About Stephanie M. Hutchins, PhD

Author, Life Coach, and Owner of Serotinous Life, LLC

Serotinous Life, LLC

Do you want life to keep happening to you or do you want life to happen for you? Do you want to stop going through life with your fingers crossed, hoping that things will eventually start going your way?

My mission is to help my clients to start living their life on purpose by breaking the chains of yesterday that keep holding them back from a life that is meaningful to them. To stop going through the motions of day-to-day life, wishing for Friday to come, for the weekends to be longer and for Monday to never come.  

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About Me

After teaching on the college level for 12 years, I came to learn that what holds most adult learners back from achieving their true potential is not a lack of skills or ambition. It is usually chains from their past or present life that keep them anchored, like a dog on a chain, getting pulled back with every leap forward.

I spent most of those years teaching primarily anatomy and physiology, as well as a variety of other biology courses. As a biologist at heart, I could not help but tie in my love of science and nature when carefully selecting a word that most people have probably never heard of before to go into my business name. Serotinous. You are probably thinking, “What on Earth does that even mean”?! Serotinous cones only release their seeds when exposed to an environmental trigger, such as fire or death of the parent plant. Hence the use of a pine cone in my logo.

I feel such a connection to this word because I feel that serotiny is analogous to our lives in many ways. People often only look at how destructive fires can be. They only look at what died as a result. The devastation that was left behind. Most people do not realize that fires are very important in natural environments. They allow for new growth and new opportunities.

I like to compare us and our traumas to the endangered Giant Sequoias in California, which have serotinous cones. Humans almost protected the largest trees on Earth into extinction. In an effort to protect these beautiful giants, conservationists prevented naturally occurring forest fires from moving through national parks like Yosemite in order to preserve these iconic trees. What we didn’t previously know was that the trees required fire to open their cones and release their seeds. So, without fires, their seeds were never released, and new sequoias weren’t allowed to germinate and replace the older generations that eventually started to die off like all organisms eventually do.

I have a long history of personal trauma in my past (See Full Story Here) and for many years it held me back. But, now I live the most spectacular life. I travel the world and climb really big mountains and I do most of it without knowing anyone in the country I am traveling to. Whenever I am getting ready to embark on another journey, without fail, I am always asked questions like, “aren’t you afraid that you will become disabled or even die on one of these climbs? Aren’t you afraid you are going to get hurt traveling to all of these places by yourself?” Of course I am scared. Of course I worry about something terrible happening. But, if I try to keep protecting myself from harm like we protected the sequoias, then I could be missing out on opportunities to create new life, new opportunities, new skills, new ways to bring value to the universe and those around me. Not that I welcome more traumas in my life, but I know that even though the fires in my past left devastation behind, they also allowed my seeds to open. Without my traumas, some of my skills, ideas, and opportunities might not have ever been allowed to germinate and they would end up dying with me someday.

I believe we all have greatness within us. My mission is to help others realize that the fires of their past did not destroy them. Those fires just caused their seeds to crack, allowing for massive growth to follow.

I am the author of Transformation After Trauma, Reclaim Your Life After Trauma, and Moving Forward. I am a Certified Life Coach, Stress Management Coach, Advanced Wellness Coach, Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner, and Yoga Instructor. 

My Books

I am deeply committed to helping individuals who have experienced trauma to break the shackles that keep them anchored to their unchangeable past. That is why I detailed the steps I used to move through and beyond my pain in my books so others can do the same.

Click the links below to learn more about each book:  

Experience Your Life Again!

Click the button below to learn how in one of my coaching programs.

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There is Beauty in Darkness

Helpful Resources in Overcoming Stress and Trauma

I have compiled a list of my favorite books, videos, and articles on healing from trauma and coping with life's daily stressors. Our lives are filled with so much negativity and sometimes life can seem to be too much to bear. Resources like these provide hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

I regularly update this page as I come across helpful resources.

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After you complete the form, you will be sent directly to the page to begin reviewing the list of resources. You will also be emailed a link to the page so you can review it again.  

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