ritual. Then, I rediscovered it again at the Buddhist center.
But in 2020 during the beginning of the pandemic, everything came full circle. I picked up a book called “Ancestral Medicine” by Daniel Foor. Shortly after, someone I knew posted his class on Facebook. I took his class, and in the class, I met my first healed ancestor, an ancestor I had met in my Buddhist Vajrayana practice years before. But this time, he was here to take me on a new journey. He showed me clearly how connected to Buddhism I was in my own ancestry.
My family is from Sindh and the Swat Valley in Pakistan. This is the region where much of Buddhism originates and flourished for many years. It has been this ancestral journey that has opened the doors to new practices, rituals and wisdom straight from my ancestry.
Today I am an ancestral medicine practitoner who coaches people through their ancestral journey.
To make an appointment with me for ancestral coaching, please fill out the application and I will contact you to setup our initial consultation. For other kinds of appointments, please fill out the contact me form and I will send you my calendar to make an appointment.
APPOINTMENTS
COLLABORATORS
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Holly Gayley, Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, is a scholar and translator of contemporary Buddhist literature in Tibet and Himalaya. Her research areas include gender and sexuality in Buddhist tantra, ethical reform in contemporary Tibet, and theorizing translation, both literary and cultural, in the transmission of Buddhist teachings to North America. Gayley is author of Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet(Columbia University Press, 2016),
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Ms. Corinne Cassini, an accomplished Alexander Technique (AT) teacher and cellist, currently serves as a senior lecturer of AT in the Hayes School of Music at Appalachian State University. Certified by both the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT) and Alexander Technique International (ATI), she actively participates in professional meetings and international congresses. She is also a Registered Somatic Movement Educator with the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA).
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Jimena is a Colombian designer and Fulbright scholar. Jimena has 17 years experience as an industrial designer and entrepreneur. She is passionate about designing for persons with disabilities, fashion prosthetics, human factors, sustainability, human center creative processes, meditation and ritual. Having been born without her right hand drove these passions in her mind and brought value to experiences and business strategies of sustainability and inclusive practices. With an integral scope of human-object relationship, she specializes in solving design problems related to well-being and inclusiveness.
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Coming Soon
TESTIMONIALS
“In my BodySpirit it feels like Aarti is channeling across time and space to actualize her current practice, She seems to work alongside energies that include all life and all dimensions in concert with one another.
Engaging with Aarti circles me back to my own understanding, challenge, and purpose and the liberation we can all embody therein. I emerge from our shared experiences with wonder, joy and peace.”
-Karen Hatch, Interplay
Aarti creates a collective space full of deep wisdom, compassion, experimentation and playfulness. She weaves together the spiritual, mystical and practical elements of our lives.
-Kim Rivas, Director of Instructional Innovation and Professional Learning, Niles Township High School
CONTACT ME
Disclaimer: Aarti Tejuja is not a licensed therapist. Ordinary intuitive and Aarti Tejuja are not substitutions for traditional therapy nor any medications that any client may be currently taking. If you become a client of ordinary intuitive, we encourage you to continue your traditional therapy and any medications you may have been prescribed.