I am changing my original review to one star because I no longer believe it accurately reflects my…read moreexperience.
At one point, I trusted Carol White Bear deeply. I spent hours speaking with her, confided in her, respected her guidance, and regarded her as someone safe. I also supported her professionally in a significant way because I genuinely believed in her and in the work she was doing.
That trust is gone.
What changed my opinion was not a single disagreement. It was discovering that the compassion and understanding I believed I was receiving directly did not match what was being said about me elsewhere.
That matters profoundly when someone works in a profession built on intuition, trust, emotional vulnerability, and guidance.
I was going through an extraordinarily difficult period in my life, including serious medical circumstances and significant emotional strain. Carol knew that. She also knew how vulnerable I was and how much weight I placed on her perspective.
Despite that, I later learned that she had been expressing judgments about me to my wife while interacting with me very differently in private.
When I became hurt by something that happened, I did not attack her, publicly shame her, or retaliate. I reached out directly and asked if we could meet because I wanted to understand what had happened and repair the relationship.
She told me she was busy and would check her schedule.
She never contacted me again.
Nearly two months later, however, she had no difficulty reaching out to my wife to request changes to marketing materials that I had personally created through my own business.
My wife does not run my creative business.
That moment told me everything I needed to know.
Ignoring someone when they ask to repair a personal rupture is one thing. Deliberately bypassing that same person when you later want something related to their professional work is another.
It felt dismissive, avoidant, and profoundly disrespectful.
I gave an enormous amount of my time, creative labor, professional expertise, encouragement, and trust to this relationship without expecting anything in return. I did so because I believed I was supporting someone who had positively affected my life.
I now understand that relationship very differently.
The most painful part is not that Carol and I are no longer close.
It is realizing that someone I once regarded almost as a maternal figure could know how deeply I trusted her, know how much I was struggling, accept the generosity I extended, speak critically about me behind the scenes, and then avoid a direct conversation when I asked for one.
For a profession that depends so heavily on trust, discernment, authenticity, and emotional integrity, that discrepancy is impossible for me to overlook.
People are free to form their own opinions and have their own experiences.
This is mine.
I once recommended Carol enthusiastically.
I no longer recommend her at all.
