Are you my client?

If you relate to anything I’ve written on this website, you probably are! But it may be useful to know the contexts and foci of the clients I work best with.

You do not need to perfectly match one of the descriptions below to work with me, of course. And you do not need to cite which category you think you are in when we meet. You may see yourself in some combo of the descriptions, or none at all. Either way, we will work on the matters you bring without putting them in little boxes.

  • Clients seeking to play bigger

  • Leadership, executive and solo business clients

  • Crossroads clients

  • Post traumatic flourishing clients

  • Clients seeking support with high sensitivity or giftedness

  • Legal process and negotiation clients

Finally, there is a note on trauma and mental health to communicate the limits of my work on the mental health side.

As noted on my homepage, I have a special niche within my practice for lawyers, who may fit into any of the additional categories below.

Clients seeking to play bigger

To play big, as Tara Mohr puts it, is to be more loyal to your dreams than your fears. It often means departure from the status quo, transgressing norms, confronting fears, and doing things you have never done before. It is also one of the most extraordinary, generative ways to live and work.

The dreams clients are seeking to play bigger into may be more traditional dreams around career progression, or prioritising some piece of personal work or life. It may also look like a shift in lifestyle - away from capitalist, high achiever models and into simplicity or service models, for example - or a call to create something, from a novel to an initiative in service of a cause that matters to you.

Truly, playing bigger takes so many forms. What is common to all of them is the need for extra resourcing, for new perspectives, and for support around the inevitable fears, barriers, and (almost certainly) people pleasing patterns you encounter.

Coaching for these clients is a source of exactly this resourcing, but even more than that it is a source of deep pleasure and energy, as you have company and eye contact while really acting on the things that matter most to them.

Leadership, executive and solo business clients

These clients may be senior leadership in their organisations, or work alone as solo operators (including artists and activists) in pursuit of their vision and agenda. I sometimes consider my role for these clients as being a “colleague for hire”. Often these clients are working at the intersection of disciplines no-one else is, or leading change, and they seek coaching and consulting that is comfortable with complexity, and can meet them there.

Leadership clients are often concerned with the ways they lead or do their work, enacting larger visions, or undertaking the work that is important but not urgent.

These clients make shit happen, and they seek collaborative, loving, generative approaches and outcomes. They are often best suited to coaching over longer periods, to support larger or ongoing pursuits.

Crossroads clients

Crossroads clients find themselves on the precipice of a new chapter. This may be in work, in life, in contribution, or in some other domain. They may know what the next chapter holds, and seek resourcing as they take steps toward it. Or, they may know only that they are at a crossroads, and that some change is needed in their status quo. This is the work of self actualisation.

Coaching for these clients is about examination of the whole, and of the experience of being who they are. Zooming out, different perspectives and ways in, and a much deeper embodiment of true values, longings and callings. It is often a time to notice all the norms you have absorbed, and whether it is supportive to continue living by them or not. The change that results often has as much to do with the how of what path you choose next as it does with what that path is.

The outcomes of coaching for crossroads clients emerge in unexpected ways, and can surprise you. We welcome fears, uncertainties, unknowns as much as hopes and dreams.

Post-traumatic flourishing clients

Post-traumatic flourishing clients are a particular privilege to meet in coaching. They are like crossroads clients, in some ways, but their crossroads are more the stuff of total transformation.

For these clients, their earlier selves were stopped in their tracks by some huge life event: sudden grief, divorce, severe or chronic illness, or total burnout and breakdown. Having moved through the acute distress and healing from these events, they now seek company and resourcing as they make new lives, and apply what lessons these events taught them, tending to any wounding in an ongoing way, even as we tend to a very different present and future.

In the gifted world this experience is sometimes known as “positive disintegration”; a disintegration of self or life that is positive because it means all the accumulated detritus from living in ways that conformed or were otherwise inauthentic can fall away or be moved on, and in their place an integrated, loving, fully true self and life becomes possible. (There is no shame or problem with the earlier self, by the way; we all grow up absorbing the contexts around us.)

These clients seek to flourish as they truly are. Sometimes this represents a much greater simplicity than you might expect; these clients have often come to terms with the real essence of things, and the lives they make in the wake of that may not look like any other’s. In coaching they seek a sensitive touch to exploration of their new chapter, with room both for the vulnerability that comes from moving through these dark, intense life experiences, and the thrill and energy of moving ahead out of them.

Clients seeking support with high sensitivity or giftedness

These clients come to me often newly aware of their traits, or newly frustrated by their relationships with them. Both traits bring significant strengths, but also significant needs not shared with neurotypical people, and it can (can, not always) take some time, care, and education to thrive with them.

Coaching for these clients is about their experiences of self and of their lives, in relation to their traits. We work to support greater agency within the traits’ needs and limitations, and to heal wounding and grief that can arise when our needs have gone unmet. This can involve supported self-education for the client, particularly around what is normal for people with these traits (it is often a great relief to learn you are a normal zebra and not an abnormal horse), but also then work on the hopes and concerns for that client’s present life and future plans.

Some of that work may be practical (for example managing overstimulation), some may be around processing the emotions that come up and your relationship with self, and some may be around the specifics of your circumstances. In all cases, the purpose of coaching is to enlarge your sense of agency with your trait(s), and your ability to live authentically and well.

Note that neither trait is a “diagnosis” and neither requires proof in order to work with me on it. It is enough if you resonate with material about the trait and are seeking the kinds of support described.

Legal process and negotiation clients

These clients come to me in advance of a mediation, formal negotiation or litigation. Our engagement is usually brief and limited to preparation for the relevant process, though effective preparation does involve a degree of self-examination.

Most formal legal processes can be disempowering, and even distressing. Individuals rarely go through these processes about anything that isn’t of great personal significance, and individuals are usually not participating in legal processes frequently. This combination can make mediation and related processes intense for individuals, and it can be difficult to feel in control and resourced.

I was once a civil disputes lawyer, and so I am familiar with the processes and dynamics of mediation, negotiation and litigation.

You may or may not have a lawyer, and my role does not extend to advising you legally. However, there is significant work a person can do to prepare emotionally and existentially for a mediation, and this is the piece legal process prep clients seek from me. We explore their emotional context, their key values and desires, and work through a process that leaves them feeling much more grounded and prepared, not just on the facts or positions, but as a whole person experiencing a difficult process.

A note on trauma and mental health

My practice is trauma-informed, and I have strong understanding of trauma’s ways, including how it can show up, and how it can come from unexpected sources. Working with people who care deeply, especially those who are highly sensitive or gifted, some level of trauma history is common.

However, I am expressly not a mental health clinician, and cannot offer therapy services. We account for any trauma history or mental illness realities in our work, but I am not in a position to work with you directly on trauma matters or acute mental illness distress. My work can be a useful adjunct to direct mental health therapy, but it cannot replace it.

If I feel that issues are coming up that go beyond the scope of my practice, I will refer you to appropriate colleagues who are better positioned to assist. We may continue to work together alongside that therapeutic work, or you may decide to pause coaching and return at a later time. There is no shame or problem with this - all that matters is that you are getting the most appropriate support for your reality.

A useful way to assess whether you are ready for coaching with me is to place yourself on the Global Assessment of Functioning scale. It’s an imperfect tool but useful for seeing where you are at the moment. I work with clients in the late 60s and above, or the mid 50s and above if you also have therapy support.