Meet Esther Milanzi

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Esther Milanzi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Esther, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

For most of my twenties and early thirties, I tried to be who I thought the world wanted me to be. Homecoming queen in undergrad, president of my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the polished teacher, the perfect colleague, the dependable leader, the women’s bible study facilitator. On paper, I was accomplished. But inside, I often felt like I was performing a version of myself just to be accepted.

Moving to South Africa on my Fulbright scholarship, meeting my family on my biological father’s side, had me start to question some of the labels and boxes I had been unconsciously keeping myself in.

That seed of awareness began to find fertile soil, when I moved to Thailand in 2014. I was listening to The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron on my morning walks to work, and something in me began to stir. I started speaking my truth out loud. No, literally. I began recording voice notes instead of writing because I didn’t yet trust my own words on the page. I had some traumatic ‘Harriet the spy’ situations happen in my teens, that disconnected me from my love of journaling. Those “walking pages” were my first acts of radical self-acceptance. It was what I call my inner child healing era.

Over time, I learned that my inner critic wasn’t something to silence. She was a part of me that needed compassion and understanding. Later, when I moved to Bali, the seed finally began to take root, I began to dive into parts work and hypnosis. Using these tools, I began exploring my shadow. the hidden fears, limiting beliefs, and stories I had inherited. Pairing that with Human Design, I finally understood why I’d always felt different: I’m a Projector, designed to guide and be seen, not to hustle or force. Around that same time, I was also diagnosed with ADHD and learned I’m on the autism spectrum. What I once labeled as “too sensitive” or “too all over the place” became sacred indicators of my natural rhythm and energy.

Those tools, journaling, shadow work, and energy awareness, didn’t just help me overcome imposter syndrome. They helped me remember who I am. Now, when I’m invited to speak, facilitate, or collaborate, I show up as myself. I no longer fumble around figuring out which mask to wear, I stop looking for validation or try to cultivate mimicry. I finally trust that the right opportunities will recognize my energy, and the wrong ones will naturally fall away. (There is sometimes a bit of disappointment and grief that comes with this awareness).

It’s taken two decades of unlearning, self-study, training, and healing to piece together my kaleidoscope of self-trust. From visiting my father’s grave in South Africa to rediscovering creativity in Thailand and Vietnam, to deep inner work here in Bali. I truly no longer chase belonging. I am my belonging. And every time I meet a new fear or trigger, I see it as an invitation to evolve rather than a reason to hide. Because the healing work doesn’t get rid of these things, it just increases our capacity for holding them at the same time as we hold joy, hope, and creativity. I see it as an invitation to evolve rather than a reason to hide.
When we stop fearing our own shadows, we stop fearing our own light.

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

For years, I struggled with the idea that I needed to “niche down.” Every business coach, marketing expert, and algorithm whisperer insisted that clarity only comes through narrowing. But the truth is… my work never fit neatly inside a single lane.
I’ve coached men in their fifties navigating leadership transitions, eighteen-year-olds stepping into their first creative business ventures after high school, mid-level professionals ready to pivot careers, spiritual healers trying to merge their magic with the tech-and-copy side of their business, memoir writers unraveling their grief on the page, and people who never knew they were neurodivergent finally stepping out of the neurospicy closet.

My work isn’t one-size-fits-all, because people aren’t one-size-fits-all.

I weave my gift of seeing and perceiving with my gift of resourcing. I scan my intuition like an internal rolodex and meet each person at the intersection of who they are and who they’re becoming.

Sometimes that looks like giving them permission to rest.
Sometimes it’s helping them anchor sustainable intentions.
Sometimes it’s reminding them they’re allowed to use their voice.
Sometimes it’s holding space for the grief they didn’t know they were carrying.
And sometimes it’s helping them reorganize their nervous system so they can finally breathe.

Each journey has been deeply unique. But over time, I realized there is a common thread that connects all my people. I think I am discovering their grit is the niche.

My people are seekers.
My people are the ones unwilling to keep suffering.
My people are the ones ready to take the hand they’ve been dealt and become the creative weavers of their own life.

They’re the ones who refuse to let circumstances outside of their control dictate their inner world. They’re the ones who can sense that their capacity is so much greater than the world has ever made room for. They just need a safe, intuitive space to unfold into it.

This is why my work sits at the intersection of education, intuition, creativity, and wellness. Through EstyUbuntu, I help people remember who they are beneath conditioning, burnout, perfectionism, and survival mode.
I call myself a Subconscious Storyweaver because my work blends every tool I’ve walked through and tested in my own body, plc protocols, hypnotherapy, intuitive coaching, Human Design, creative self-inquiry, ancestral wisdom, nervous system regulation, and the kind of radical self-honesty that comes from living abroad and meeting yourself again and again in new lands.

Every offering I create is built to help people return to the softest, strongest parts of themselves. Whether that is my free virtual resource center, the Wisdom Lounge, my paid membership Soulweaver Sanctuary, a space to reflect, do the inner work in community, or my 1-1 Coaching journey, Coming Home to Myself. These spaces mirror back to those in my world the parts of themselves that know they can trust their intuition, trust their timing, trust their rhythms. The parts of themselves that know healing doesn’t mean eliminating fear. The parts of themselves that know it means expanding your capacity to hold your (other’s) humanity with grace. The very definition of Ubuntu- “humanity” and translates as “I am Because We Are” or “I am Because You Are”

Right now, I’m most excited about my Coming Home to Myself coaching pathway. The space where clients exhale, unlock their conditioning, and return to themselves. It’s where I help them regulate their nervous systems, reconnect with their intuition, and rebuild their lives in ways that feel nourishing, sustainable, and true. This curriculum was birthed through my own transformative journey but it weaves in the wisdom of each client’s lived experiences and deep inner knowing.

My vision is simple:
To help people be intentional creators in their lives where rest, joy, creativity, and self-expression aren’t luxuries, but just natural states of being.

You can explore free resources inside The Wisdom Lounge at https://www.estyubuntu.com/community, or journey deeper into the Soulweaver Sanctuary at https://www.estyubuntu.com/membership or Coming Home to Myself at https://calendly.com/estyubuntu/discovery if you’re feeling called to take intentional and aligned action on your healing journey.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

When I reflect on the qualities that have shaped my life, my work, and the way I walk in the world, three rise to the surface again and again: resiliency, creative expression, and intuitive self-trust. These aren’t concepts I read in a book. Or if I did, they didn’t land fully until I deeply embodied them. They are lived skills, carved through loss, healing, curiosity, and the beautiful unpredictability of life.

1. Resiliency: the art of becoming again and again
Resiliency has been the quiet backbone of my journey. Growing up with a single mother who lived paycheck to paycheck. I learned to be resilient.
Not the grind-culture version of it, but the soft, grounded, soul-led kind. Turning scraps into creative wonderlands, when we didn’t have enough to buy decorations for Christmas.
It was those moments that taught me the gift of duality. That my strength was my ability to dance along the bridge of deep desires and non-attachment.
The kind that lets me dance between the excitement of hope and the neutrality of acceptance.
What started out as a survival tactic of being delusionally optimistic in the most sacred way turned into my ability to alchemize in a way, which seemed to those looking outside in, defied gravity. Trusting that even when I hit a wall, the cracks will show me new paths forward.
My life-changing accident in 2019, the moment my literal skull fractured, became a metaphor I still live by: Even when parts of you shatter, you can create beauty from the fragments. The kaleidoscope only works because of the broken pieces.
Life keeps rearranging us, and resiliency is the trust that each rearrangement reveals a new pattern worth exploring.

2. Creative Expression: my medicine, my mirror, my map
Creativity has found a way to be my constant companion.
A way to make sense of an ever changing world.
A way to connect with those who live in different realities than me.
For a long time, writing became the only place where the truth could land safely.
Creativity over the years has become my ritual, my release, and my rebirth.
Creative expression isn’t optional for me. It’s how I metabolize life.
When I learned about the 7 types of rest by Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith, I couldn’t help but feel validated that Creative rest had its own whole section. Like just because I’m physically resting doesn’t mean I am actually rested, because for me, if I’m not creating, I don’t feel rested. The words, the ideas, they live beneath my skin, bubbling up to the surface waiting to be released. Deeply needing to be expressed.
It’s why in my coaching work, I am deeply committed to help seekers to uncover their stories. The hidden stories, the painful stories, the beautiful stories, the unfinished stories, uncover them and use the compost of them to birth life to the stories they want to create for their future selves.
Creativity is the ultimate tool for transformation.
Creativity is how we remember our aliveness.

3. Intuitive Self-Trust: my lifelong compass
Learning to trust my energy, my intuition, and my timing changed everything.
As a Projector with a 1/3 profile, I’m wired to learn deeply and experiment honestly. I used to see that as “too much,” but now I see it as my superpower. I am a human library. A walking repository of frameworks, modalities, and lived wisdom. My job is to test what works, discard what doesn’t, and guide others through the lessons with clarity.
Each major turning point in my life, leaving my premature career in politics to pursue a masters degree in International Education, moving abroad, meeting my husband unexpectedly on a beach across the world, shifting careers, launching my intuitive practice, came from following inner nudges that made no logical sense but felt deeply right.
Intuitive trust is learning to hear the soft yes inside you and follow it long before the world understands why.

My advice for anyone beginning their journey
Create safety first.
Even if that safety lives in one relationship, one ritual, or one journal page.

Express yourself regularly.
Your creativity is the doorway to your truth. Let yourself walk through it.

Trust your timing.
Your intuition already knows the way.
Your only job is to listen.
Healing isn’t about becoming perfect or fixing what was broken. Healing is about expanding your capacity to hold your humanity, your joy, your grief, and your brilliance all at the same time.
Just like a kaleidoscope.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

The most impactful thing my parents ever did for me was give me the gift of being fully myself.
I didn’t grow up in a typical way.For context, my biological father and I were estranged until about a year before he passed away in 2009.
When I speak about my parents, I mean my mom and the man who I call my dad. He became my step dad when I was 3 and he and my mom parted ways when I was going into middle school. Even though he and my mom didn’t stay together, he is and always will be who I mean when I say dad.
Both of my parents were third culture kids. They were American-born but raised abroad, constantly moving with their deeply religious families. By the time they had my sisters and me, they were already questioning the rigidity and the rules that never made room for their full humanity. And instead of passing that rigidity down to us, they chose something different. They let us choose our own paths. Our own faith. Our own interpretations of God, purpose, and meaning.
They didn’t hide their messiness from me either.
I witnessed their struggles with love, money, work, grief, family tensions, betrayal, and reinvention. I saw the raw edges of their humanity. Not because they wanted to burden me, but because they never pretended to be perfect. They never forced me into a box they themselves didn’t believe in. They let me see the truth.
For a long time, I resented that.
For not being stricter, not giving me more structure, not handing me a perfectly mapped-out life. But now, I understand what a sacred gift that actually was.
Their imperfections raised me into someone deeply resilient. Someone who can navigate complexity with compassion instead of fear. Someone who can sit inside the messiness of life without collapsing. Someone who can make meaning out of the fractures. Someone who can create beauty from the fragments, just like the kaleidoscope I now use as a metaphor for my life.
Because my parents didn’t shame me when I messed up. They didn’t try to mold me into their unhealed expectations. They didn’t try to control who I dated, what religion I explored, where I lived, if I had children, or what career path I chose. Instead, they cheered for me, loudly, quietly, imperfectly, consistently. Even when they didn’t fully understand me. Even when they didn’t fully understand themselves.
They gave me permission to be human.
Fully. Unevenly. Honestly.
And that shaped everything, my creativity, my intuition, my capacity to sit with others in their own becoming, my belief that every story is allowed to evolve.
Looking back, the greatest gift my parents gave me wasn’t stability or structure or certainty.
It was spaciousness.
The spaciousness to explore.
The spaciousness to define myself.
The spaciousness to question.
The spaciousness to heal.
The spaciousness to dream of a life that didn’t exist yet.
They gave me the freedom to fail, to become over and over again and to trust that no matter what shape I took next, I would still be loved.
And that is something I will spend my entire life honoring.

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Image Credits

LARA MAYSA INGRAM – Haus of Light

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