Executive Director Regina Sën

Before illness changed my life, I was a mother of four, a licensed CPA, and a professional trainer. I had a career, responsibilities, relationships, and a deep sense of purpose.

Then my health changed the terms of my life.

Catastrophic illness did not only limit what I could do physically. It threatened the things through which I knew myself: independence, work, family roles, financial security, community, and the belief that I could still shape my own future.

For many women, this is the hidden devastation of illness. People may see a diagnosis or a limitation. They may not see the loss of identity, the isolation, the grief, or the exhausting labor of trying to remain a person while your world grows smaller.

I know what it means to live in survival mode.

[Read “Head Above Water”]

What I Learned

My life was changed by an act of compassion that reminded me that help is not pity.

When a person enters a crisis with respect, reliability, practical support, and a willingness to understand, they can help restore something illness has taken away: the ability to breathe, to trust, to participate, and to imagine a future.

Emily taught me that the right kind of help does not make someone feel managed. It makes her feel seen.

It also taught me that recovery is not only medical. It can begin when a woman is believed, when a home becomes safe, when ordinary tasks are no longer impossible to carry alone, and when someone helps her move from survival mode toward stability.

What I Bring

Before illness, I was a licensed CPA who worked in public accounting and private industry. I was selected by an NYSE billion-dollar company to serve on a six-figure Peak Performance implementation team and later became one of eight Peak Performance trainers for its West Coast Division.

Those experiences taught me how to lead, train, organize, facilitate, solve problems, and help people move toward shared goals.

Illness interrupted my professional path, but it did not erase my capacity to contribute. It refined what I believe leadership should be: practical, accountable, compassionate, inclusive, and rooted in the voices of people with lived experience.

I bring both professional experience and six years of lived experience alongside women 

 seeking respite, support, and a path back to stability. I understand the difference between being spoken about and being listened to. I understand what it costs when systems overlook the human being at the center of a crisis. I healed alongside those who came for respite and rebuilding, 

The Vision

Emily’s Place is not intended to become another impersonal system.

It is a vision of a different kind of response when catastrophic illness has pushed a woman toward the margins: one that begins with her humanity, her voice, her safety, and her actual daily needs.

It has become an expanding circle of people who are willing to respond before someone becomes invisible:

• Women with lived experience.

• Caregivers and families.

• Patient advocates and community organizers.

• Social workers and in-home support providers.

• Mental-health professionals, nurse practitioners, physicians, and researchers.

• Artists, faith communities, neighbors, and people willing to help in practical ways.

Together, we can identify where women fall through the gaps—housing, benefits, transport, food, caregiving, medical navigation, safety, connection, and respect—and build responses that are grounded in dignity rather than bureaucracy.

Free the Forgotten

“Free the Forgotten” means refusing to accept that a woman should lose her life as she knew it simply because she became too sick, too complex, too poor, too exhausted, or too isolated for existing systems to hold her.

It means recognizing that no one should have to become a crisis before they are believed.

It means treating practical care as a form of liberation.

It means remembering that one woman restored to safety, dignity, and purpose may someday become part of another woman’s path back to life.

Closing

I believe we can get our stars back up in the sky again—shining brightly, out of survival mode, connected to new heartsongs and renewed purpose in life.

Emily’s Place is a call to see the whole person, carry what can be carried together, and refuse to leave anyone behind.