Hello again!
Thank you for wanting to learn more about me.
I am a life coach for people seeking a post-perfectionist life. In other words, I am a fierce advocate for you loving the life you already have.
I’ve been a coach since 2003, though I’ve been listening to peeps and helping them make choices since I was a resident advisor at the University of Michigan in 1992.
I also have 15+ years of facilitation, social justice education, training and organizational development at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and the non-profit and private sectors. I especially enjoy Intergroup Dialogue facilitation, and most of my social justice work has centered around LBGTQ issues.
My big fancy credentials:
- MSW (1998) and MA in Sociology (2004), University of Michigan
- a 6-month “Foundations in Coaching” class from MentorCoach (2004)
- completed the ICF-accredited CoachVille Graduate School for Coaches (2006)
- found my tribe when I became a Martha Beck Certified Life Coach (2010)
- Former Instructor of the Inner Freedom Method at CoachVille (2009-2012)
I am also an unrepentant self-help junkie, and I have spent many hours and dollars in workshops and trainings across the country. Among these I especially value the Landmark Education curriculum, Jean Houston’s Mystery School, and Sacred Theatre with Peggy Rubin. I also know much of my personal and spiritual development is due to the energy healing work of Christi Bemister, and the insightful and heart-centered psychotherapy of Deb Kraus, a virtuoso of EMDR. I am profoundly grateful to them and to my many coaches and teachers, who keep me honest and walking my talk.
My interest in working with recovering overachievers is fairly recent; when I first started coaching I worked with college students or young adults who had recently graduated, helping them figure out what to be when they grew up. Soon, I started attracting clients of all ages also trying to figure that out! Later, as I learned more about niches, marketing and finding my peeps, I re-branded and made a shiny new website specifically focused on social change agents who were interested in connecting joy to justice.
All of these foci remain important to me. However, the challenging work of being a “solo-preneur” soon triggered my deepest perfectionist tendencies, and I hit the wall — hard. On the other side of my own personal breakdown spiritual awakening (thank you, Brené Brown), I realized that living a post-perfectionist life had to be my number one priority. After exploring and dealing with my own perfectionist patterns, I turned around and realized that most of the clients I had worked with were also recovering overachievers…and here we are.
But wait, there’s more! I also have a background in dance and movement instruction, including a white belt in the NIA technique. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I am what Barbara Sher calls a Scanner, and I will start new projects quicker than you can say “ooh, look at that shiny new object!” I play with yarn, fabric, frosting, feather boas and glitter every chance I get. You can see some of my creations when you friend me on facebook. There, you will also hear me rant and rave about the biggest post-perfectionist project of them all: raising two beautiful and obstreperous little girls with my husband Michael in Lansing, Michigan.
But enough about me! What about you? Don’t you want to give me a call so together we can figure out if I can help you?
