Coach Approach Blog

If you're like me, you want to care for and protect others, and make sure they feel great when they're with you.

Which sounds really warm and loving, but I've found out in my life that it can be a recipe for confusion, and can even lead to others moving away from the intimacy I want to create. When I don't speak the truth, when I'm fearful of being real, when I hide my true feelings, it can feel smothering or duplicitous - all in the name of care, protection, and love.

When I am more concerned…

When you think of prayer and meditation as "talking", you might be imagining a connection to the divine, in which you are bringing words and content to the experience. You might be reaching out to God or the universe, often using language, to bring your questions, pleas for help, gratitude, and praise.

When you think of prayer or meditation as "listening", your experience might be quite different. The content, with or without words, might emerge from a space of receptivity. You might cease your…

When I first became a coach, I was on a high about all the changes my clients were making in their lives. It was all about achieving goals, success, promotions, career ladder-climbing, taking action, and excitement. At the same time, it took a lot of my energy. I felt like I was constantly needing to infuse a boost into my clients’ lives, and they would still come back looking for more without making the lasting changes I knew they could. 

It took me years to piece together the levels of depth …

Those of you who know me well remember that I struggled for about eight years with panic attacks. I remember being nine months pregnant, walking the halls of the Rayburn building in Washington, DC to convince the powers that be to enact a piece of legislation that would benefit my company. 

I was exhausted, but kept pushing myself to do more, to impress and to succeed. I was constantly overwhelmed and stressed by the demands of my daily life. Every morning, I would wake up feeling anxious and a…

In chapter 4 of Rising Strong, Brené Brown writes,

"The opposite of recognizing that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my tr…

As I've been lying around blowing my nose and recovering from a bad head cold, I'm feeling so grateful for the sacred spaces I can see from my bed. 

On a bookshelf across from me, I can see a little collection of arranged items:

• A photo of my husband and me, representing the young love we experienced in Paris when we were newly married.
• A blue lantern shining forth my core values of community and grace - gifted to me by a group I led in Brene Brown's Rising Strong course in Kenya.
• A Tibeta…

If you've got a thought that keeps coming back, is holding you back, or you just feel gross when you think it, why not try a hilarious way to hear yourself thinking? 

Let's say, for example, you have a thought that sounds something like this: 

• "I'll never be able to do that."
• "I'm not that smart."
• "I'm too old/young for that."
• "I'm not good enough." 
• "I just can't figure things out."
• "I'm so confused."

What if you try playing around with how that thought (remember, it's a thought, no…

Sometimes you're just itching for a change. And many times moving to a new home, changing careers, and developing different relationships is exactly the right thing. Other times, the urge to make a change is about wiggling out of a situation that might require you to address some issues.

How can you tell the difference?

1. One indicator is whether the unwanted situation tends to recur, regardless of the environment.

For example, I repeatedly wrote curriculum, developed training, and did the t…