Story & Lesson Highlights with Courtney Green of Ridgway, Colorado

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Courtney Green. Check out our conversation below.

Courtney, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: Have you stood up for someone when it cost you something?
Yes.

I bought my first home – brand new construction, built from the dream I worked hard to create. Six months later, the roof leaked. Water streamed down walls, carpets soaked, crawl space flooded. The builder ignored me, sending subcontractors to slap on shingles while the damage spread.

Neighbors came with the same story – their homes flooding too. They were scared to fight him. I wasn’t. I told the builder exactly what needed to be fixed: a new roof design and drainage system. He flicked his cigarette at my feet, crushed it with his boot, and sneered walking away: “You’re just a single woman. You don’t know anything. You’re an irresponsible homeowner.”

At that moment, I decided: I will no longer be dismissed. I filed the lawsuit.

It’s been 4.5 years since the first flood and 2.5 years of litigation. It’s cost me money, time, and oftentimes my peace of mind. But it hasn’t cost me my integrity. I stood up for myself, my neighbors, and my community – because silence only protects the abuser, never the abused. And I refuse to be a victim.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I sometimes feel like a cat that’s lived ten lives in one. I’ve been working since age nine. I’ve competed as a national gymnast, set a college record in pole vault, played rugby year-round. I’ve served in the active Army and Air Force Reserves. I’ve worked in government affairs, outdoor industry, renewable energy, and environmental law. I earned a law degree, pursued both a PhD and a PsyD, and built my body of work across fields most people never cross in a lifetime.

For years, I chased every achievement, degree, and title – believing that if I just did enough, maybe then I’d finally be good enough to be seen, valued, loved. Eventually, I got tired of performing for other people’s approval. I started rebelling – breaking rules, questioning authority, pushing against what I was told to be. At the time, I didn’t even know why. I just knew the life I was living wasn’t mine.

So I started my own company – Spark Coaching and Consulting – working with socially and environmentally conscious business leaders around the world. Seven years later, I’m evolving again.

Now I’m writing the book that stunned me awake: FREEDOM: The New Reality. It unmasks the control code that’s kept humanity obedient – convincing us we’re broken, powerless, and meant to serve systems that strip us of sovereignty. I wrote this transmission to reveal the truth, wake people from the trance, and guide them back into their own power and a life of real freedom.

This is where my work is headed: supporting business and community leaders building new systems, bringing this message to stages like TEDx, and carrying it globally. Because freedom isn’t just an idea – it’s the new reality we’re creating now.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Before the world told me who to be, I was pure fire and wonder – a wild, curious girl deeply connected to the Earth. I ran barefoot through meadows, played in the woods, plunged my hands and feet into bubbling brooks. I was fearless. Full of questions. Alive. Untamed.

Then the world tamed me. Systems trained me into obedience, over-achievement, and self-abandonment. I learned how to perform instead of live. How to please instead of feel. I believed that if I got it right – the grades, the accolades, the approval – maybe then I’d finally be enough to be loved for who I was.

But that pure essence never left me. Writing FREEDOM: The New Reality has been my way of remembering her – and unleashing her back into the world.

When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
It started when I was nine. I was a gymnast, flying through a tumbling pass, when I slammed into concrete – breaking my wrist, fracturing my back and hip. From then on, pain was constant. Doctors told me I’d have to live with it. So I did, for decades.

I learned to override my body. To silence its signals. To use pain as proof of toughness. Deep down, I believed that if I pushed hard enough, achieved enough, endured enough – maybe then I’d finally be good enough. Maybe then I’d be noticed, valued, loved.

The wake-up call came at 44, rock climbing at 10,500 feet. In an instant, I felt a massive snap – like my spinal cord ripped loose. From the belly button down, I went numb. Only a single nerve fiber still connected my brain to my lower half – one shred of grace that kept me from paralysis. I still had to rappel 200 feet and hike out with a pack. At first I swore it was “just emotional,” but the truth was both: physical and emotional are intertwined. My body was done being ignored.

The pain afterward was extreme -searing hot electricity ripping through one leg while the other shriveled in cold numbness. For months, doctors couldn’t get a clear MRI – my spine was convulsing, nervous system firing out of control. I tried everything: cranial-sacral therapy, IFS, energy healing, ancestral work. Still, I carried the shame, the inadequacy, the loneliness. At my lowest, I questioned if I wanted to keep living.

But here’s the truth: my body did not give out. It saved me. It forced me to stop overriding its intelligence. It demanded I rest. It demanded I listen. It showed me I wasn’t broken – the program was. The lie was that I had to prove myself worthy of love by suffering, performing, or enduring more than anyone else.

Since then, pain has become my teacher and my power. I choose play over performance, joy over pressure, rest over proving. And I share my story so others can stop hiding their pain and start hearing its wisdom – reconnecting with their bodies not as enemies, but as allies.

Pain became power the moment I stopped chasing “good enough” and started listening to the truth: I was already worthy, already loved, already whole. Pain turned into wisdom.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Is the public version of you the real you?
Until now, no.

The world saw my performance, not my truth. I was programmed to survive by predicting what others wanted – over-functioning, fixing, carrying everyone else’s emotions, silencing my own. I played the good girl, the high achiever, the one who could handle it all. That version of me earned praise, but it wasn’t me. It was a survival mask – one built to hide the constant fear that I was never good enough.

Everywhere I turned, the message was the same: in school, get good grades and you’ll finally be worth something. In family, meet everyone else’s needs and you’ll be loved. At work, grind harder and longer to prove your value. In religion, obey authority without question. I wanted so badly to belong, to be enough – but how can you belong when the world only sees the mask, and not you? The real you.

Writing FREEDOM: The New Reality ripped the blindfold off – I finally saw that the version of me the world celebrated was just the program running me. Now, for the first time, the public me and the real me are becoming the same. This book is my uncensored truth — and an invitation for others to finally live theirs.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
Human behavior.

I’ve studied it, lived it, and coached it – as a mental health professional in the Air Force, through degrees in leadership and organizational psychology, doctoral work in mind-body optimization, and seven years as an international leadership coach and consultant. I’m also trained in conflict resolution and mediation.

Here’s the truth: most of what we call “who we are” isn’t who we are at all. It’s survival code.
We’ve perfected tactics to exist in a world built in the exact opposite way to how life actually works. We’ve accepted lies as truth. We say, “That’s just the way I am,” when in reality, we’ve been programmed – trained to think, act, and feel in ways that keep a system of control in power. Those running it benefit from controlling our thoughts, our actions, even our emotional reactions.

The moment you see the program, you see the lie. And when you see the lie, you finally know the truth: you are far more powerful than you’ve been led to believe.

FREEDOM: The New Reality rips that veil away. It exposes the control that masquerades as choice – and shows how to step forward, not as the programmed self, but as the liberated one.