When you’re in a tough spot and looking for the best kind of help, it can be confusing to know what to look for. There are many kinds of helping professions - counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, pastors, mentors, health practitioners and more. As a coach, it’s important to me that people seeking help understand the power and focus of coaching as well as its limitations.
What is coaching?
Coaching is an intentional process where the coach supports the client to reach goals important to the client’s desired future. For example, business coaching is a growing powerhouse of support for business professionals to who want to fast track success. Health coaching helps people achieve their wellbeing goals. In the world of sports, coaches improve an athletes chances at elite performance. Life coaching is no different. Having targeted support, especially when feeling stuck, can empower you to identify steps and find agency to move past barriers and gain traction in your personal growth.
As coach, it is my goal to provide an open and curious space for you to explore what you need and how to get there. Confusion becomes clarity. Inertia becomes energy. Uncertainty is replaced with confidence, conflict with peace.
It can be helpful to know what coaching is not:
Coaching is not advice giving. I don’t tell you what to do or how to do it.
Coaching is not therapy. I assume that you have what you need to move forward.
Coaching is not mentoring. The focus is your story not mine.
The International Coach Federation defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential.” In a coaching session, you get to talk about what’s important to you and create practical steps to move you forward. In that way, you get to tangibly experience progress towards your goals.
That’s what I’m here for - to support your movement towards your desired future.
What happens in a coaching session?
When you come to coaching, you get to bring an issue that you want to work on. Getting clarity on the goal, exploring what is happening in relation to that goal, and crafting specific action steps create traction and a sense of empowerment for change. You may choose to bring to coaching a troubling life moment you need to process, with the goal of gaining clarity about what happened and mining an “aha” moment that informs your next steps. You may choose to talk through an event that is coming up and design a plan to maximise your resilience and effectiveness in that event. You may choose to discuss a relational problem and figure out proactive steps for moving towards resolution. As long as we’re talking about taking initiative to make change, coaching can be a good fit.
When might coaching not be a good fit for me?
As complex human beings there are many layers to the difficulties we face and there is the possibility that other kinds of support might be needed. For example, if follow through is consistently left undone, you may need additional or different support. If in coaching, you consistently bump into subconscious barriers that prevent you from taking action towards change, you may need additional or different support. This includes therapy, medical support, and exploration of underlying issues from the past with a counsellor.
What are my coaching specialties?
Betrayal trauma coaching
I have specialised training to help partners of porn/sex addicts with the traumatic aftermath of discovery. The Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Specialists (APSATS) has equipped me as a trauma-informed coach with a specific framework and toolkit to support you in this painful experience. I run groups and courses as well as offer one on one coaching. The experience of betrayal trauma can leave you feeling powerless and alone, but coaching creates space for you to connect with your innate power and intuition to regain a sense of direction and hope in the practical actions you take towards the healing of this heart wound. Often even therapists in this space do additional training in coaching because it fits well with giving voice and power back to the betrayed partner.
Conflict coaching
As a trainer and mediator in conjunction with PeaceWise, I support people going through the pain of relational conflict to find pathways towards peace and reconciliation. I use the distinctly Christian PeaceWise framework for this. The God who made us has gone to such lengths to reconcile with us. He knows how we tick and what will make us satisfied and fulfilled in relationship.
Ministry woman coaching
With my personal experience of many years in Christian ministry as a missionary and pastor’s wife, I am uniquely equipped to come alongside women in ministry who need a place to process life and grow personally and in service. If you need a place to work out what this looks like for you and how to engage more intentionally with your many roles (yes, I get it that a woman in ministry has a particularly multilayered life), coaching may be the extra support you need to feel more fulfilled and balanced.
Am I a Christian coach?
My personal relationship with God sustains me daily. Intentional intimacy and connection with Jesus is life to me. I seek God’s wisdom in my life and work and try to serve people with his love for them in mind. This is core to how I bring myself into the coaching space.
However, coaching is inherently client-focused, spotlight shining on the client’s needs and beliefs, not the coach’s. As a client, you get to come as you are, with or without faith. I get it that some of life’s experiences deeply challenge our sense of who we are and what we believe, and I hold space for you to work out what you need in this space. Since coaching does not involve giving advice, I won’t be telling you what to do about faith or any other aspect of your life.
Some of the tools I have available to my clients are from a Christian perspective, with reference to God, Scripture or Christian language. Any tools that are offered in a coaching session are only ever with your permission. Coaching is a gently respectful and YOU-focused modality for finding answers.
If you’d like to speak with me further about how coaching might be helpful to you, drop me a line here.