Rediscover You

Grounded in Foundational Beliefs

Everyone is born as a true and unadulterated version of themself. Over the years, many individuals are socialized, traumatized, shamed, and pressured to betray or hide their core selves in order to fit within the confines of society. In individuals that have ADHD, ASD, PTSD, C-PTSD, and various other neurotypes, this masking of the core self is often even more profound. Such an internal schism can have mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical ramifications. These ruptures also confine many people to unhealthy and unhelpful patterns of both thoughts and behaviors, depriving them of the wholistic peace and contentment that comes from true understanding, knowing, and accepting of the self.

Coaching Mindset: The Beginning

Keeping these social and experiential fractures in mind, I approach coaching and mentorship from a stance of collaboration first. Regardless of my expertise and education, there can only be one expert in your mind, body, and life: You. Early coaching often involves activities and conversations designed to rebuild the trust a client should have in themself, striving to undo years of social pressure and messaging to the contrary. Trusting themself will open new pathways of knowing, and eventually that deep knowing will offer a client the opportunity to redefine their needs, priorities, and goals, so that they can work with their core self and their neurotype, instead of against it.

My Role: Coaching is a partnership

In a practical sense, my role, as a coach and mentor, is to help my clients in the doing of things, the learning of skills or knowledge, and the taking charge of their lives. Lynn Grodzki, author, therapist, and coach to coaches and therapists, describes the relationship between a coach and a client as being an equal partnership in which each party brings their own expertise, with which the two collaborate to find solutions to the problems at hand. Unlike therapy, which is necessarily hierarchical, a coach will not tell you how to “ride a bike,” or evaluate what you’re doing wrong (and why) when you fall, but will, instead, get on a bike with you and ask “where are we going?” Coaching is adaptable, agile, and both client led and client focused. Coaches offer space, tools, skills, accountability, and a fresh perspective, among other things, not just knowledge and expertise.

How do I know I’m ready for Coaching?

Business classes will often ask a small business owner to articulate who is our “ideal client,” seeming to look for the answers like “white women between 35-45 who need to fill a hole in their lives with more throw pillows.” Coaching is a different situation entirely because a coach can work with almost anyone. The single biggest challenge clients often face is that many are not ready for coaching. As such, an ideal client for me is someone who is ready.

Yes, I have my areas of specialty, but within those boundaries, an ideal client is ready for coaching.

Someone who is ready for coaching is a client who is truly invested in trying new methods, learning new skills, changing habits, patterns and paradigms, and sticking with something new long enough to truly discover whether or not it will be helpful. For many people who struggle with Executive Functioning, it is easy to identify the arenas of our life in which we are not succeeding. However, identifying the failures often leads to downward spirals in which frustration, shame, avoidance, anxiety, and plummeting self-esteem prevent addressing the functional problem at its root.

If you can confront that negativity whirlpool with an ounce of optimism, and a willingness to try something new, coaching could be a good fit. The process of creating new patterns, habits, and skills (new neural pathways!) is a difficult undertaking, but collaborative, client led coaching can help! By defining and meeting goals on a regular basis, maybe for the first time in their life, a client who is ready for coaching will end up reordering their life into a happier, healthier, more functional existence. Instead of relying on old habits and patterns that do not and have never served them, the client will now have a toolbox full of strategies ready to be implemented whenever the need arises.

Coaching is not Therapy

At some point in our working relationship, clients may find themselves seeking a therapeutic relationship with a mental health professional, if they do not already have one. While I have an extensive psychological background, I am not a therapist, and I do not offer therapy. If, in the course of our working relationship, you and I come to believe that therapy, or medication, or another form of medical treatment would provide help that I cannot offer for your healing and actualization, I will recommend that to you. As your coach, I will be there for you as you “do the thing.” My role is to encourage and support you in finding and using any and all tools necessary for you to find your thrive.

Spirituality Coaching: the Basics

In 2016, I decided to stop putting off my journey towards a vocation in Ministry. I have been a member of the United Church of Christ for over 30 years, first pondered this call and path in high school, and so, given the goings on in the world and politics in November, 2016, I felt I could not wait any longer. In 2017, I matriculated into the Master of Divinity degree program at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, as one of, if not the, most liberal and progressive Christians in the building. Over the next four and a half years, I only became more progressive, learning things I had never known about the colonial, white supremacist, heteronormative, evangelical, fundamentalist, and ultimately, authoritarian American Christian Church.

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and the related protests; the antivax and antimask movements along with the rest of the terrible public health reponse to Covid-19; catastrophic wildfires all over the world; the January 6th insurrection; and multiple other symptoms pointing to the end of empire all led me to leave the ordination process, deciding that instead of being a tool for empire, I needed to find another way to help people. Eventually, this led me to coaching and spiritual mentorship.

Spirituality Coaching vs. Spiritual Direction

An integral part of my deconstruction journey has been to both recognize and reject using hierarchical systems and language in my life and work. While many people are familiar with the role of a spiritual director (a person who helps another individual recognize and follow the inspirations of God in their life, guiding them in their spiritual journey and discernment), I cannot adopt a label that sets me in a position above my client, primarily because I cannot be an authority on their life, experiences, and existing relationship with the Divine. I will never seek to make decisions for a client nor to guide them towards an outcome that does not fit with who they are and what they want.

Instead, as a coach, I try to act as a steadfast companion, trusted advisor, and sometimes expert. I seek to use my education and experience, both from within and from with-out organized religion, to help my clients find ways to live a spiritual life that works for them. Just as you might consult a lawyer for legal insight or advice, I offer spiritual insights and, when asked for, advice.

I don’t want to leave my religious community, but I am seeking, or questioning, or doubting. Would you work with me?

Your personal deity, by whichever name has been revealed to you, is strong enough, immense enough, and loving enough to withstand your doubt. Wrestling with your faith is one way in which you can honor not only that deity, but the people who have come before. No true enlightenment is found without struggle, without pain, without hard work, and without curiosity. Bring your challenging theological questions. Let us wrestle together. It is an ancient practice that religious seekers and practitioners have used for thousands of years. Let’s join this lineage, ask hard questions, and see what we find.

I’ve left my religious community but miss that part of my life. Can you help?

There are countless ways to experience the Divine, and to invite these experiences into one’s life, that do not depend upon institutions, buildings, or even sacred texts. I believe that humans desire religion for reasons that are intrinsic to our understanding of ourselves, each other, and the world.

Primarily, I believe that humans have had to continually confront the dissonance between our creative and generative drives, our power to destroy, and our desire to control, with the fact that there are many things about life that we cannot control. What does it mean that we can reshape our world, but we cannot stop death from taking us or the ones we love? I believe that the Divine, found in all deities, was born from that dissonance, and that we have spent the past tens of thousands of years seeking to understand that unknowable between, caught by both awe and fear.

In addition to connecting with what is bigger than ourselves is the need to connect with one another. While there are many ways in which to have and create community, religious communities offer a unique sense of connection and purpose that is not easily duplicated. However, there is a growing need for communities of mutual love, support, and fellowship outside of religious spaces. Healing and growing after leaving a community of faith can look like many different things, including finding community.