My name is
celinne da costa
I help visionary leaders remember who they are and express it through story. Welcome to the sacred path of Story Atlas®.
Rome, Italy | The First Portal of Imagination
In the early 90s, I was a wide-eyed little girl in Rome, speaking to birds and building worlds inside my notebooks.
Born to a Brazilian mother and Italian father, I grew up in a home filled with volatile love and chaos.
As an empathic child, I often felt emotionally unsafe. My sensitivity had no place to land. My questions went unanswered, my truths unspoken. So I turned inward. Storytelling became my sanctuary. Books, writing, daydreaming... they gave me the safety I couldn't find in the external world.
2000
Connecticut, USA | Overachieving for Safety
At age 10, we immigrated to the U.S. I was thrown into the cold — literally and metaphorically. I didn’t speak the language. I was bullied for being different. I felt invisible.
So I adapted. I overachieved. I worked relentlessly to feel safe, to prove I belonged. I got straight A’s, learned English, and got a full Ivy League scholarship.
On paper, I had it all. Inside, I was silently unraveling — anxious, exhausted, disconnected from my body, estranged from my own voice.
The Great Leap | From Performance to Purpose
On my 25th birthday, after a breakup and a missed promotion, something in me screamed enough.
I left everything behind, bought a one-way ticket, and created a social experiment: to travel the world by the power of human connection alone.
No apps, no safety net — just stories, trust, and strangers becoming guides.
I lived with 100+ hosts in 20+ countries. My journey went viral.
Forbes invited me to write a column. Clients began reaching out.
My business was born, seeded in raw truth and the transformational power of narrative.
2016
2019
The Shadow Behind the Spotlight
TEDx talks. Press features. A multi-six-figure brand. Outwardly, everything was thriving — but privately, I was collapsing.
After my TEDx, I landed in the ER with burnout and an ovarian cyst.
I was still running the same patterns, just dressed in success.
That was my wake-up call: even a beautiful story can become a cage if it’s told from wounding instead of wholeness.
The Descent & Rebirth
I entered the underworld. I devoted myself to the inner work: subconscious reprogramming, NLP mastery, somatic healing, trauma resolution, nervous system regulation.
I became my own client — peeling back layers of conditioning, rewriting the story from within. I integrated. I remembered. I softened. I anchored. My private and public selves began to speak more fluently with each other — no longer at odds, but not yet fully unified.
2020-2022
2023-24
The Sabbatical Portal | Collapse & Resurrection
2023 was a milestone year — my highest-income year yet. But as the pace of success accelerated, something felt increasingly off.
I was still building with tools from an earlier version of myself — following patterns that no longer fit the woman I was becoming. The friction grew. The structure couldn’t hold my expansion.
So in 2024, I surrendered.
I took a three-month sabbatical, went off-grid to a permaculture farm in Colombia — cold showers, jungle stillness, no business, no output.
And in the silence, I found myself again: not the performer or the brand, but the woman beneath it all.
The one who rises slowly with the sun... sings by the fire... knows how to rest. The one who trusts.
I remembered: success isn't a performance. It's a state of being.
The Return of the Living Library
I came back different. I simplified everything: my home, my business, my pace.
Now, I approach my business as a regenerative ecosystem — designed to sustain my joy, my clients’ growth, and the Earth. No more performative content loops. I teach and share on Living From Soul — my Substack space for long-form storytelling and embodied leadership.
Storytelling has never been my strategy. It was my way home: a living bridge back to Soul.
2024-now
Who I Am Today
I am a bridgewalker, a mapmaker of soul-aligned leadership, and a steward of story as transformation.
My body of work, Story Atlas®, weaves narrative intelligence, energetics, and subconscious mastery into a living framework for leadership that encompasses both the human and the divine.
I help leaders remember their essence, refine their message, and architect lives and legacies that speak with truth and coherence.
This isn’t about building a brand that sells. It’s about building a life that speaks.
