Coaching is a space of personal support that offers the client an opportunity to travel more deeply into what is most important to them. That may be addressing emotional challenges, personal transitions, professional transitions, feelings of stuckness or lack of clarity around purpose, wanting to feel more aligned with personal values and potential, and ultimately, not knowing how to move forward or evolve on one’s own. Coaching offers a creative partner to support the client as they explore what they want to do, shift, believe, or act on in order to find that sense of personal wholeness and fulfillment more readily in their lives.

In the Coaching world, we like to say that Coaching is therapeutic, but it is not therapy. What we mean by that is that Coaching is not licensed Mental Health Counseling, but the experience of having a Coach partner with you as you navigate the most important areas of your life is, understandably, emotionally supportive and therapeutic. Research shows that the most defining feature of whether someone will experience growth in Mental Health Counseling is whether they develop a successful relationship with their Counselor. As in Counseling, so in every area of life. Relationships are essential to having a balanced nervous system and bringing us the feelings of safety and confidence from which our most powerful, vulnerable, and important decisions are made. The right Coach will offer you the support and opportunity to be fully seen, heard and ‘held’. Some clients choose to work with both a Mental Health Counselor and a Coach at the same time, and that can be very valuable, and in fact, offer insights from one area to the other. 

The experience of Coaching will vary widely based on what the client brings to Coaching and the unique style of the Coach they choose to work with. The Coach’s job is to create a safe space for the client to explore whatever it is that they find most important to work on in their lives. Through a process of asking curiosity-based and exploratory questions, the Coach gives the client the chance to hear their own thinking, beliefs, values, and possibilities emerge. The Coach may offer their own insights, and will also offer acknowledgement and encouragement for the work they see their client doing and the possibility they also see in their client’s journey. However the primary goal is for the client to learn to trust their own voice, their own sense of Self, their own growing awareness of possibility, and their agency to create the life they want for themselves. The Coach is the partner that helps bring this awareness into being by partnering with the client and allowing for space to bring forth what can sometimes be so challenging for us to see on our own.

Professional Coaches undergo training and certification through the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Coaches are not licensed practitioners, such as a Mental Health Counselor would be. However, the training I have received is rigorous and the requirements for certification outline annual Continuing Education, as well as ongoing Mentor Coaching and professional growth opportunities. The ICF maintains chapters throughout the world for Professional Coaches to continue to hone their skills and make use of resources such as ethics guidelines, trainings, ongoing education, and best-practices for the Coaching profession.

If you would like to learn more about the ICF accreditation process, please visit this site.

This is a great question to ask as you are considering Coaching as an option. What does it take to be ready? Coaching requires vulnerability, and a commitment to self. We’ll take time to explore your own assumptions, values, patterns, and beliefs and how these either help or hinder you. We’ll consider where you’ve been, and where you want to be going, and do much exploring around how you create avenues for your own potential. There will be the time we take to meet each week, as well as any possible self-work or exercises you choose to do on your own. This is valuable work, but not always easy work! The results from Coaching are an increased sense of purpose, fulfillment, ease, and clarity as you rest more fully in a rooted and strong sense of Self. Many people report feeling more confident, self-assured, clear on choices and future direction, more creative and excited about possibilities in their life they hadn’t previously considered. I am here to partner with you on that journey.