MEET EMILY
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"Emily is one of those special people who instantly WOWs you."
Emily is one of those special people you meet who instantly WOWs you. She has been such a blessing in my life. She took the time and effort to unearth small triggers from my past that I didn't even realize contributed to my inner struggles in life. Saying that I strongly recommend her services is a huge understatement.
Justin Norris
Founder & CEO, Rouse Coffee Company
Emily Eldredge is the founder of ChangeLight and the creator of the ChangeLight System™. With her rare blend of deep compassion and fierce determination, Emily leads global leaders and everyday heroes through inner work that accelerates their power to change the world.
She has presented her work and unique brand of leadership at venues around the world including the United Nations, British Parliament, and two TEDx events. As an innovator, entrepreneur, and humanitarian, Emily's mission is to accelerate the healing of humanity and our planet.
A Family OF LEADERS + CHANGEMAKERS
Mission-driven leadership is in Emily's blood.
Her great-grandfather (and fellow Williams College alum) helped found the world-renowned Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. One of her grandfathers was a devoted town pediatrician for 40 years, while the other was a visionary inventor, entrepreneur, and pioneer in solar power. Both of her grandmothers were consummate volunteers and led not-for-profit boards, and many of her relatives are in careers of service.
Emily's father is in not-for-profit executive search, and her mother is a psychotherapist. Both have led not-for-profit boards as well. They impressed upon Emily and her siblings to use their gifts to help others. Her sister and brother currently hold leadership positions in organizations that serve people experiencing homelessness and the environment, respectively.
Helping OTHERS
Since Emily was a child, she knew she had a reason for being here - she just didn't know what it was.
After graduating from the Hockaday School and Williams College, she spent many years driven to find her own purpose and mission - pursuing everything from acting to singing to graphic design to film producing, with many odd jobs in between. However, these pursuits left her feeling unfulfilled. She didn't feel like she was truly having an impact. So she began volunteering in various hospitals around the United States and with handicapped children in India. (She met her future husband Paco at one of those hospitals!)
When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on September 11, 2001, Emily was living in New York City and immediately ran down to help. She lived at Ground Zero for two weeks, moving supplies and informally counseling first-responders, which earned her the nicknames "Hugger Girl" and "Angel of the Pit". For the next year-and-a-half, Emily visited almost every firehouse in New York City, providing emotional support to grieving firefighters. In addition, she and her fellow volunteers conceived World Cares Center, which has since grown to provide disaster training and relief around the world.
Needing HELP
Within months after her stint at Ground Zero, Emily fell ill with extremely itchy, bloody eczema all over her face and body. After years spent focusing solely on others' needs and pain, Emily was suddenly forced to reckon with her own. She then spent well over a decade struggling with physical and emotional health issues and trying countless traditional and alternative healing approaches - mostly to no avail.
Finally, in 2009, after years of illness and still failing to identify her purpose, Emily's life fell apart. Her relationship and business collapsed, and she could no longer afford to live in her apartment. Over the next couple of years, she slept in friends' spare rooms and on their couches. She lost faith in everything and everyone - especially herself - and fell into an excruciating period of depression and self-loathing - a "dark night of the soul".
However, the darkest period of Emily's life soon yielded the greatest gift.
It lit the way for her purpose and Truth.
Healing SELF
Unable to escape her inner darkness, Emily was forced to face it. She began to notice what - and who - lurked inside her: the searing wounds, the stubborn blocks, the reactive triggers and defenses. She refers to them now as "exPowers" because they are the parts of us that get in the way of inner peace and power.
Over time, Emily learned the truth about exPowers, how to work with them, and how to heal them once and for all. The more she "drew out" these exPowers, the more whole, free, and exhilarated she felt. Others noticed, too, and were awed by how much lighter and more joyful she seemed.
Within a year, with the help of her "guinea pig" and friend Hope, Emily had fully developed The Drawing Out Process® - her signature technique which can permanently heal an exPower in just 2-3 hours. She eventually discovered that there are 3 types of exPowers, which she named Defenders, Controllers, and Woundeds.
Within a year of developing this technique, one of Emily's own exPowers guided her to discover that exPowers are, in fact, "emPowers" that have been temporarily distorted by pain and fear. She soon identified and named the 3 types of emPowers: Sovereign, Impresario, and Free-Spirit.
A massive setback in Emily's business ultimately taught her that healing exPowers wasn't enough. In order to feel truly whole and empowered in all aspects of her life, she needed to listen to and honor her emPowers, too. And so, using the same "drawing out" approach, she developed techniques for honoring her emPowers.
FINDING HER Light
The more Emily healed her exPowers and honored her emPowers, the more she felt a solid clarity and wholeness emerge within her. It sharpened her intuition and wisely guided her in decisions and to make and directions to take. She came to realize that this was her Truth - the inner knowing that we all carry of who we are and who we are here to be.
Meanwhile, Emily realized that what had propelled her out of her "dark night of the soul" had been a vision she'd kept seeing of her potential, future self. In this vision, she was feeling whole, free, peaceful, and radiant - traveling the world, healing others, and living an amazing life. Emily had no idea how she would become this woman - but she knew on a deep level that she could... and would.
That version of herself is what she now calls her inner Guiding Star - the vision we all carry of us fully living our Truth and illuminating the world with our light. Our inner Guiding Star is a gift from our Truth to remind us and inspire us (especially during our darkest times) to be who we are and become who we are here to be.
Knowing HER TRUTH
In later Winter of 2015, while suffering another one of her painful bouts with eczema, Emily received a powerful message that reverberated through her whole body. The message was: "World leaders." She knew intuitively that this was her purpose - to work with world leaders. However, she had no idea how nor in what way. And, frankly, the message scared the hell out of her! Plus, given her persistent health issues and dearth of clients at the time, the idea of working with world leaders seemed completely unreachable and insane.
Nevertheless, the message was so clear and so powerful that she chose to trust it. She chose to trust her Truth.
Within months, the message proved prophetic. By May, Emily was speaking at a leadership event in China. By June, she was keynoting a Women in Business conference in Colombia. And by July, through a circuitous and completely unexpected series of events, Emily was speaking on a panel in the United Nations.
During that UN event, she met an amazing young leader named Marlou who invited her to speak at a World Merit event. It was there that Emily officially discovered her passion for working with changemakers (many of whom now affectionately refer to her as "Merit Mom").
Guiding Star LIFE
The more Emily has healed her exPowers, honored her emPowers, and trusted her Truth, the more her Guiding Star vision has come true.
Now codified in the ChangeLight System, Emily's discoveries and techniques have been hailed as "genius", "exhilarating", "brilliant", "a miracle worker", "a truly life-changing experience", and "up there with sliced bread - really good ideas that spread all over the world".
Emily has worked with thousands of leaders and changemakers around the world, from all backgrounds and persuasions - guiding them to heal their exPowers and honor their emPowers so that they, too, can feel radiant, live their own Truths, and follow their own Guiding Stars. She has shared her work with audiences around the world - in Europe, Asia, North America, Central America, South America, and Africa. She has spoken twice at the United Nations, twice at British Parliament, and twice at TEDx events - one of which was the very first TEDx in a prison.
By taking mission-driven leaders and changemakers through the inner work that is necessary for them to achieve the greatest good, Emily's mission is to accelerate the healing of humanity and our planet.
Emily has been on numerous non-profit boards and is a member of the Nexus Impact Society and the Wellbeing Welldoing Network.
ChangeLight's MISSION
If everyone on Earth were free of blocks, triggers, wounds, and defenses, imagine how we would all feel. Imagine who we would be and what we could do - individually and together. Imagine how much faster we could achieve our goals, help others, and change the world.
That's what we at ChangeLight are about - freeing humanity of the wounds that have created our world's ills. By guiding leaders and changemakers through their inner work for greater good, our mission is to accelerate the healing of humanity and our planet.
ChangeLight isn't just a company - it's a movement.
We are pioneering a new era of global impact and leadership.
Won't you join us?
EMILY & Paco
Emily lives and works in New York City with her wonderful husband, Paco Torres, who works for the U.S. Attorneys Office, plays wheelchair ruby, and supports her in ChangeLight.
They first met in 1998 at Shriner's Hospital in Los Angeles when he was a patient and she was a volunteer. In 2010, their years-long friendship blossomed into a romance, and they married four years later in Dallas, TX.
As Paco describes himself in Livability Magazine, he is the "rock" to Emily's "kite".