I like to think of it like this: therapy digs into your past to try to understand how and why you think, feel, and act the way you do. It is introspective and clarifying.
Coaching, on the other hand, takes you where you are now and moves you forward into a future of your own design. Sure, there’s some past digging to do, because usually the things that block us have to do with stuff we’ve been through, or stories we’ve made up about ourselves due to past experiences.
Coaching is actionable and transformational.
I’ve had a number of clients who’ve been in therapy for years but got to a place where they thought, “OK, yeah, I get it all, but now what??” I find these clients to be my biggest success stories, and the ones who make the biggest leaps in the shortest period of time.
I’ve had a number of clients who were in therapy for years, and within a few weeks of coaching have said, “Wow. In all my years of therapy, I never felt such huge shifts.”
I find the most effective process usually includes both therapy and coaching, or some combination of the two.
The beauty of coaching is that it’s all done over the phone. While therapists’ licensing laws require that their work be done face-to-face, and that their patients are in the same state, coaches don’t have the same restrictions. I have coached women from all over the USA and other countries. As long as we can find a time on our calendars that we can make work, we can work together.
God no! I’ve even saved a few marriages in my time. What I ask is that my clients take full responsibility for where they feel their marriages are failing and stop blaming their spouse for all their problems. Sometimes this leads to healing, and sometimes it doesn’t.
For clients who’ve ended up leaving their marriages, the level of personal responsibility they’ve taken in our work together helps them create a far more amicable divorce process.
I have been practicing as a certified coach for over a decade and am widely considered one of the pioneers of the divorce coaching industry. In fact, when I began there was no such thing as a certification for divorce coaching! I’m proud to be among those who paved the way for this work to be as popular as it is now.
When I first began coaching, I spent three years in intensive training in various coaching modalities with two of the top coach training organizations in the world: CTI, where I am certified in individual coaching, and CRR Global, where I was trained as an organization and relationship systems coach, diving deeply into Family Systems Theory, and the work of John Gottman.
In addition to my private practice, I spent three years coaching Fortune 500 executives in communication, presentation skills, and emotional intelligence in collaboration with a leading global communications consultancy. I tell you this because these people screen the shit out of their trainers, so if Citibank and Goldman Sachs think I’m qualified to train their top execs, I’ve gotta be qualified to coach you!
I’m a certified domestic violence advocate, so all of my work is informed by that.
That being said, it’s difficult for me to help everyone around the world directly, but I can advocate for you and guide you to your best local resources, and answer questions you may have about the process to getting you to safety.
Unfortunately, due to the constraints of financial institutions, my name will appear on your credit card statement, and different banks surface different information on their statements, which is totally out of my control. (I have researched this endlessly.)
If you’re worried about your husband googling my name and seeing who I am and what I do, I suggest asking a friend or family member to put the charge on their card and giving them cash or taking out a card in your name just for this purchase.
Unfortunately I cannot make special arrangements like this, otherwise I’d spend my life managing other people’s finances, rather than creating the content you’ve come to rely on from me.
You may have to be crafty, but where there’s a will there’s a way. As I said above, if you’re worried about your husband googling my name and seeing who I am and what I do, I suggest asking a friend or family member to put the charge on their card and giving them cash or taking out a card in your name just for this purchase.
Private coaching is expensive and, unlike therapy, health insurance doesn’t cover it. Which sucks for all of us.
I offer online programs at different price-points in order to be as accessible as possible — and offer payment plans at all levels.
For a variety of reasons, I do not work with men. For men, I recommend the work of Matthew Fray, Bryan Reeves, and Mark Groves.