What is coaching?  According to PSYCHOLOGY.org 

"Life coaches draw on their specialized education, unique life experiences, and targeted training to help people identify and work toward key personal development goals. They provide services in both one-on-one and group settings through private practices, individual meetings, site visits, and teleconferencing platforms.

Through life coaching, clients may:

• Boost their self-confidence and self-awareness

• Build healthier and more reliable decision-making abilities

• Achieve clarity on personal and professional goals and paths

• Find new ways to take strong, determined actions toward key objectives

• Maximize their potential

Coaches guide clients to these benefits through a variety of specialized approaches, including targeted questioning, visualization exercises, and reframing techniques. Coach practitioners may also use methods borrowed from mental health disciplines like psychotherapy. For instance, some coaches draw on cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) models."

https://www.psychology.org/resources/what-is-life-coaching/

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My style of coaching is - helping you to gain awareness of your true thoughts through purposeful and targeted real time conversation and questions. I will help you to identify how you are serving you and if what's happening in your life are things that you want to have happening. You will stand in a place of power to change your narrative if you choose, and I will show you how. You'll improve your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others, and all on purpose. It's truly powerful to learn and choose how you want to conduct yourself  - versus remain at the mercy of your internal happenings, and others internal/external happenings and perspectives. Let's not discount that sometimes, you would chose your choices all over again... feeling solid in your why will absolutely lead to a life better lived and feeling fulfilled. For that thing, or those things that have been lingering or holding you back; let's find your why. Your life is waiting for you to feel unstuck. Let's Go!

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Who is coaching for... Life coaching is for people who experience emotion and have a desire to learn more about themselves. Yes, it's for the living ;)  The young, the learning, the weathered, and the aged! It's for people who have lived, lost, felt incomplete, AND felt complete. It's for those who have felt out of control, and for those who have felt BOSS!  It's for those that don't know what direction to go, for those that have been at the effects of their own self doubt, and it's for those that hold themselves back. It's for the creators, and for those looking to level up in life, in business, in their relationships, and most certainly with themselves. It's for kids/teens/adults who struggle with self awareness, self expression, and identifying their thoughts and emotions. (Can you tell I'm passionate about mental health yet?!)  

It's for those that want to deepen their relationship with themselves, but maybe they're not sure how. Life coaching will not only teach you how to have a better relationship with yourself, but how to have better relationships with others and how to form agency over your internal well-being; so you can truly feel at home within yourself. Did I mention that these strategies can be used to counteract some less severe symptoms caused by anxiety?? True. Proven through evidence-based psychology research. 

Coaching is not for those who seek a diagnosis or those who require services of a licensed mental health practitioner. 

Quality coaching is very much based around mental health practices and has the ability to work in conjunction with services provided by a licensed mental health practitioner.

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Difference between coaching and therapy... Both life coaches and licensed mental health practitioners offer customized and confidential sessions for discussing personal challenges, problems, or struggles. Both aim to improve their client's quality of life and personal fulfillment.

Services provided by a licensed mental health practitioner may be insurance reimbursable, while coaching is out of pocket pay. Licensed mental health practitioners commonly draw upon exploration of a client's past and/or current habits and patterns, while allowing much time for the client to verbally explore in-session, and at times seemingly explore this process alone and with little guidance/direction regarding HOW to process emotions so the client may begin to grasp a sense of organization/understanding/agency. I speak not only from years of my own past counseling experiences  but also from my many years of working as a practitioner of pediatric occupational therapy. Over nearly two decades, I have worked with hundreds of families, each with their own unique dynamics and therapeutic approaches. I have heard many similar stories pertaining to counseling. Based on my experience and many conversations had with my clients and their parents, I believe that an effective and impactful mental health therapist often draws upon their own personal life experiences and the strategies they themselves have used to manage and navigate their own lives. Those type of therapists I believe to be the truly connected practitioners that have the tools to help guide others through the journey that is right for them. 

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What distinguishes and separates coaching from counseling is the level of interactive conversation that happens with coaching, and meaningful inquisitions posed (by yours truly) that help your brain to process what you want to process to move you FORWARD. Problem solving at it's finest. (Those of you that have been in counseling for years, you know what I mean!)

According to a 2022 peer reviewed study done by the Journal of the American Medical Association, "participants who received professional coaching had a significant reduction in emotional exhaustion and overall symptoms of burnout, as well as improvements in overall quality of life and resilience." As well as improved impostor syndrome, increased self compassion, and improved burnout by reducing emotional exhaustion in the participants.  (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2740206) 

I'm aware I talked up a big game with my perspectives on mainstream counseling. So what can I offer you, you may ask? My navigation of life experiences and defining what mental health looked like for me, include (nervously clears throat): navigating childhood trauma experiences, childhood poverty, child of an alcoholic, death of a spouse, death of meaningful family members, car and motorcycle accidents, realizing VULNERABILITY is the only way toward connection, infidelity, ostracization, relationships, people-pleasing, and how I overcame ALL OF IT (said with enthusiasm and not arrogance)!  Much of society confuses communication of vulnerability with being a victim, however the different is colossal. This is really putting it all out there, but what I've found is that real conversations start by one person demonstrating vulnerability, because, I would bet you the reader have gone through at least one of these experiences listed above, OR you know someone who has. Welcome to the human experience! It's messy, it's brilliant, it's sad, it's infuriating, it's disorganized, and it's beautiful. Where we really get in trouble is thinking that it's SUPPOSED to be beautiful all of the time... Let's talk. 

​Life Coaching is getting real with yourself, and learning how to close the gap between where you are and where you desire to be - within yourself, and in life. Yes, I'm talking about becoming the person you want to be and are meant to become. The best version of yourself. That is the power of Life Coaching,

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My experiences as a child were difficult to navigate. Navigating these difficulties motivated me to work with children as a way to give them a voice, advocacy, provide understanding, and empower them to create their best selves. I have worked with children, adolescents, and parents for nearly 20 years, with 15 of those years practicing Pediatric Occupational Therapy in a Neurodevelopmental and Sensory Integration clinic. If you don't know what O.T. is for a kid; you're right, kids are not employed. But their "job" is to be a kid to the best of their ability, and it's been my job to help them find their ability.  

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As a Life Coach, I want to help you discover how to get from "here," to "there." "Here," being wherever you are at in your journey. And, "there," being where you want to be in life, and how you want to function and conduct yourself. And if you don't know where you want to be, or how you want to conduct yourself; I want to help you discover what is real and true to you. I want to help you find the real steps required for you to become the person you truly want to become. This starts with you and I having conversations that explore your mind, to uncover how your thoughts are serving you and if you'd choose those same thoughts if you had a choice. I want to help you find your power in choice, and show you how to get there, once and for all. 

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As a practitioner of pediatric rehabilitation services, I have coached parents of typically developing children and atypically developing children, in helping parents discover who they are inside and outside of familial relationships. I coach children in ways that lead them to discover how to feel their feelings, identify them, and process emotions in ways that are beneficial to them (teach the difference between un healthy and healthy processing of emotions), and boost their capability for discovering your best self.

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Once, the scent of campfire that infused my hair and clothing, and the rustic origins of my childhood brought me deep embarrassment/shame and a real reluctance to share my way of living with others. Raised by a single mom

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Then, you want to introduce yourself and tell a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself as their coach and tell them why you’re the one to help them. Share something genuine about yourself.

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