The Birth of Verterra Coaching

I am Rebecca Sappington, PhD, a neuroscientist, educator, and leader defined by high achievement and sustained performance under pressure at prestigious academic institutions and international scientific societies. My career is benchmarked by building infrastructure, leading complex initiatives, mentoring other professionals, and strategically navigating organizational change. But (you knew it was coming!)…

Externally, my trajectory reflected resilience, discipline, and results. Internally, this success was driven by adaptive responses to challenges early in life. I refined survival strategies, like hyper-responsibility, perfectionism, and anticipatory thinking, into professional competencies that resulted in career advancement and accolades, but at great personal cost.

While counseling provided insight into the “origin story”, it did not provide me with a framework for integrating these patterns and optimizing healthy performance.

Thus, I embarked on a journey through psychological and philosophical theories and experimented with various integration and awareness approaches. This trial-and-error approach eventually provided me with the insights and tools to finally feel content and fulfilled. I also learned that, while personal insight is possible alone, it is rarely efficient!

Verterra Coaching, LLC was born from this journey. I believe deeply in the potential of guided development to efficiently convert years of unconscious patterning into intentional strengths that create greater resonance and enable expansion. My coaching approach leverages my curiosity, intellectual rigor, and own journey to support other high-achieving individuals seeking to finally experience the abundance and prosperity they have already earned!

I developed the Ground Truth Coaching method to help clients systematically examine the patterns that shape how they perform, make decisions, respond to challenges, and relate to others. Drawing on neuroscience-informed cognitive, behavioral, and integrative tools, I create a collaborative environment where assumptions can be questioned, uncomfortable discoveries can be explored without judgment, and even our most successful strategies are open to examination. My approach is analytical, systematic, and a true integration of my neuroscience education and training, my own personal development, and my professional experience. Using neuroscience-based cognitive, behavioral, and integrative tools, I help clients develop the awareness and flexibility to use their strengths by choice rather than default.

The goal is agency. Keep the superpower. Gain control of the switch. Expand the range.