Articles Featuring Ann-Marie

Life Coach Has Had Adventurous Life

By THE NEW MEXICAN

October 18, 2006

If you call Ann-Marie McKelvey and get her answering machine, at the end of the message

you will hear her favorite quote from George Eliot: "It is never too late to be what you

might have been."

McKelvey should know the power of determination and transformation because she works

with these principles every day in her work as a life coach, licensed psychotherapist,

international mentor, coach trainer, meditation teacher and collage artist.

"One of my passions is contributing to the lives of others," McKelvey said. "Coaching gives

me that opportunity. Together we let go of the story, create a view that is much larger, ...

then we step into that view and move the action forward. The energy shifts. The mind and

body adapt. Your life transforms -- yes!"

For McKelvey, life has been an adventure. During the mid-1970s in Berkeley, Calif., after

she earned a degree in psychotherapy, she traveled with Ken Keyes Jr., facilitating

consciousness-growth workshops based on his book Handbook to Higher Consciousness.

When not traveling, she lived as a resident trainer in Keyes' educational communities in

Berkeley and St. Mary, Ky. It was at this time McKelvey began her journey of contributing

to the lives of others.

Taking a sabbatical in the early '80s from "the real world," she retreated to India, where

she lived and studied various philosophies and religions, particularly Buddhism, a tradition

she has been intimately involved with since. As a Buddhist practitioner, she teaches

meditation.

It was also at this time that McKelvey stumbled upon a place where she would seek refuge

for the next 30 years, finding comfort and cultivating her creativity: Chaco Canyon in New

Mexico.

"From the moment I entered Chaco Canyon, I felt as if I had come home," she said. "It

embraced me in every way. The Chaco landscape is one that can be painted on. It's empty,

austere. ... The stillness is immense and so after a while, for those of us who have been

embraced by Chaco, just being there becomes a living meditation, one where healing

happens naturally, and life is infused with quiet passion."

For these reasons, McKelvey sits on the board of the Friends of Chaco Canyon, which leads

journeys to explore the ruins and teaches respect for the historical and environmental

treasures of the site. She volunteers in the archaeoastronomy Night Sky Program at Chaco,

introducing campers to planets and constellations.

After falling in love with Chaco, McKelvey moved to Santa Fe. At that time, she decided to

try her hand at becoming a textile-fiber artist, something she had explored as a child when

she loved making potholders.

"I began hand-dyeing hand-spun yarns and weaving them into rugs, clothes and blankets,"

she said.

After apprenticing with some weavers on Canyon Road, McKelvey asked to join their

business. They told her she was not good enough. So she opened her own business and

ending up gaining clients such as retailers Lord & Taylor in New York City, Ralph Lauren and

Perry Ellis. Seven years later, McKelvey got pregnant. The odors of wet wools and silks that

had previously brought her so much joy now made her ill. So she sold her 10 looms and

entered her favorite phase of life, motherhood. She also became a national expert in post-

traumatic stress and trauma.

However, while attending a retreat for life coaches and therapists, McKelvey decided to shift

into life coaching, where she felt the passion, productivity and creativity that became

contagious to her clients. Today, she spends her days with clients from all over the world

and trains other therapists.

"Connection is very important to me on many levels," she said. "When I feel connected to

myself and others, life gets interesting. I have seen time and time again how strength-

based passionate energy creates breakthrough thinking, skillful actions and incredible

manifestations.

"Now when I talk about passion, it's the kind of passion that is juicy life energy," she said.

"It pulsates; in fact, one of my favorite questions I ask my clients is, 'What is alive in you

today?' Because that is where I want to focus whatever is alive in us and will take us to the

next step of our (evolution) as human beings. I want to sit in that aliveness on my

meditation cushion, and sometimes that aliveness is grief or confusion or loneliness and

sometimes it's all about my to-do list. But whatever it is, if I stick with what is alive in me,

life changes toward more aliveness, more passion, more of being in this moment."

She is a past board member of EarthCare International and past founding board member of

Monte del Sol Charter School. She was an active participant in the Santa Fe Waldorf

community in the '90s. She also participated in the 100-mile Century Ride around Santa Fe

in honor of her mother to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.