What makes me different as a coach?

I have a diverse background: BA Studio Arts, Human Development courses, MA Clinical Psychology, a range of trainings, and continuing education. I volunteered in after school programs, mentored teens, and was a preschool teacher for several years. I also tutored English Language Learners as a college student. I’ve been trained in ABA as a behavioral interventionist for children with special needs, and although I disagree with the premises of ABA, I learned about the principles and application of behavior change and maintaining this change.

Learning and education are my first loves. I see how empowering it is to learn something new, or make connections that guide a person to their next stages in life, or greater potential.

As a former gifted student with a twice exceptional (2e) gifted partner, and other loved ones who have learning differences, I acknowledge and see strength in the different ways we each process and learn information. This is crucial to helping someone grow. Not everyone learns or thinks the same. I have heightened sensitivity to specific stimulation, and consider myself a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), as well as someone who thinks divergently, with recent acceptance and acknowledgment of being autistic. Having lived experience as an outlier helps me understand what is potentially unspoken in a fellow outlier’s story.

This is my 10th year exploring or using Myers Briggs cognitive functions to understand personality and self improvement. For the third year, I am a Quora Top Writer for my personality type (ENFP). Understanding or identifying a person’s typology or personality can help guide facilitation of personal change and growth. Sometimes it takes an outsider to reflect what you already have, but cannot see.

I’ve worked in community mental health, public (internship) and private education in school counseling positions for the past seven years. As a therapy-informed coach, I can help identify appropriate care or options related to behavioral health needs. Through these years and trainings, and my engagement in therapist groups online and in-person, I’ve noticed there are different levels of need for people looking for help. I believe in community support, and am an active member of the online mental health community. I think it is important to educate and inform consumers of what is available in terms of access to mental health services. This includes: hotlines, websites, shelters, finding a therapist, low-cost directories, victims of crime services, and advocating for oneself as a client in therapy.

What is the difference between coaching & therapy?

Therapy focuses on unraveling the past, uncovering themes that may be stopping a person from healing or thriving in life. Therapists treat mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, and transitions in life. This can be a slow process where trust is built, and repairing past relationships and memories through the relationship with the therapist occur. Many tools therapists use can overlap with coaching, such as motivational interviewing, solution-focused interventions, and asking about a brief timeline of a person’s life or behaviors. The focus is different, though. Therapists sit with intense emotions at times, mirroring acceptance for a person when they may have never experienced acceptance of their “unwanted parts” like feeling intense emotions or not having any answers in life. Therapists can also help a person manage self-harm behaviors and ruminating thoughts.

Strengths can be identified where a person is rewriting their story through a lens of compassion and acceptance. Strategies like EMDR, mindfulness, and CBT or DBT skills can also be offered, depending on the therapist’s modality. Understanding of medications and potential side effects would also fall in the realm of therapy.

Coaching is present-oriented. Coaching will not heal you from the past (therapy will not heal you either, just give you tools to heal and manage life as it comes). Coaching will not address mental health concerns like anxiety or depression. Coaching is for someone with a higher level of motivation, not necessarily needing mental health support as a primary concern. Coaching can be more immediate in results. For instance, a common coaching client wants direction with work/life balance, or wants to be more creative and needs guidance. Coaching can help a person identify their existing strengths, values, immediate obstacles, and develop encouragement to try something with accountability. This can be offered in therapy, but there may be more “stuff” to unpack before reaching this point.

Coaches and therapists have “niches” or areas of focus. A therapist can work very well with certain people and so can a coach. It depends on lived experience, education, and professional experiences as well. There are executive coaches, organizational coaches, academic and relationship coaches, too. I focus on personal development, academics, and relationships. Therapists can work with clients in these realms, but someone looking for strategies and increased goal-oriented services can also come to a coach. In terms of intense relationships, coping with grief, anxiety or depression, trauma, or PTSD, a therapist is a more appropriate fit.

Understanding or exploring your personality (archetypes), identifying short-term goals, nurturing one’s inner creative, surviving school by learning academic & executive function skills, and building stronger inter and intrapersonal relationships are my areas of focus.

THE TIME FRAME: HOW LONG IS COACHING?

If you’re looking for immediate goals and tangible growth, it depends. I cannot guarantee how quickly change happens. Most of my clients are with me for 6 months to a year plus. We go through the seasons together, holidays, and milestones to honor the cycles of change we all experience.

Change happens in small and big ways, mostly small accumulations of perspective, self-compassion, and behavior. Rushing change can lead to defaulting to old coping skills in erratic ways. In order to have more consistent growth cycles, we have to honor personal flow and pace, which is not always what typical society wants or expects.

Acceptance is the key for someone to change and grow. When we force things, they are not natural. When we accept people, they stop defending themselves or trying to overexplain their situations. The beautiful thing that happens after acceptance is change. It is a paradox.

When honoring change, we celebrate small wins and catching ourselves within our identified cycles. We identify cognitive patterns, sensory needs, archetypal strengths, and personal wants in a sea of shoulds from the outside world.

A lot of things happen during change cycles. I may be part of a cycle, or I can be one of many people in your journey. And through this part of your story, I am here as support, a mentor, and a mirror for you to see yourself in your authentic brilliance.