Ana Ruiz
Helping professionals prevent depressive and manic episodes
through nervous system regulation
Bipolar Healing Coach
I healed from bipolar. Doctors told me that wasn't possible. I chose a path no one talks about.
I am Ana Ruiz, and I know that statement may bring up questions.
For years, I was careful about how I talked about my own healing because I knew it challenged what many of us have been taught to believe about bipolar disorder.
But my experience changed what I believe is possible.
After 20 years of searching, learning, and doing the deeper work of healing my brain and nervous system, my life looks very different today.
Now, I help professionals with bipolar to learn nervous system regulation skills and how to shift depression or mania before they escalate into episodes so they can feel more stable, thrive in their careers and relationships, and build a life they truly love.
Here’s what makes this work different.
I didn’t come to this work only through study or professional training. I came to it through lived experience. I spent 20 years living with bipolar disorder through mania, depression, medication, hospitalizations, and the fear of what my future might look like.
I still remember sitting in a hospital bed, groggy, dizzy, and nauseated, thinking about my mother’s lifelong struggle with bipolar. In that moment, I made a decision: I wanted a different future for myself. That decision began a 20-year journey of questioning what I believed was possible, healing deeply, and learning how to work with my brain and nervous system in a new way.
Today, I combine that lived experience with my professional training to help people with bipolar recognize and regulate shifts toward depression or mania before they escalate into episodes, so they can create greater stability in their careers, relationships, and lives.
If you’re curious about my approach or wondering if it could be right for you, I’d love to chat.
The method behind the healing.
My lived experience is the foundation. But it is not the whole building.
To understand what happened to me, and to create a repeatable path for my clients, I spent years studying the science of how the brain and nervous system actually change. What I use with every client is grounded in:
Neuroplasticity — the brain’s capacity to rewire which is the biological basis for everything I believe healing makes possible, and mainly memory strengthening and the ability to adapt to new situations, environments and experiences
Neuroscience — understanding how mood, thought, and behavior are shaped by the brain, and how that can shift
Polyvagal theory — how the nervous system drives our emotional states, and how to work with it rather than against it
Attachment theory — how we create an unconscious blueprint for trust, safety, intimacy, and self-worth that shapes how we relate to ourselves and with others as adults, and how those patterns can be updated
Trauma — the internal psychological and physical wound that develops as a result of distressing experiences, often causing disconnection from oneself
IFS (Internal Family Systems) and Somatic therapy — building a relationship with the parts of yourself that formed around the pain and helping them find safety, so healing becomes possible
This is not coaching that asks you to think differently, or to quit medication or therapy. This is holistic work in addition to what you’re already doing.
You don't have to continue living the way you had.
If you are ready to stop fearing when the next episode will hit and instead build a life you actually want, let's chat. The first conversation is free. No pressure, no pitch, just an honest look at where you are and what's possible for you.