What is Coaching?

Well, that’s a big question.  Coaching is so many things to so many people – and it is also not other  things.

I am trained in Ontological Coaching, that is, coaching someone from a place of Being – who they are at their highest and truest Self (their Essence) and who they want to be about their situations and circumstances.  This is different than some other coaches who will simply coach you and give you all the answers where you are.  That can be helpful and there are those for whom there’s a time and a place for that.  I’ve discovered in my own life when I am coached from Being, there are fundamental shifts in how I show up in the world – for myself and for others.  My situations and circumstances no longer drive the bus, so to speak.  I do.  There are choices.  There is agency.  There is freedom and power.  All the things a lot of people come to coaching to look for but often never find.

Now, this is not to say that I don’t meet you where you are.  I absolutely do.  We cannot unearth the highest and truest you without loving and accepting the you who is showing up today.  And even doing this work professionally, there are days and instances when I show up as less than my highest and truest Self; I show up in Survival Mechanism (oh, we’ll talk about this) and react rather than respond.  Sometimes my Survival Mechanism is being strategically deployed; most often, it’s not, and I’m just allowing my Survival Mechanism to take over unconsciously.  You do, too.  We all do.  It’s how I respond and take back the keys that matter.

I used a phrase above: Survival Mechanism.  I’ll use this often in my blog posts and social media posts.  The Survival Mechanism is how we automatically show up.  It was created, often when we were very, very small, to protect us and keep us safe.  What the Survival Mechanism doesn’t realize is that we’re very often no longer in danger and don’t need to be kept safe.  Our Survival Mechanism is all about status quo and is not in service of our highest and truest Self.  That doesn’t make it bad or wrong…it got us to where we are!  It has kept us alive!  It has kept most of us relatively unscathed in our lives and allowed us to interact with the world in a manner that the world taught us we needed to in order to get what we needed.  The challenge is that, to move into Possibility and choose to come from our highest and truest Self more often than not, we need to come into relationship with our Survival Mechanism and exert our highest and truest Self over it; take back the keys to the bus, so to speak.

I often refer to our highest and truest Self as our Essence.  This is who we were created to be, who we are at our core, without the protection of a Survival Mechanism holding us in what it deems safe space.  Our Essence is multi-faceted and beautiful, though we often equate our Survival Mechanism with our Essence.  They are separate and distinct.  When we show up as our Essence, we are all about Possibility.  Maybe adventure.  Maybe risk.  Maybe doing hard things because we can.  Maybe all of the above.  And so much more.  Our Essence allows us to choose to respond, rather than react in situations and circumstances that present themselves and challenge us.  To show up as Essence is a choice; for me, in my journey, a daily one (sometimes a minute-by-minute one).  And it gives me agency.  Power.  A sense of control of my life, simply because I get to choose how I show up, rather than let Survival Mechanism run the show and drive the bus.  I might be safe when Survival Mechanism drives the bus, but it’s no longer fun and it’s painful.  I often feel stuck.  I have experienced Possibility from Essence and it is a wonderous thing.

That being said, what coaching is not: Coaching is not consulting.  At least, not my coaching.  Consultants are hired to evaluate a situation, make recommendations, and implement the changes they believe are necessary to make something “better”.  I believe that you are whole and complete and have all the wisdom inside you that you need to move the needle in whatever direction you want to go.  I will not give you the answers; YOU have them inside you!  My job is to be your copilot on the journey and make sure you’re taking the path you want and staying the course you want to go.  I help navigate the Survival Mechanism when it shows up and help call forth your highest and truest Self, while teasing out that innate wisdom inside you to answer your own questions and find your own solutions.  You are the be-all, end-all expert.  I just get to witness your Greatness on display. 

Coaching is also not therapy.  Therapy addresses past hurts and hang-ups, often dealing with trauma, and the therapist is an expert in mental illness.  My coaching is none of those things.  Not only am I not an expert in mental illness, I don’t address trauma or past hurts and hang-ups.  Sure, they might come up as a root cause of something we discuss in coaching.  And we look at them from a perspective of how we want to do things differently going forward, not necessarily from a perspective of healing.  Remember: you’re whole and complete just as you are.  Therapy may be a wonderful addition to coaching when we’re truly stuck in pain (I’ve experienced both separately and simultaneously…it’s beautiful work), and coaching with me will be how we want to move forward while you navigate the past with an expert.

When you coach with me, you are the pilot.  You come each week with a request for coaching, and we navigate the request and what you want out of our session together.  You will take on practices for the week and build projects for the span of our time together.  Projects guide our work, while practices are the building blocks to accomplish those projects.  You decide how and where we go and the pace at which we move. 

You are whole and complete as you are…Survival Mechanism gets in the way of our Essence.  Coaching with me will support a shift in you to show up how you want to show up to achieve the results you believe you’re missing.  You have to do the work or coaching with me is not for you.  And I can’t wait to witness your Greatness on display.