What is coaching?

Coaching creates a space for you to pause and listen, so you feel more yourself. It sounds straightforward but self-connection is a skill and a practice. The transformative school of coaching I trained in believes there is no one ‘right’ way of being. Instead, we all have needs that, while universal, will be unique to us as we move through life.

The founder of non-violent communication Marshall Rosenberg made it his life’s work to map out this inner wisdom or compass. There are needs like shelter and safety but we also have a wide range of other needs like spontaneity, community, mutuality, being ‘seen’, respect.

In coaching, we explore the voices of this inner compass together. We listen respectfully to what your needs are telling you. We sift out the expectations and values of others’, so we can get to the needs that are true for you right now.

When you’re navigating a challenging period in your life, whether this is because you’re juggling more than you ever have before or you’re faced with new choices, coaching can offer an opportunity to slow down and resource yourself. It is framed as a partnership based on exploration supporting you to see and create interpretations and options that were not there before.

What made me realise how effective coaching is in my own life is the powerful combination of compassion for the parts of myself that are struggling, with a possibility of empowerment for what I want to do next.

Coaching vs. therapy or other support

Depending on what you’re navigating, coaching may not be the only type of support you draw on. A coach can be part of a bigger team of people that you tap into that provide you with self-connection, whether that’s through friendship, participation in a spiritual practice or community or any other type of therapeutic relationship.  What is distinctive about coaching is that you set the agenda for the changes you want as you discover them in more depth. Coaches don’t provide advice, nor do they take on a teaching role. They are more like midwives, facilitating you to feel more at home and comfortable in your own life. While the focus is is not on ‘healing’ in coaching, I have experienced a healing quality that comes from feeling a greater sense of choice and agency in situations where I felt stuck.

My approach to coaching

Bowerbird Coaching takes inspiration from the Satin Bowerbird. He builds a ‘bower’ like nest made of sticks and grass and decorates it with blue objects of all kinds. We will work to connect with the essential part of you  - your “blue objects “. These are the needs and values that have always been there but can feel crowded out by past experience or others’ priorities.

Like the Bowerbird’s nest, your life doesn’t need to look perfectly neat. It’s beautiful, intricate and unique, and that’s what draws others in.  We can more easily face life’s challenges, decide next steps and define our boundaries once we know what’s important to us and develop the skills to even work out what’s important.

We explore what could be possible for you with a focus on the future. I’ll be alongside you asking questions that lead you to connect with your body, needs and wisdom. I provide a non-judgmental and empathetic presence for you and a series of different coaching pathways that lead you towards clarity.

In my own life, I have soaked up the wisdom of many teachers and approaches. I have often found myself most moved and transformed by Black and Queer writers and artists. They have helped me make sense of harmful patterns of thinking that I’ve internalised and that I see still shaping our world. At the core of their harm is that they disconnect us from our sacred connections to each other and to Country.

I honour this insight by coaching and living in a way that centers joy, love and connection alongside sitting with the truth of painful experiences.