I’m Esther Boykin,
Your guide to embodied, communal, and sustainable wellness.
My passion is bridging clinical insight with real-world leadership and personal insight to help people build lives and organizations that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside.
I am here to help you create a life that lights you up and build a self-compassion practice that will sustain you through the storms.
Whether I’m working with executives on burnout, hosting life-changing retreats, or consulting on mental health equity and workplace wellness, my mission remains the same— to help people live full and joyful lives.
There are countless therapists, coaches, and consultants ready to help you optimize your life... that’s not my approach. I believe that sustainable success is rooted in self-compassion, purpose-driven action, and healthy relationships.
If this resonates with you, get in touch and let’s see how we can work together.
The Official Story
Esther Boykin is a consultant, speaker, and cultural strategist reimagining how we live, work, and lead when compassion is at the center. For more than 20 years she has been a trusted voice on relationships, leadership, and wellness, blending clinical wisdom with strategic insight to help people and organizations thrive without self-abandonment or burnout.
Through Esther B. Consulting, she partners with leaders and companies to turn care into culture- designing retreats, workshops, and her signature Blueprint that transform wellness from an occasional perk into a foundational pillar of sustainable success. She is also the founder of Compassion Collective, which offers intimate, luxuriously restorative retreats and wellness-focused events and experiences for high-achieving Black women. There, she creates what she calls soft places to land: spaces where ambition meets belonging, and where self-devotion nurtures collective care.
Esther is also the force behind Therapy Is Not a Dirty Word, an educational hub that makes therapy wisdom accessible and culturally relevant through online courses, clinician trainings, and resources for both the public and healthcare providers.
Across all her brands, her mission is clear: to move people from episodic self-care into intentional practices of self-compassion and communal care.
Her influence extends far beyond her companies. Esther serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors for the black healing collective, a nonprofit committed to the holistic wellness of Black women and femmes. She also sits on advisory boards for SimplePractice, Tigerlily Foundation, and The Fuschia Tent.
She has been a keynote speaker for national conferences, a frequent media guest with appearances on The Today Show, Good Day DC, Good Morning Washington, and The Real Housewives of Potomac, and the author of multiple books and affirmation decks. Her TEDx talk, The Antidote to Laziness is Not What You Think, continues to spark conversations about the power of self-compassion and the impact of empathic distress and systemic oppression.
Whether she’s in the boardroom, on stage, in front of a camera, or holding space at a retreat, Esther’s presence is warm, wise, and galvanizing. She creates spaces where culture, care, and strategy meet; inviting people to reclaim ease, lead with clarity, and build lives that feel as good as they look.
In her downtime, Esther can be found obsessing over interior design, exploring new wines, brewing the perfect cup of coffee, or looking for a new book to read. She is a mom to two adult children and two spoiled rescue dogs. She resides in Washington, DC but is always ready for a quick trip somewhere new.