FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

A LITTLE ABOUT MY JOURNEY

In 2013, I had an epiphany in my career as a coach, educator, and peer support provider in non-profit mental health. I realized that my clients were not getting some of their needs met in sessions with their providers.

I decided to step up and get educated on trauma informed care so that I could serve people better and do more to fill the relational gaps that were missing within service provision.

A strictly clinical, pathogenic approach that lacks genuine connection and empathy does not support the needs + biology of trauma survivors.

Eventually, this type of work shifted into addressing issues within the online coaching industry, such as reducing coach/client harm, examining unethical tactics, and calling out deceitful, manipulative practices that continue to tear at the foundational fabric of the life coaching profession and break down trust.

My own early experiences as a recipient of services, alongside the ethical considerations that I felt were being overlooked within the mental health field became integral pieces that shaped my journey to do the work that I do today, and advocate for integrity, ethics in practice and trauma informed care in coaching and service provision. Reducing harm and resisting retraumatization has been a part of my work for twelve out of the thirteen years that I have been a coach.

COACHING

As a coach, I have helped my clients get their needs met, learn the necessity of thinking critically, and accomplish goals by offering support in a way that accommodates differences in learning, processing, and applying information.

I've helped them create a plan of action that feels aligned with how they want to show up within their lives, within their passions and hobbies, and through their service work -- Without sacrificing their autonomy, values, and dignity. I could go on, but the credit does not belong to me, it belongs to my clients. ​I have been coaching for thirteen years.

FROM COACH TO CONSULTANT

In 2020 I realized that some of the people that I was working with needed more direct support. I expanded my roles and added in educational consulting. This is not something traditional coaching model accommodates, which is why for some people, coaching can often feel overwhelming, and ambiguous -- which can then contribute to clients getting stuck, frustrated, and showing up less and less for sessions.

Many people have shared their stories with me about working with coaches who did not do the work to understand their needs and skipped over the relational aspect that is needed to cultivate trust and help establish a felt sense of safety. This is something that so many individuals need first and foremost in order to be able to take consistent, aligned action.

Eventually, I moved into consulting and education in the areas of ethics in practice and trauma informed care to help promote integrity among providers and restore trust in coach-client relationships. Many people are being under-served, shamed, and excluded because they don't fit the preferred picture of what a coach or client should be like.

Clients end up struggling harder when working with a coach who would prefer that they were already ten steps ahead because that would make them "easier clients" that require less work. The possibility of trauma showing up in sessions, and the role that adversity, toxic stress, neurodivergence, disabilities, and social determinants of health may have aren't taken into consideration as clients attempt to move toward their goals in personal development, growth, healing, and business building.

Natural biological responses are labeled and woven into stories as laziness, a lack of self-worth, lack of willingness, or just not wanting it bad enough. There are science-backed reasons that our clients struggle. The stories that they hold as the beautiful, resilient humans that they are, aren't close to the ones that many other coaches and service providers will write about in their marketing and copy and paste attempts to build authority as they try to convince you to buy into their offers.

A FULL CIRCLE

​My life has come full circle. Today, my work centers on the areas of integrity, ethics, and trauma informed care. I educate individuals and organizations on these topics to help reduce instances of harm and actively resist retraumatization. I work with the natural strengths and assets that individuals and organizations already have so that they can confidently embrace what they already know and effectively emphasize what they are already doing well.

Yes you can! All I ask is that you come to the table with some ideas of what your goals are. I can't help you if you have not yet made any decisions at all or have absolutely no idea what you want to do. We need to have some general ideas to work from in order for you to get the most out of our time together.

It's okay if you are just starting out, or even just exploring the idea of being a coach. We can work with that. You don't have to have consistent clients or an income coming in to work with me.

Maybe you aren't sure what your role is and whether or not going down the path of becoming a coach is right for you.

Let me help reduce the overwhelm from all the noise out there telling you what to do. I want you to follow the path your heart is telling you and operate from a place that feels like home to you. I can answer your questions and we can explore what feels good to you. After our first session, if you feel that we are making some progress in the direction you want to go, we can continue to work together and build some foundational framework pieces into your service or practice when it's time.

I am not going to tell you that you need to work with me. It's your choice. I will never tell you that you need to hire a coach to be successful, as a coach. I didn't have one when I first started. I reached out for mentorship and training around specific areas when I needed it. I don't believe that anyone needs to have a coach 24/7 to be qualified, they need the right support.

I don't associate high cost with credibility because that is no longer the case in our industry. There are people charging high prices solely based on the constant outcries to "charge your worth" or who are starting out charging high because the majority belief among our peers is that if you offer lower prices than your neighbor, you are "undercharging."

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More often than I'd like to see, this tends to come from coaches who are not prepared to actually coach who are under-delivering services, and pushing away prospects by labeling them as unmotivated, lazy, or cheap when they ask for the price up-front or decline to work with them.

This is what I recommend. When making any kind of investment, please know that it’s okay to ask for the price up front and take action that aligns with your financial situation and availability.