Coaching
WHY I COACH
When I was in high school in New York City, Coach Tom Monaco somehow convinced me, fresh out of Memphis with no sports experience, to manage the football, wrestling, and baseball teams and the athletic office. There was something he saw in me that I’d never seen in myself. I knew no one at the school and was so mad at my Mother for moving us to NYC that I was too confused to say anything but yes. His encouragement and showing me how to push past my perceived limits unleashed a part of me that my complicated childhood thankfully had never quite tamed. Those two years taught me the difference between making life choices from instinctive and learned gut sense vs. shoulds, fears, and other limitations life had offered. Unaware, I was in pre-coach training by one of the best coaches that ever lived.
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Decades later and married with kids, I was ready for another sharp turn towards a new direction. I’d been bartering my writing skills with an excellent life coach while once again experiencing new expansive possibilities for myself. I knew then that I wanted to combine my communication degree with coaching to offer others the chance to optimize their life, too. During the next three years, I became certified through Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach Training program, opened my coach practice, and then spent another year completing my Master Coach Certification.
LIFE LESSONS
Life has offered me many opportunities to either throw in the towel or grow. I’ve done both. Experiencing rebellion against growth opportunities and discovering the tenacity to succeed have taught me much compassion for self and others. Life has also schooled me enough to know it’s wiser to get the life lessons learned now before they come back around again offering yet another, often tougher growth opportunity.
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Some of the ways life has offered me challenges that at first I couldn’t find my way through, but eventually determination helped a path emerge include:
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Growing up in a home filled with complicated love, well hidden secrets, and a shortage of healthy boundaries. Years of effective therapy and later on coaching helped me heal, forgive, and see the value in the lessons and apply them to my life.
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Parenting two amazing kids through the basics of modern life and several traumas that included bullying, a tree that fell on us causing PTSD, and a cancer diagnosis for my then 16 year old son that sent each of us in our family into our own intense responses.
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Being in a constantly evolving marriage for 33 years with mutual willingness and respect to seek counseling, coaching, and equine coaching when communication just wasn’t working.
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Navigating life with an eating disorder since I was 4 that included years of treatment now supported by a powerful recovery program that helps me maintain a 100 pound weight loss.
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Finding the confidence to go for my dreams even when doubt and vulnerability seemed determined to keep me playing small.
WHY BE COACHED?
Within us there are gifts to be discovered, unwrapped, nurtured, and released into this wild world that needs the essence of each of us to flourish. Coaching offers clients the opportunity to optimize their life as clients begin to feel truly seen, heard, and learn new tools to find their way through their days. Together we consider where you might be stuck in your thinking or what’s in the way of you moving forward in life. Once the life debris loosens its hold, you have the chance to reconnect with your purpose, passions, and begin to realize your dreams often forgotten or never discovered.
WHY WORK WITH ME?
I’m a creative coach trained to deeply listen for the paths that lead to freedom from limitation and the chance to step into life’s adventures in exciting new ways. The people I’m meant to support will relate to some of my life lessons, be curious about trying new ways to get to their goals, and be willing to go all in to get to their dreams even when doubt and fear want to encourage them to run or hide. As a coach I’m taught to look at my “to hell and backs” and go find the people still stuck there and help them find the path out. Our coaching philosophy is that we already instinctively know the way. My role is to help facilitate the process to help you get back to your own inner knowing and support you as you move forward in life. If this resonates with you, please email me here for more info.