Story & Lesson Highlights with Kelee Love of Costa Rica

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Kelee Love. Check out our conversation below.

Kelee, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
For years I stayed behind the scenes in my coaching work. I was helping other women rise while unknowingly keeping parts of myself small.
Recently, I did something that terrified me more than anything else I’ve ever done: I wrote and published my first book Between Here & Paradise.

A few years ago, I moved to Costa Rica. I learned (still learning) a new language, adapted to a new culture and navigated life in a place where suddenly everything was unfamiliar. That journey cracked me open in ways that I had never expected. Limiting my distractions, I now faced parts of myself that I had once run from, and I felt a deeper call to write. Not in the traditional way I was used to, but to tell a story that had been living in my bones for years.

So, I wrote Between Here & Paradise, my debut novel and the most vulnerable piece of my work I’ve ever shared. It’s written as fiction, but it reads like a memoir, rooted in truth. This calling was about stepping forward and saying “This is me. This is my voice. This is my truth.”

For almost a decade, I’ve supported women in reclaiming their lives. This book was a reclamation of mine. It meant confronting my own ghosts. It meant facing my own fears around visibility, rejection and the voice that kept whispering that I wasn’t good enough.

I didn’t have a formal publishing deal. I haven’t had any formal writing training. I taught myself how to publish as an indie writer.

All I had was knowing that I couldn’t stay small or safe anymore. The time was now to step up and share my voice, despite how I wrestled with imposter syndrome. I learned that courage doesn’t come from feeling ready. It comes from saying yes to things that scare us, even when our voice is shaking.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Kelee Love. I am an author, life coach, and retreat leader based in Costa Rica, where I’ve created a life anchored in truth, barefoot living, and soulful connection. I support women in reclaiming their power, rewriting old stories, and coming home to themselves through my coaching, retreats, and creative self study offerings.

I don’t have children, but I see my work as my legacy. These days, I’m also caring for my elderly father, who I met for the first time at 41 after a DNA test (and surprise) changed the course of my life. That unexpected reunion shaped not only my heart, but also my debut novel, Between Here & Paradise.

My retreats and one-on-one sessions aren’t about surface-level shifts. They are sacred containers for real transformation. I’ve worked with women from all walks of life—mothers, artists, CEOs, survivors—each of them searching for something deeper.

Whether I’m leading a healing circle, talking to the monkeys, or dancing barefoot in my jungle kitchen, everything I offer is rooted in the belief that paradise isn’t a place. It’s something we create within.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
The performer. The fixer. The woman who tried to control every outcome so no one could ever hurt her again. She helped me survive, but she is no longer leading my life.

The part of me that needed to prove I was “okay” has served its purpose, and I am ready to release her. So has the part that pretended to know what she was doing. The truth is, I rarely know exactly what I’m doing. I just keep showing up anyway.

For a long time, I wore my accomplishments like a mask. I stayed busy, self-reliant, always striving, because if I could appear okay, maybe I didn’t have to feel the deeper ache. The grief. The fear. The longing to be fully seen.
I used to think healing meant becoming someone new. Now I know it is about remembering who I have always been underneath all the armor.
Life isn’t about being perfect. It is about being real. Being honest. Being human.

I’m letting go of the need to hustle for worthiness. I don’t have to overexplain, overachieve, or hold it all together to be lovable. I can hold space for others because I have finally learned how to hold it for myself. These days, I practice gentleness with myself and with others, where I once believed performance was proof of value.

And that is the kind of freedom I want every woman to feel. Whether through the pages of my book, inside a sacred coaching session, or during retreat in the jungle, I want her to remember she is allowed to take up space, speak her truth, and begin again.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering taught me how to sit with myself in the dark.

Success shows us what’s possible. But suffering shows us our true character when everything falls away.

It taught me to stop searching for my worth in other people’s approval. To stop waiting for the next gold star or big achievement to prove I was enough. In my emotional rock bottoms, heartbreaks and my own seasons of grief, I met parts of myself that I used to run from. Only in that quiet space could I actually listen.

Suffering had a way of stripping away the masks I didn’t know I was wearing. It taught me the power of presence, and to be honest with myself even when the truth was uncomfortable. It softened in the best way. It opened my heart. It taught me that the most sacred thing I can offer another woman is not my polished success story, but my presence, my listening, and my willingness to walk beside her without needing to fix a thing.

Success is beautiful, but suffering is transformational, and necessary for authentic success. Suffering is a gift that brought me home to myself.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
I used to believe that if I was good enough, helpful enough, and held it all together, I would be safe. That I wouldn’t be hurt. I never said it out loud, but I carried that belief since childhood.

So I became overly capable. Strong. Polished. I shaped myself into who I thought the world wanted: successful, self-reliant, always “fine.” And for a while, it worked.

But underneath, I was exhausted. Disconnected. Lonely in ways I couldn’t explain. I was afraid to be seen in the mess, convinced it would make people walk away.

What I’ve learned is that the real medicine lives in the messy middle. In staying with yourself when everything you thought you knew starts to fall apart. I don’t believe love has to be earned anymore. I don’t shrink or soften myself to be more tolerable.

I don’t care to be impressive. I care to be honest.

And here’s the truth: the more real I become, the more I’m met with real connection, real healing, and real community. That old belief that I had to be someone else to be loved is gone. I trust myself now. I can hold my own heart. I can speak my truth without apology.

The women who are meant to walk with me will see me clearly and not because I’m polished, but because I’m real. And in seeing me, they give themselves permission to do the same.

I love every version of me, even the one who thought she had to be perfect to be free. I meet her with compassion and remind her she is worthy exactly as she is.

That’s what I want every woman who enters my world to feel: seen, safe, and deeply reminded that she gets to take up space, just as she is.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. If you laid down your name, role, and possessions—what would remain?
Take away my name, the roles, the book title, the “coach” label, what remains is the woman who did the work even when no one was watching. What stays is my ability to hold space, my love for stories, and my devotion to truth-telling.

Between Here & Paradise was born from that place. Not for recognition, but because I knew it might meet someone at the edge of breaking, and remind her she’s not alone.

Moving to Costa Rica stripped me of most of my possessions and asked me to remember who I was without the performance. I’ve given my best in silence, in heartbreak, in the jungle, on the beach, in healing circles, and in late-night voice notes to women walking through fire. Praise is beautiful. But I never built this work for applause.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://keleelove.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keleelove.costarica
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shefoundparadise
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@keleelove
• Other: https://betweenhereandparadise.com