Shelly Besancon
Shelly’s work is not theory. It is lived.
She spent 15 years married to an alcoholic and drug addict in what became a mentally abusive relationship, raising two beautiful children while living under chronic stress that slowly reshaped her body from the inside out. During those years, her nervous system lived in survival mode. She developed chronic digestive issues, hormonal imbalance, and experienced something most people cannot imagine. She did not sweat for over 20 years. Her body was so locked in stress that even its most basic detoxification systems shut down.
She functioned. She raised her children. She built and operated a successful housecleaning business for 17 years. She showed up. But underneath, her body was keeping score.
After the marriage ended and her former husband passed away by suicide, Shelly made a decision that would change everything. She would no longer live in survival. She would learn how her body actually worked. She would heal her nervous system. She would stop fighting herself.
Through deep emotional processing, trauma recovery work, biological education, and holistic health practices, she not only restored her health but transformed it. She released 65 pounds and has maintained that weight loss. More importantly, she rebuilt metabolic trust. She regained her ability to sweat. She restored hormonal balance. She repaired her relationship with food. She reconnected with herself.
Today, Shelly lives on a farm with her husband, enjoys her grandbabies, and leads her life from regulation instead of reactivity. She knows what it feels like to live in chaos inside your body. And she knows what it feels like to live in peace.
Her lived experience is what gives her depth. She does not coach from a pedestal. She coaches from embodiment.
Shelly believes weight loss is not just about what we eat. It is about why we eat. It is about stress, identity, trauma, safety, biology, and self-trust. She helps women extract the gold from their experiences instead of being defined by them. She helps them move from survival to strength.
She is a certified Life Coach through The Life Coach School, a lifelong student of human behavior and biology, and an active member of the Connected Leaders Academy. But her greatest credential is this: she rebuilt herself from the inside out.
And now she helps other women do the same.
• Coach Certification Program
• Connected Leaders Academy
• Former fundraising coordinator for local school
• Former committee chairperson for Cub Scouts for 4 years
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to radical emotional ownership and the decision to heal at the deepest level.
After 15 years in a chaotic and mentally abusive marriage marked by addiction, I reached a moment of clarity and asked for a divorce. When I refused to repair the marriage by his rules, the situation escalated into physical abuse, and shortly after, my husband took his own life.
From the moment of his departure from this earth, I knew I was free. Free from chaos. Free from survival mode. Free to create something different for myself and for my two children.
My first commitment was to create a safe environment for my children to heal. My second was to heal myself completely.
After years of living on the receiving end of anger, I made a conscious decision that I would not pass that anger forward. I believe emotions live in the body and it is our responsibility to process them, not project them.
I rebuilt my health, released 65 pounds, restored my nervous system, regained my ability to sweat after more than 20 years, and most importantly, rebuilt my relationship with myself.
My success comes from choosing regulation over reaction, ownership over blame, and openness over bitterness. It comes from doing the internal work required to break cycles instead of repeating them.
Success, to me, is becoming emotionally sovereign.
And that is the foundation of everything I teach.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The truth is, I haven’t received one single piece of career advice that shaped me. Most of what I’ve built has come from lived experience, trial and error, and learning what does not work.
What I have learned is this: Do not build a business that costs you your nervous system.
After years of living in chronic stress, I refuse to recreate chaos in the name of ambition. I build slowly. Intentionally. From alignment. My business has to support my life, not consume it.
That has become my guiding principle.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice would be simple: become the work before you teach the work.
This field is not about having the perfect script or the trendiest program. It is about presence. It is about being able to sit across from someone and not flinch when their pain surfaces.
Continue your education, yes. Strengthen your skills, absolutely. But more importantly, do your own internal work. Heal your patterns. Understand your nervous system. Learn to take ownership of your emotions.
Women can feel authenticity. They can feel safety. They can feel when someone is grounded.
Build your practice around your values, not around what is popular. Long-term success in this field comes from integrity, patience, and truly helping women create sustainable change.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges in the weight loss and coaching industry right now is noise. Women are overwhelmed with conflicting advice, quick-fix promises, and surface-level solutions that focus only on calories and willpower.
The opportunity lies in going deeper.
More women are beginning to understand that weight loss is not just physical. It is emotional. It is hormonal. It is nervous system regulation. It is trauma-informed. The industry is slowly shifting toward sustainability instead of restriction.
The coaches who will lead the next wave are the ones who prioritize emotional safety, long-term healing, and true embodiment over trends.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The most important value in both my personal life and my work is self-responsibility.
I believe we must take care of ourselves first. Not from selfishness, but from sustainability. My daily life reflects that. I protect my mornings. I regulate my nervous system. I meditate. I work intentionally. I care for my farm. I build my life from the inside out.
When my husband died, my priority was creating safety and healing for my children and for myself. I understood that I could not show up for them from depletion. I had to give back to myself what I had spent years giving away.
Another core value for me is emotional safety.
Women need to feel heard. They need to feel held without judgment. They need spaces where they can speak honestly without being rushed to fix themselves. In my work, I create that safety first. Transformation happens when a woman feels safe enough to be seen.
And finally, love. Real love. Not performative. Not conditional. Deep, self-anchored love.
I have fallen deeply in love with who I am, and that changed everything. From that place, I help women reconnect to themselves so fully that external change becomes a reflection of internal alignment.
Locations
Private Company
Chattaroy, WA 99003