welcome!
First things first: what is coaching?
As a society, we’re comfortable with athletic coaches, less so with life coaching or group coaching. In a murky twist to the precarious trust card, the internet marketing and social media worlds are wrought with expert, influencer, guru content creators. The project of trusting ourselves amidst an onslaught of competing narratives and vows for our attention has become tenuous. Coaching is not about advice or fixing. In my experience, it’s most effective when it’s empowering to the clients’ process. Empowering the client involves deeply seeing them. Their internal parts, their relationship to unknowns, edges and longings.
Living the questions
Windhorse Ways speaks to the adventure of having a flowing, cross-pollinating mind, a curious mind, changing, learning, aligning...This is what it means to me to "live the questions" as Rainer Maria Rilke once advised. Coaching empowers people towards their truth. There are many portals into this truth. We can get beneath the story and internalized narratives by asking questions. The right questions open doors and allow the client access to a horizon of perspectives.
Perspective shift
Process oriented coaching acknowledges different qualities of attention. As we learn what level of awareness we are operating from we can develop fluency to switch modes, channels and exercises of paying attention. These perspective shifts often align us to an undercurrent that is emerging and that we are waking up to.
Why coaching?
life is intense and In the complexity of today's times, we all need support.
The clock is ticking on myriad crises facing the world. Amidst increasing complexity, we’re all struggling to keep up. World challenges are mirrored internally such that many of us are inundated in systems of oppression, outdated institutions, traditions and beliefs.
Ironically, herein lies our power.
By facing these crises as they play out in our interiority - developing inner listening skills, building technologies of the self and embodying authenticity - we can use this inner-outer mirroring to our advantage. We can move in the direction of our way and bring ourselves and impact naturally into the world. I argue that the intentional effort to be our true selves is revolutionary and it's time for a revolution.
Whether you're on your own or part of a team,
You need space to process, follow what's emerging and relate to it.
As a coach, I do my own work - by dropping into presence and trusting your process, I partner with you to find what's emerging in the direction of you.
Process oriented coaching: individuals and organizations
Process oriented group facilitation
Communications coaching: individuals and teams
I can be a space for you
Here's how I support
I’m here for you personally when you need support. This support can take many forms depending on where you are, what your goals are and what obstacles you’re facing.
While individual sessions are tailored to you, common themes span from life transitions, listening and following your inner voice, the support with goals and visions to relationship, communication or conflict work. The common thread running through these sessions is: you want to move forward in a way aligned to your uniqueness (even when moving forward might mean being supported to be where you are now and or addressing the past).
Pricing is available on a sliding scale – particularly for lower income economies, economically marginalized folks or individuals facing financial hardship. Nobody is turned away on account of lack of funds. That said, a minimum of three sessions is recommended to map and work through the arc of your process.
Note, if you’re part of an organization or company that supports coaching – you may find subsidized rates through your company. Please contact me to discuss your options.
Your organization is growing into its Mission, adjusting to the changing times, weathering shocks and you know you could be working better as a team but lack a clear picture of what’s driving you.
If this sounds like you, you and your team may benefit from an in-house coach to work with. I help you focus on what works and what doesn’t. By assessing where you can optimize your talents and streamline your process in alignment with the goals, vision and mission of your company, I support by holding you accountable to your goals and working with team members individually, as groups and in leadership. Together we identify, acknowledge and capture the power in the roles and dilemmas under the surface that are preventing your organization from running as it could. Together, we design solutions that fit to resolve conflicts, manage differences and reach an optimal balance between growth and stability.
Pricing: contact me for a free discovery call to assess how I can support your team.
Have you noticed how individuals behave differently in groups? Many people rightly mistrust groups because of the invisible power dynamics they wield.
But if the key to human evolution is in realizing our shared humanity, how can we get along through our differences?
With skilled facilitation, groups can learn to collaborate through difference, communicate their interiors and navigate resistance and conflict. Together we can update our outdated shared cultural artifacts.
Group process can be a wily, unpredictable and abundant pathway for transformation. In groups we tap into “the field” and give presence to the roles that are moving us. This attention to roles is what deep democracy is based on.
The baseline is psychological safety. From here, we sort ideas relevant to your group, fleshing and naming the roles, identifying rank – honoring both low and high rank roles, including internalized, obfuscated or shameful ones. We catch the flow of process and notice hot and cold spots until we reach resolution.
If your family, social group, church, network or organization needs to work through conflict – whether internal to the group or external – a group process session may be what you need.
Contact me to discuss your unique facilitation needs.
Communication skills are fundamental to the inter-relational world we live in and are also linked to greater upward mobility.
I approach communication skills through the practice of public speaking. Since 2019, I’ve been leading professionals through communication skills workshops where we embody the tools for professional public speaking: mindfulness, confidence — owning the room — managing resistance, the art of questioning and more.
I serve as a group facilitator and private coach.
If you’re interested in learning more about the workshops we do in corporations, please see my parent company Alan Carroll & Associates.
If you’re interested in a public workshop or private coaching, please reach out to me.
The discovery session is free and it's a great way for us to assess if we're a good fit. If so, we can put together a plan based on where you or your organization is at. We'll clarify rhythm, duration and fees for working together. You'll walk away with a tailor-made plan for you, your questions answered and receive a written agreement with an invoice shortly after. Please also feel free also to email me if you have questions.
Sifting through the noise is exhausting
Collectively, we're asked to shut-down our sensitivity, believe that vulnerability is weakness and to bow down to productivity, efficiency and growth above all else.
But this imbalance chokes life - from rivers and oceans to bodies and minds
... we're overrun with the consequences of this imbalance.
Standing for yourself...
... in a toxic culture can feel impossible.
Outranked, we often turn against our greatest ally, ourselves.
We need space from the grip of industrial culture that throttles nervous systems and creates a vacuum for simply feeling.
curious?
more information
The quickest answer to this question is that in coaching we typically look forward and in therapy we look backward.
While pain, difficulties, obstacles, loss and suffering are part of life – none of us escape without some measure of these things – some of us are in need of ongoing mental health support as a result of a diagnosable mental health disorder.
Many of us experience symptoms resulting from adverse childhood events. Working through these symptoms, understanding their roots and ripple effects with a dedicated mental health care provider can be hugely empowering and supportive.
I’ve personally benefited from both therapy and coaching at different points in my life. Both services involve the dedicated attention from another human who provides psychological safety, witnessing, mirroring and encouragement.
As we attempt to move forward, sometimes our long-term edges hold us up. Process Oriented Coaching is particularly helpful here, because it builds relationality at these edges making this a hugely productive space. As we build awareness of the patterns, edges and blocks that stop us from moving forward, we can begin to align to our unique process and increase our ability to move forward as a more whole being.
Process Work is a practice based on myriad theoretical perspectives spanning from Shamanism to Quantum Physics. In its simplest form, it’s a methodology for growing our relationality to awareness and for following the process of change inherent in our individual lives, relationships and the field writ large.
I’ve been studying Process Oriented Psychology casually for eight years and formally for three years. My informal studies include listening to interviews, reading books and having my own therapeutic sessions. My formal studies began when I attended the Winter Intensive at the Process Work Institute and includes workshops, group process sessions, mentorship hours and self-study all culminating in a certificate in Process Work. I’m continuing my studies with Process Work as a Process Oriented Diplomate – a program that will take me (roughly) the next four years.
All this to say, that because Process Work is a practice, an awareness paradigm and a theoretically diverse discipline, it is a life-long endeavor to understand.
The applications and grounding of Process Work are diverse. Theoretically, Process Work is most closely related to Jungian Psychology – borrowing heavily from Taoism and Physics. I go into depth about the origins of Process Work and my experience with it here.
Process Oriented Coaching was developed by the Global Coaching Institute – alumni of the Process Work Institute – as an ICF (International Coaching Federation) accredited coaching program.
Because Process Work is about harnessing the flow of change, it lends itself particularly well to coaching.
The GCI roadmap is built on the EMERGE model of coaching. We use it to: assess your goals, map your current process as related to your goals, understand the edges in the process, realize the power in them and ground your experience over the edge.
