About Us
The beginning.
One day in 2023, we woke up. We woke up and realized how lucky we were to have each other. Best friends since 4th grade, Tracey and Colleen, didn't realize until mid-life how rare, special, and important their friendship was. Through all of life's ups and downs, we had each other. Sure, sometimes life got in the way and we grew apart, but the roots of a friendship that began at age 9 don't wither easily. As we navigated the new stage of life that included aging parents, struggling marriages, and raising children, we realized that having people who can remind you who you are at your core is the greatest gift. And once we did, we understood the value of standing in that space for other women. Everyone doesn't have a Tracey or a Colleen, but every woman deserves people in her life that can help her untangle the expectations life places on her, untwist the knots of ____, and help her reclaim - or embrace for the first time - the incredible woman she is.
And Untangling Me was born.
Our Story
Founders Tracey Portillo and Colleen Carpinelli are lifelong friends who turned their own professional experiences, 40-year friendship, and passion for empowering women into a mechanism to help women untangle their life and embrace their best selves.
Both women were raised in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. Tracey earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Richmond with a major in Women’s Studies. Colleen is a “Double Duke” have received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees in counseling, education, and training from JMU.
Over the last 25 years, Tracey and Colleen have worked separately and together in everything from freelance sales to marketing, entrepreneurship, and small business ownership. These professional experiences as well as LIFE, oh so much LIFE…. created the foundation for Untangling Me. From freelance sales, they learned the power of community because when you are a business of one, it can get pretty lonely. Roles in marketing taught them how authentic communication attracts the right people into your life. After owning multiple businesses, they have both learned the hard way that no one wins when you burn the candle at both ends.
Each of them has been married for over 25 years and learned that there is no such thing as perfection, but instead, it’s commitment, forgiveness, and vulnerability that create strength for the ups and downs of relationships. And through the years of parenting - between their 4 kids ages 18-22, they both learned that it's VERY easy to make your whole world about the people you love and somehow lose touch with yourself along the way.
As they walked this path and began a new journey of self-discovery, the realization that none of us are alone was pivotal. A lifetime of lessons about the value of community, authentic relationships, self-care, vulnerability, and emotional wellness led to deep conversations with each other and many other incredible women in their lives! Less than a year ago, musings between these friends turned into serious conversations about helping other women, and Untangling Me was born!
Get to Know Us
At her core Colleen’s greatest passion is her desire to connect people and for them to feel a part of something. Growing up in an Irish/Italian family of seven, Colleen is the ultimate middle child with multiple siblings on each end. She considers herself adept at being a bridge, a listener, and a big enough mouth to hold her own! Now as a mother to three girls, she sees the challenges of female friendships and a woman’s place in the world in a whole new way. Untangling Me was born of that little nugget of desire to show other women how special deep connection and friendship can be and to welcome others into a community that can give it to them.
Colleen holds a Bachelor of Art from James Madison University and a Masters (also from JMU - Go Dukes!) in College Student Personnel Administration. With a counseling base, her graduate degree led her to careers in student life, administration, ministry, and organizational team building in college, high school, nonprofit, and professional settings. The thread through all of that was a commitment to help people not just be constantly striving to become their best selves, but step into and fully own the incredible human they already are.
Combined with her own love of retreats as a teen and a post-college job creating and facilitating retreats and training their teams, Colleen has a myriad of experiences and education that led her to this place. But if it was just classwork and job titles that birthed Untangling Me, it would never touch people the way it has.
During a difficult season of life which included a three-year marital separation, a lot of counseling, time as a ‘single mom,’ uprooting her kids, recovery work, tons of prayer, testing of relationships, unemployment, entrepreneurship, and job changes, and moving back into her parents’ home, Colleen dug deep and began a journey of growth, grace, and self-acceptance that continues to today. Combining her life experience with her work and educational experience to co-create Untangling Me feels like the soul work she’s been looking for her whole life. And having Tracey by her side - as she has through more than 40 years of life - is the best part of all of it.
I am the middle child of three. Maybe that seems like a simple small detail that shouldn’t lead my “About Me” but ya know, it’s true. I am a middle child and as so I am a pleaser, I have deep feelings of FOMO and somehow my whole life I have felt that I was born to stand alone in my greatness. Maybe it’s because I feel I didn’t deserve it or maybe I was tired of competing for light that never had room for me, but whatever the reason, that is where this journey started for me.
My favorite Aunt was my Mom’s oldest sister Marty. She was revolution and danger and adventure and freedom all wrapped up in one amazingly intelligent alcoholic. That was my first experience loving an addict. Marty literally laid the bricks that are the foundation for my passion to serve our community and empower women to find their true calling. She also started a journey for me of 12 steps and seeing the beast of addiction in many forms.
In 1993 when I had to pick my major at the University of Richmond, after changing it 3 times, I sat down with my advisor and said, we have to figure out the fastest way to the finish line. So we reviewed all the general studies and elective classes I had already taken…Women in History, Women in Literature, The Psychology of Families, Diversity in Literature, Anthropology, Sociology…all pointing to a major in Women’s Studies. Which led to a 3 months internship at the national headquarters for the National Organization for Women in Washington, DC. It was like for the first time I was learning that my story mattered. My voice mattered. And I wasn’t alone. There was a community.
After college I eventually started a career as a pure commission Technical Recruiter. I loved that being “pure commission” was high risk but also high reward. As a recruiter I coached candidates through major career decisions and helped them determine the best path. That was the first time I learned that giving people the answers wasn't enough, you had to let them find the answers for themselves in order to know it was truly the right decision. Coaching them to self discovery was the way to people.
I got married in April 2001 and after experiencing the attack of September 11th less than a mile from the Pentagon, it planted seeds of intense anxiety, fear, and despair. Never in my life had I dealt with those feelings at such an intense level. I found ways to cope and move forward but it was a blanket covering up unmanaged emotion.
We relocated to Virginia Beach the next year and we had our son. In a million years I never would have predicted “Stay At Home Mom” to be a position on my resume but for our family, it fit. I spent the next 5 years managing our home, raising our son and working any side hustle I could find. I made a little money but really, it was about connecting to the ME that seemed to get lost in all the LIFE.
Our family eventually found our way back to my hometown, Richmond, VA and through a series of very serendipitous events, I worked with a group of friends to purchase a small custom handbag company. It was wild and exhausting and it was my first step into being a business owner. For 5 years we were creative and had so many wins but the losses took a toll. We closed that business and learned a million lessons. I could talk about it for hours. I loved that season.
For my next step, I wanted something stable and proven but also allowed for my entrepreneurial spirit. I started working part time for a local insurance agent. And then I transitioned to full time. And then I moved to a higher producing office so I could prove myself. 5 years in the making, I opened my own agency. My name was on the door but I was backed by a nation brand. This was progress.
Four months after opening, my Mom was diagnosed with degenerative lung disease. We went on a road trip from Virginia to South Dakota to see Mt Rushmore. It was on her bucket list. I will never forget those 9 days on the road. She died 4 months after we got back. My whole life turned upside down. Grief was a tidal wave of feeling I never even knew existed. The old coping mechanisms were not working. There was no layer thick enough for me to cover these emotions. I leaned on food. I ate all my feelings. All of them and then I ate some more. It did not help. The hole got deeper and deeper. I was barely keeping my head above water. My childhood friend, Colleen, invited me to a private yoga class.
I have done yoga. I dig it but at this point in my life I am built like a Weeble Wobble. Bending in the middle is an impossibility which makes yoga not fun. But, I went and it changed my life. After I finished struggling through the class, we all sat around chatting and snacking. I was sharing about grief and who knows what else. A woman, who is a practical stranger to me, said, I think I know someone who can help you. She introduced me to a Health Coach who had lost over 100lbs and was helping others on a similar journey. For months, I said no to her invites to meet for coffee. And finally I was like, Ok! Let’s meet so I can tell you NO and then I can move with my pit of despair. But that is not what happened. She was joy and hope and I could see myself in her. So I borrowed her belief and 2 weeks before a pandemic quarantine, I started walking a health journey that led me to lose nearly 140lbs. People started asking me about what I was doing and became a Health Coach. I was using all the skills I had learned from all of my previous roles. As I coached others they continued to teach me things about myself. Self awareness became my mantra. Owning my choices and helping others own theirs.
For decades Colleen and I have stayed connected and have been building our lives in parallel. Marriage, children, motherhood, freelance work, side hustles, loss, relocation, business ownership, managing priorities and then our paths brought us both back to Richmond, VA. And through the pandemic we both followed our own separate health journeys. Finding communities of women who helped us grow separately in new ways and then taught us how to share that with others. We are like magnets, always being drawn back together. Stronger as a whole than a part. Collen and I created our own study group of 2. Sharing what we learned with each other. Realizing that the real super power we had was the ability to selflessly support each other as we walked our individual paths.
One day my phone rings and it’s Colleen. She said, “We should just do this together. Couldn’t we just do this together. Build a community and offer support…together.” And that’s how it started. Phone calls and meetings and shared experience with a common goal of empowering women to not lose themselves and to own their purpose. To give women a safe space to untangle all the LIFE and remember who they are. So we created Untangling Me.