Erika Needleman helps women become the heroines of their own lives

As told to Rivka Streicher

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rika Needleman’s journey through an ashram, a Christian mission in Haiti, and seminary in Yerushalayim to where she is today — a frum wife, mother, and life coach living in Atlanta — wasn’t about escaping her past. It was about her taking intentional steps to search for meaning, about making deliberate choices to create a fulfilled and empowered life for herself.

Today, as a life coach, she helps other women do the same — to get out of the life story they’ve unwittingly written for themselves (the autopilot version) and into a new one they’re writing more intentionally.

Some women she works with only need to tweak the narratives that frame how they see their lives, while others need a complete overhaul because their stories bog them down, depress them, and make them feel like the victim rather than the heroine of their own life story.

It began during Covid.

“When Covid hit, I had three children home in Zoom school and a toddler running around. I was a mess,” says Erika. “I felt trapped in my house. I loved being a mother, but I felt a deep need to do something else with my strengths, and I was at a loss. Then, a friend, the principal of the local day school, asked me to come speak with some of the middle-school girls who were having a rough year.

“I went in there and told them my story of how I became frum, about choosing this life, which led to a discussion on whether they felt special or forced into it. They were open to talking about their issues. I spoke about making the active decision to choose this life, even if born into it; that when you do, everything becomes more exciting, empowering, and special. We all felt this buzz in the room as we connected.”

“I knew what it was like to lose my way — I’d been feeling it myself — but I also had so much learning and varied resources to draw from because I’d had such a colorful journey through life.”