From Near-Death to Purpose: How Emefa Boamah Helps Women Leaders Reclaim Their Bodies and Businesses

Written By Ryan Morrison
 
 

About Emefa Boamah

Emefa Boamah is a trauma-informed life and business coach, breathwork facilitator, and embodiment guide who specializes in helping women and non-binary leaders reconnect with their bodies and lead from wholeness. Her work combines:

  • Founder of Emefa Boamah Embodiment Coaching, focused on embodied leadership for visionary women

  • Host of the Inhabit Yourself podcast, a sanctuary for women leaders, healers, and entrepreneurs

  • Facilitator of Somatic Alignment Sessions, offering 1:1 coaching rooted in nervous system attunement

  • Heritage Guide drawing from her Ghanaian Ewe lineage and ancestral wisdom

  • Community Leader hosting Office Hours at Cahoots in Ann Arbor, Michigan

 

From Corporate Success to Spiritual Awakening

The Power of Lineage

Emefa begins every conversation by honoring her roots. "I come from the Ewe tribe of Ghana, West Africa," she explains. "If Ghana hadn't been colonized, I would literally be in the village tending to people, taking care of the shrine or the Oracle." This connection to her lineage of medicine women isn't just biographical—it's foundational to how she works with clients today.

Growing up in Accra in a multi-generational household, Emefa watched her grandmother serve as a matriarch who mediated conflicts, fed neighbors, and held space for the community. "There was something about watching the way that she would work with people without necessarily shouting or screaming," Emefa recalls. "There was this way that she facilitated things that I was like, this is so cool."

The Near-Death Experience That Changed Everything

Before 2020, Emefa's life followed a different trajectory. She worked in hospitality and event management with the Ritz Carlton, then spent four years at a boutique leadership academy. She went by the name Joselyn. She was training for amateur boxing. She embodied the go-go-go energy of American ambition.

Then COVID-19 changed everything.

In November 2020, Emefa contracted a severe case that wouldn't resolve. Weeks turned into months. "I remember asking my doctor, 'Can I drive to the emergency room?' And she's like, 'No, sweetie, you cannot drive.' That tells you how ambitious I was then instead of just accepting the help."

During a hospital stay, while Fifty Shades of Gray played on the TV screen, Emefa had what she describes as a near-death experience. She found herself on a field, meeting an entity that told her two things: "Your purpose is to serve women," and "We want you to reclaim your name, Emefa."

The shift wasn't just symbolic. "If I don't look at pictures or I don't meet people who know me as Joselyn, it blows my mind that there was such a drastic shift in just who I was and who I had become," she reflects.

The Leap of Faith

Recovery took months of physical therapy and medical testing that depleted her savings. But when she returned to work, Emefa realized she couldn't continue her old life and honor her calling simultaneously. She gave three months' notice, traveled to Ghana to consult with her ancestors (who gave a resounding yes), and returned to America where she took out her 401k, sold her BMW, and launched her coaching practice.

By August 2022, she was facing eviction. "Everything that could go wrong went wrong," she admits. On the verge of folding her business, a mentor convinced her to attend a retreat first. There, she had another ancestral encounter that crystallized her commitment.

"The chances of you figuring out or finding out what you're here to do for a lot of people is very slim, and I had a lived experience of what mine was," Emefa says. "So it was a coming together moment of like, this is what I'm here to do and I'm going to live my life in devotion to it."

 

The Five Facets of Embodied Leadership

Understanding Embodiment

At the heart of Emefa's work is a framework she calls the Five Facets of Being. Rather than forcing clients to jump from their minds directly into their bodies—a common pitfall of embodiment work—she helps them understand five interconnected dimensions:

1. Physical: The tangible body we inhabit
2. Energetic: The flow of energy through chakra systems and interactions with others
3. Emotional: How we regulate emotions and develop emotional intelligence
4. Mental: The stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we move through the world
5. Spiritual: Our connection to something larger than ourselves, whether through religion or other practices

"Embodiment for a lot of people think that you have to move from your mind into your physical body instantly," Emefa explains. "First we understand why is there separation in the first place. And then how do we support you in safely landing into whichever facet is the most accessible?"

Mapping Business to Body

What makes Emefa's approach unique is how she translates these five facets into business strategy:

  • Physical: Your product offerings, services, and the physical spaces where you work

  • Energetic: The flow of resources—money, time, and people—through your business

  • Emotional: How you feel about your business and how clients feel after experiencing your work

  • Mental: Traditional strategy—marketing, client acquisition, business planning

  • Spiritual: The deeper purpose behind your business; why it exists beyond making money

"We map those two, see where there's congruence or not, and how do we create that?" she says. Clients consistently tell her that traditional business planning never worked for them because it felt forced. The Five Facets framework gives them an accessible way to build what they actually want.

 

The Immigrant Paradox: Speed vs. Rootedness

Two Archetypal Energies

One of the most compelling aspects of Emefa's perspective comes from living between two worlds. As an immigrant from Ghana, she experienced firsthand the clash between American masculine "go-go-go" energy and the more feminine, rooted pace of West African culture.

"When I moved to America, I was like, this is a land with a lot of opportunities," she remembers. Coming from a place where food and water weren't guaranteed, the abundance was intoxicating. "America as a whole, we reward you for speed. We reward you for climbing very very high, very fast."

But after her near-death experience, she began recognizing the cost. "Ghana moves very slow. We take our time to get to things. So we're missing that edge of getting things done when we want. But I believe life is a beautiful integration of both. It's a spectrum—on some days you need to be more go-go-go, on some days you need to relax."

The Women Who Find Her

This framework helps Emefa work with high-achieving, fast-moving women who have built something successful but feel disconnected from themselves. "Usually it's an illness or they remember something about their childhood through therapy," she observes. "Something happens that makes them remember a version of themselves that they've had to sacrifice to get where they are."

Her role is to help them integrate rather than choose between their driven and restful selves. "We create the space for you to rest first and then integrate the wounded part of you that you left behind and the part that has got you here to get you where you want to go for the next evolution of your life and your business."

 

Three Pathways to Transformation

Emefa works with clients through three primary modalities, all designed as rites of passage involving separation, liminality, and integration:

1. One-on-One Coaching

Individual somatic alignment sessions focus on nervous system attunement and body-based decision-making. The first step is always helping clients land in their bodies in the present moment, recognizing which facet is most accessible, and working from there.

2. Group Programs

Her signature program, Inhabit, is a five-week incubator for spaceholders—founders, coaches, healers, and anyone who holds space for others. The program structure includes:

  • Module 1: Coming back into your body, surrounded by other women on similar paths

  • Module 2: Orienting toward your business, movement, or career

  • Module 3: Exploring the synergy (or lack thereof) between your inner and outer worlds

  • Module 4: Hot seat coaching to work through specific challenges

  • Module 5: Closing ceremony with a 30-day integration and execution plan

The next cohort begins May 6, 2025, meeting Wednesdays from 2:00-3:30 PM EST, with four spots remaining.

3. Psychedelic-Assisted Work

For clients seeking deeper transformation, Emefa facilitates psychedelic experiences as sacred rites of passage, always with proper preparation and integration support.

 

What Clients Discover

Women who work with Emefa consistently report several key realizations:

Permission Over Force: The recognition that they don't have to force themselves from mind to body gives them space to make peace with where they are and approach change with curiosity rather than obligation.

Accessible Strategy: Traditional business frameworks that felt constraining suddenly become workable when viewed through the Five Facets lens.

Holistic Support: As one client put it, "You thought you were getting a life and business coach, but what you got was a spiritual guide, an oracle, an intuitive business strategist, a seer—and also the life and business coach and a friend."

Emefa notes that her coaching "begins where most traditional coaches end"—not just focusing on getting somewhere, but on who you need to become to do what you need to do to have what you want.

 

Beyond Nervous System Buzzwords

In an era where "nervous system regulation" has become wellness jargon, Emefa offers a refreshingly grounded perspective. Some people are actively triggered by the term, she acknowledges. Her approach? "All we're trying to do is make sure all your parts have a say in the decision that you make moving forward."

This reframe—from technical language to practical reality—exemplifies her gift for making somatic work accessible. She's not asking clients to bypass their minds or suppress their ambition. She's inviting them to bring more of themselves to the table.

 

The Space Holders Who Need Tending

One insight Emefa gained, particularly after the 2020 election, is that those who hold space for others often have nowhere to go to be tended to themselves. Coaches, healers, and founders give so much to regulate others that they become depleted and disconnected from their original purpose.

"I created this incubator for a place where we just come back into your body, surrounded by other women who are walking similar yet different paths with you," she explains. It's both a return to self and a remembering of purpose—two movements that, in Emefa's framework, are inseparable.

 

Ancestors and AI: The Timeless in Conversation

In a delightfully unexpected twist, Emefa loves both ancestral work and artificial intelligence. When people express confusion, she laughs: "They're probably speaking the same language in that they're timeless, right? We're just discovering ways to work with them in this lifetime."

This openness to paradox—honoring ancient wisdom while embracing modern tools, integrating speed with rootedness, balancing masculine drive with feminine rest—is perhaps the essence of Emefa's teaching. Life isn't either-or. It's a spectrum, and we're invited to dance across all of it.

 

Memorable Quotes from the Episode

"If Ghana hadn't been colonized, I would literally be in the village tending to people, taking care of the shrine or the Oracle. And I think that bleeds into or blends very beautifully into what I do in the world now."

"The chances of you figuring out or finding out what you're here to do for a lot of people is very slim, and I had a lived experience of what mine was."

"All we're trying to do is make sure all your parts have a say in the decision that you make moving forward."

"My coaching begins where most traditional coaches end—it's not just trying to get somewhere. It's like who do you have to be to do what you need to do to have what you want to have?"

"Life is a beautiful integration of both. It's a spectrum—on some days you need to be more go-go-go, on some days you need to relax."

 

Links You May Find Valuable

Emefa Boamah's Work:

Connect on Social Media:

  • Instagram: @imemefaboamah

  • LinkedIn: Emefa Boamah

Upcoming Program:

  • Inhabit: Five-week incubator for spaceholders starting May 6, 2025

 

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