About Ellen Sofie Øgaard
You've built real success, and you still meet a ceiling you can't explain
It's not about strategy or effort. It's about what's happening beneath the surface.
I'm Ellen Sofie Øgaard, a Compassion Key® Certified Practitioner based in Oslo and the founder of Naturebeings. I offer private somatic mentorship online for high-achieving women around the world who have already done a great deal of inner work and still pull back at their next level of success.
Most of the women who come to me have journalled, meditated and been in therapy, and they understand their patterns well. Even so, visibility feels uncomfortable, success brings tension instead of ease, and receiving praise, money or recognition sets off an urge to shrink. In my experience, these responses come from subconscious patterns formed early and held in the body, which is why positive thinking rarely shifts them.
Why I do this work
For many years I built things: a startup, a social enterprise and a career leading strategy work across Norwegian organisations. I knew how to perform and how to lead, and I kept meeting a ceiling I couldn't name.
When my startup didn't secure the investment I had worked toward for years, I could have blamed the market or the timing. Instead I looked inward, and I found a sense of rejection that ran through my father's side of the family. My father felt rejected by his father, and his father before him. Without realising it, I had come to expect rejection, and I carried that expectation into investor meetings, relationships and most rooms I walked into.
I found something else, too. As a child I had a strong, expressive voice, and through emotional neglect and being treated as too much, I learned to dim it and take up less space.
I began inner child work for my own sake, not as a career plan. The changes it brought were bigger than I had words for, and I kept going deeper until I trained and certified as a practitioner. When I started working with clients, I saw the same kind of shift in them that I had felt in myself, and that is still what keeps me doing this work.
A background in business and leadership
Before founding Naturebeings, I worked for years in strategy and leadership. As a Strategic Sustainability Advisor, I led strategy and communication projects across the Norwegian private and public sectors. As a startup founder I learned what it takes to build something from nothing, and as a leadership facilitator with Agnus Consulting I guided senior leaders through reflective processes about how they lead and how they want to live.
I also co-founded She=precious, a social enterprise that raised around NOK 5 million and supported education for more than 200 girls in Nepal before it was acquired by Strømme Foundation. That work received the Women Shape the World Award. I hold a BBA from BI Norwegian Business School and an MSc in Corporate Environmental Management from the University of Surrey. Currently, I am also creating the Well Held Studio, with Perimenopause Clarity as the first service; a webapp to track perimenopausal symptoms, see weekly patterns and get a doctor-ready report.
I mention my background because it shapes how I work. I know the pressure my clients carry and how easily identity gets built around achievement, because I have lived it myself.
Compassion Key® Certified Practitioner · Somatic practitioner · Founder of Naturebeings
What I've learned about success and safety
Most advice about success comes down to pushing harder and overriding resistance. My work starts from a different place: you can rarely expand beyond what feels emotionally safe to hold.
When success, visibility or income goes past what your nervous system has learned to tolerate, it tends to pull you back, however ready you feel consciously. That's why accomplished, intelligent women meet limits they can't explain. For most of them, what's missing is the inner capacity to hold more, and that capacity can grow.
As emotional safety expands, I often see self-sabotage ease, the fear of being seen loosen and receiving become possible. Clients tend to describe it less as a breakthrough and more as their life becoming easier to hold.
How I work
In sessions I use the Compassion Key® method and somatic inner child work to find the original emotional charge behind a pattern and release it at its source. We spend less time analysing the story and more time with how the pattern is held in your body today. You can read more about this approach in What Is Inner Child Healing?
Who I work with
The women I work with are usually:
high-achieving, and held back by self-sabotage or fear of visibility
feeling that they perform success more than they live it
aware that something subconscious is at play, without having shifted it through insight alone
experienced in personal development and ready to go further
ready to commit to a 10-week private mentorship
The Expansion Reset
10 weeks · Private · 3–5 clients per cycle
Next cycle: January 2026.
Real Shifts Clients Experience
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a session look like?
Sessions take place online by video call and last 90 minutes. We start with a short check-in about what has come up since last time, then move into the somatic and subconscious work, which takes up most of the session. Many clients notice a shift during or soon after a session, though this varies. Between sessions, the changes have time to settle into everyday life.
How many sessions are included?
The Expansion Reset includes 10 private sessions of 90 minutes over 10 weeks. I work this way because long-held patterns tend to release in layers, and each layer needs time to settle before the next. One session can bring a real shift, but continuity is what allows the change to hold when life puts new pressure on it.
Do I need previous experience with inner work?
You don't need any experience with the Compassion Key®. The Expansion Reset is designed for women who have already done some personal development, such as therapy, coaching or reading, and who notice the same patterns returning anyway. What matters most is that you're willing to work with what comes up and can commit to 10 weeks of private sessions.
Is this therapy?
No. I'm a Compassion Key® Certified Practitioner, not a licensed therapist, and this mentorship doesn't involve diagnosis or treatment of mental health conditions. It focuses on subconscious emotional patterns and how they are held in the body. If you're currently going through acute mental health difficulties, please work with a licensed mental health professional first.
How do I know whether this is right for me?
You may be a good fit if you've done meaningful inner work, know the direction you want to move in and still find yourself holding back in familiar ways. The application helps me understand your situation and whether this mentorship is the right support for you now. Applying doesn't commit you to joining.