Meet Chryssa Tsakiris

We were lucky to catch up with Chryssa Tsakiris recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chryssa, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I grew up Greek in America, with one foot in each culture. That straddle alone helped me integrate the idea that two things can be true at once. The call to keep lineage alive in you was present from birth.

And like so many second- and third-generation families, assimilation was part of survival in America, so the environment I grew up in was both deeply loving and deeply complicated around money, identity, and belonging. From a young age I learned how to navigate competing truths: American and Greek, the pull to create security and the pull to leap into possibility. My dad is entrepreneurial but unpredictable; my mom is protective and frugal. Those voices lived in me for years: one saying “go for it, build, spend to grow” and the other whispering “stay safe, hold back, don’t risk too much.”

For a long time I tried to please both. I built a successful acupuncture practice and still felt one wrong move away from collapse. I hustled for safety but didn’t feel free.

But when my son was born, something shifted. White-knuckling my way through life wasn’t sustainable, even though I had learned to fit in that way. I wanted a world that felt alive, generous, and possible not only for me but for my family: both the one I’ve created and the lineage I come from.

That realization arrived alongside my neurodivergence diagnosis, postpartum upheaval, a global pandemic, and the beginnings of perimenopause. All of it collided with a larger truth: the systems around us — patriarchal, perfectionist, individualistic — are not built for women, caregivers, or neurodivergent founders to thrive. I’m autistic and ADHD (auDHD) and spent years feeling like my creativity was “too much” and my need for rhythm and deep work was “wrong.” The parallels between my divorced parents lived in me, each representing what felt like warring sides of my brain: my Capricorn rising and Sagittarius sun, my autism and ADHD, my mom and dad, my American and Greek selves. Something had to give.

Eventually I stopped contorting myself into someone else’s idea of a “serious professional” and started building a business ecosystem that fit me. I didn’t need to be one or the other. I could accept myself and just be me.

I have never consented to my own disappearance, and that is where my resilience comes from. I began naming the hidden labor women carry, rejecting the idea that success requires self-erasure, and creating my own framework. This has culminated in Proof of Life®, my personal ethos and the umbrella for everything I offer. Proof of Life® asks: what if we built work that nourishes us instead of extracting from us? What if thriving didn’t require abandoning ourselves? It invites you to view life not only through an anti-patriarchy lens but a fully matriarchal one.

Since then, I’ve created Feminist Facials which are a twist on your typical anti-aging cosmetic acupuncture facials, Public Acupuncture, which is my version of small group community acupuncture where for a lower price point you still receive high quality care, alongside others. And then there are my online courses, and intimate high-touch mentorship containers. Each offering focuses on structural repair and helping people return to their own rhythm and vitality while subverting the systems that burn us out.

But this resilience isn’t only professional. It’s about living with an active, idea-filled brain while raising a family, funding a life in one of the most expensive counties in the country, and continually choosing creativity when the easier path would be playing small.

My grandmother always told me that sensitivity is a superpower. It felt at odds with being resilient. If that were true, I thought, I’d need a fortress to protect my fragility, and believe me when I say I built plenty of those! But over time I learned how right she was. Sensitivity gives resourcefulness and regeneration which for me is far stronger than grit.

It’s the courage to design a life that works with your nervous system. It’s listening to the quiet knowing that says “this way” when no one has built the path before. It’s also letting community hold you: the women in my facial gua sha circles, the clients who trust me with their faces and their stories, the friends, collaborators, and family who dream alongside me.

Every time I expand, something old tries to pull me back: fear, perfectionism, scarcity… after all, patriarchy is gonna patriarchy. My matriarchal lens reminds me that resilience means I can pause, return to my body, and keep going anyway. It’s remembering who I am and what I’m building, especially when things feel uncertain.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m the founder of Well Collab Acupuncture, a space in Ossining, NY that blends private healing work with an innovative Public Acupuncture model: small-group, recliner-based sessions that make acupuncture more accessible while keeping the experience beautiful and intentional.

My work is guided by my personal ethos, Proof of Life®, which asks: What would it look like to build a life and business that nourish instead of extract? That question shapes everything from my signature Feminist Facials — structural facial acupuncture and gua sha rooted in feminist and matriarchal healing — to the online courses I teach about rhythm, embodiment, and humane technology.

What excites me most right now is designing a business that supports both deep, individual care and collective accessibility.

We’re growing our Public Acupuncture membership community, training additional acupuncturists to offer this work, and refining a tiered facial model so more people can experience Feminist Facials at different price points. I’m also expanding my educational work through courses and mentorship that help women reclaim vitality and re-pattern their relationship to work, creativity, and abundance.

I believe healing is both personal and systemic. The individual exists within the collective and one cannot exist without the other.

My spaces are designed to feel safe, beautiful, and deeply restorative, while also challenging the cultural forces that burn women out. This mix of ceremony, science, and rebellion is what makes Well Collab feel different from a typical wellness studio.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Self-trust and inner listening
Learning to trust the quiet signals of my own body and creativity has been foundational. So much of the business and healing work I do didn’t have a roadmap. If you’re early in your journey, practice slowing down enough to hear your instincts. Journal, walk, create space for your own knowing, and seek mentors who help you clarify your voice rather than override it.

2. Creative problem solving
I’ve had to invent models because the existing ones didn’t fit my vision or my nervous system. Creativity isn’t only about what we think of as art; it’s the ability to see possibility where others see limits. Strengthen this by experimenting small first, iterating often, and staying curious instead of waiting for perfect conditions.

3. Pattern recognition and holding complexity
My work depends on seeing what sits beneath the surface: how lineage shapes identity, how cultural forces impact health, and how individual healing ripples out into community. Growing up between cultures and later understanding my neurodivergence taught me to hold paradox: safety and risk, tradition and innovation, structure and freedom. It also taught me that relationships are the thread that makes new systems possible. To build this skill, practice zooming out to notice patterns, tolerate ambiguity without rushing to simple answers, and invest deeply in the people and communities you serve.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

This past year my biggest growth has been stepping fully into my own way of leading and creating. I stopped designing my business for how I thought a “serious professional” should look and instead built it for the way I actually work and thrive as an autistic ADHD founder. That shift has allowed me to expand Well Collab, grow Public Acupuncture, refine my Feminist Facial offerings, and build an online education platform, all while protecting my nervous system and creativity. It has also meant embracing being seen, trusting that my work has its own gravity, and letting abundance come without abandoning myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Wellcollab.com
• Instagram: Wellcollab

Image Credits

Melodee Solomon, Gina Dell