What I not so secretly want for you

Earlier this summer I passed the five year mark on being a coach – over five years coaching humans! The milestone moment passed quietly in the midst of moving back to the place I left six years ago, the place I lived before I became a coach, before I even knew what was calling me to change.

I’ve returned to this place a little different than I left it. I feel more fierce and determined with my boundaries. I’m no longer holding my tongue about the toxicity of hustle culture. Nor am I being quiet about my intentional work, the last half-decade, to unlearn the belief that my worth is tied to my productivity and heal from the harm this belief caused. How strange – and exciting – to return to a place where I have a history of overworking, stress, and burnout, and to feel so differently about my work in the world.

I know I am the luckiest to have creative, determined, curious, rule-breaking, world-building humans choose me as their coach! I always tell other coaches (and anyone who will listen): I get to work with the most wonderful humans!

A lot of my work as a coach is to hold dualities with and for my clients, especially the tension between what is and what can be. Coaching acknowledges that both change and acceptance are a part of growth.

Coaching is also a unique, client-specific, client-driven space. No session is the same and no clients are the same (even if some of my clients have things in common!)

That said, this milestone has me wondering if there is anything I hold true for all my clients? Do I hold some universal yet unsaid hopes for how coaching influences the humans I work with? I posed these questions to myself and I was amazed at what surfaced. Some of that reflection follows.

✨What I not so secretly want for you✨

I hope that you listen to yourself.

Through our work together I hope you don’t see me as the wise one but as the echo of the wise one that is inside you. I hope you internalize what I reflect back and take your words seriously. You know what you need.

I hope you take exquisite care of yourself.

Whether it’s self-advocacy or self-trust, better boundaries or more flexibility, a daily walk or a big-hearted cry, an enthusiastic “Yes!” or a firm “No!" – I want you to know you can give yourself the medicine you most need.

I hope that you declare your desires.

I hope that – even if you are afraid – you become able and willing to share what you really, really want. I hope you witness your own voice get louder and more clear. That what begins as a murmur transforms into a declaration. And that these assertive words become a spell of possibility that ushers out fear and brings in play, practice, and fun!

I hope if you feel frustrated at the pace of change and growth, you can ground yourself in the belief that you have enough time.

I will say it again and again: you have the time you need. You are not behind. You are not too late. Your pace is exactly right. You are not in competition with anyone, including yourself. You have time.

I hope you don’t take the hardness of the world as a reason to be hard on yourself.

I hope you can be kind. I hope you can say (and think) nice things about yourself, even when you are your most messy, imperfect, annoying, tripping-over-your-own-BS self. Even when you are stuck in familiar patterns that you desperately want to grow beyond, I want – even then – for you to be so gentle on yourself. The world is hard enough: be soft and loving with yourself.

I hope that through the work to change and grow, you end up facing yourself and you end up liking who you meet.

The desire to change does not mean you are broken or bad or that your being is wrong. As all Co-Active coaches believe: you cannot be wrong. I want you to believe that seeing yourself as a cherished, precious, gorgeously unique human is within the realm of possible. Even as you seek transformation, the you of yesterday, today, and tomorrow is lovable. There’s nobody like you. You are needed in this world.

More than five years in and how amazing to recognize the abundance of love and possibility I feel for the complex, deeply feelings humans who find their way to Growing Home Coaching!

I wrote on my website that growing home in yourself is about a deep sense of belonging and peace with the life you are building. It's about intentionally and actively creating a life you feel "at home" in.

A world full of people at home in themselves, at home in their lives; not fighting against themselves but working for what they believe in, envision, and desire. I am grateful to be a coach! What a pleasure to dream up and build new worlds together.