The Coaching Relationship

Holding Your Intention
Transformative Results
How We Will Work Together
My Role
Your Role
Common Starting Points
What Coaching Isn't

Holding Your Intention

A life coach is someone who wholeheartedly believes in your soul and refuses to let you forget who you really are.

A life coach insists that YES you can have a more joyful life; YES you are more than you think you are; YES "you have a light inside you and you are here to make it shine!"

A life coach whispers, speaks, and shouts these YESses, even when your old familiar "no's," "maybes," and "yes, buts" seem very real and very sticky.

My wish as a coach is to hold your intention, your highest vision for you until you too see it and feel it yourself - not just for moments here and there, but all the time. I want that spirit embedded in your soul... I want you to live it.

No matter who you are, where you come from, or how far from center you feel, engaging in a coaching relationship will offer you:

• A chance to relish the wisdom and knowledge you have already gathered in your life.
  
• An opportunity to look beyond what you know of your nature, and journey back home to your authentic self.
  
• New clarity about your values and priorities, so you can make deliberate and healthy choices.
  
• A designated time and structure to give attention to your life, so you can move past the blocks and barriers that have kept you stuck in the past.

The Results of Coaching

I will not guarantee you perfection...
I do guarantee, coaching will create movement in your life!!

Here are some of the many things clients take away from their coaching relationship:

• The healing experience of feeling truly heard and understood.
  
• Renewed ability to look within and trust what you find there.
  
• A more fully articulated life vision and an understanding of how to align all aspects of your life with that vision.
  
• The ability to define yourself for yourself; an end to allowing people or things to define who you are.
  
• Specific practical strategies to overcome your unique challenges, obstacles and fears.
  
• The ability to offer yourself extreme self-care and the skills to be your own most cherished friend.
  
• A renewed sense of empowerment; knowledge that you can become everything you know you are meant to be.
  
• A final break from the habits that keep you in "endless loop living," doing the same things over and over and over... yet hoping for different results.
  
• An experience of life not ruled by fear, lies, avoidance or procrastination.
  
• Greater energy, balance and well-being.
                    Ready to discover what coaching can do for you?

How We Will Work Together

My method of coaching is called "Co-active coaching" which means that my clients and I are equal, active collaborators in the project of expanding your life.

In co-active coaching, we begin from the premise that you are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. You will set the conversation, deciding where our focus should be, and you will be held accountable for your own success. I will help you connect to the expertise that is already inside you, and remind you to trust what that inner guidance has to say.

Together, we will access your own inner guidance to reveal your answers. We will unearth important information: your limitations, strengths, wants, fears, motivations, purpose and vision. We will also take a hard look at your obstacles (inner and outer), and we'll work together to create and put into practice a game plan to overcome them.

In co-active coaching, your whole life is our field of attention - we don't pick just one part (like "financial" or "health"), but rather look at the interplay of all the dimensions of your life.

My Role In the Coaching Relationship

As your coach, my role is to create a safe environment for free, honest expression and exploration. I hold your highest intention and help you keep the focus right there.

My role is not to be your "expert," but to serve as a gentle support to your internal guidance system which already knows the way to the fulfillment of your life's purpose. I bring tools, skills, feedback and support to help you attain the changes you desire. And throughout our journey together, I will encourage you to live in this moment... with gratitude.

The coach/client relationship is an intimate one. I am committed to highest levels of confidentiality and faithfulness. In the context of this trust-worthy relationship, you can more quickly move through "problems" to solutions, from the "aha moment" to action, from your present way of being to the life you've imagined.

Your Role In the Coaching Relationship

Hiring a coach means you choose to invest time, energy and money in you. It is a commitment to yourself to pay attention where attention is needed. It is a commitment to explore, to change, to take risks, and to push through resistance.

The thing about growth is that it is at once exhilarating and painful. Your commitment must extend to moments when you've left your comfort zone behind, moments when you are in the great unknown, facing things you've tucked out of awareness or masked with pretense. Your commitment must extend to courageously discovering and claiming your own genius... Yes, you are a genius. Won't it be wonderful to know that for yourself?

Common Starting Points

In life coaching, there are no barriers to what we can and cannot consider as we work through the aspects of your life that call you to heal or expand. Often our work touches on some or all of four broad areas:

Physical ~ Mental ~ Spiritual ~ Financial

Many clients pick as a starting point the particular aspect where they have identified a sense of tension, conflict or stuck-ness.

Here are some common starting points where my clients and I begin:

• Overcoming Habits and/or Obsessions
  (including over-spending, disorganization, procrastination, and body/food issues)
• Managing Life Stressors
  (such as Single Parenthood, Transitions, Fears, Aging, Loss, and End of Life Processes)
  
• Cultivating Positive Life Skills
  (including Nutrition/Diet, Goal-setting, Life balance, Loving-kindness, Compassion, Gratitude, Self-care/Respect/Esteem, Mindfulness, Child/Teen self-confidence)

What Coaching Isn't

As you consider entering a coaching relationship, it is important to understand that coaching is not therapy. In coaching, we do not investigate the past to fix "problems." In the coaching context, what matters most is your openness to discovering your potential and moving in the direction of your highest good.

In coaching, our focus is on the relationship between this present moment and your vision for a different future. Coaching is a type of collaborative consulting; a synthesis of health, psychology, spirituality, philosophy and friendship. At it's best, coaching is a holistic partnership which creates a foundation for positive movement in your life.