A whole range of things, but it all comes down to accompanying people on their journey to a life that’s more suited to their needs, desires and values. Every person has a different path, so each coaching relationship is different according to the person, their goals, their needs, and their wishes. I use skills, tools, and experiences from my own life and recovery, from neuro-linguistic programming, transactional analysis, internal family systems, systems-centred training, positive psychology, yoga, non-violent communication and more. These are always offered up as invitations, never instructions, and always in agreement with, and consent from, the client. I am not an expert in my clients’ lives (they are!), although part of my job is to learn how they work best, what they respond to, their motivations, needs, values. I truly believe that the people I work with already have the answers and the keys inside them – my job is to help them find that inner knowledge and wisdom, and help them create the structures and practices to bring that out in a sustainable way to improve their overall wellbeing. We also – genuinely – often have a lot of fun doing it. Just because it’s profound, heavy work doesn’t mean we can’t hold ourselves lightly and lovingly through it.
I look at the client’s current situation in a holistic way, taking into consideration familial, professional, financial and health imperatives. My work is not about finding Even More Things clients *should* be doing to improve their lives – it is instead about finding what works for them and what doesn’t, what brings joy, what fills their cups – doing more of that, and less of the things which drain them of energy and vitality. I will *always* encourage clients to be kind and gentle with themselves, while recognising the current socio-political climate, the collective and individual of trauma of everything that’s happened globally since late 2019 as well as the weight of trauma experienced by marginalised people, whether in terms of physical ability, health, race, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We have individual responsibility in terms of how we look after ourselves in any given situation, but there is a deep, primal need for community and structural care – self-care alone is not enough. If you’re looking for a shouty muscular coach to kick your ass and blame you for not grinding and hustling your way to your first billion or 8-pack … respectfully, I ain’t your girl.
Having the three coaching hats (business coaching, life coaching, recovery coaching) means often the lines get blurred. I rarely do pure business coaching anymore, unless there is another element where I know I, and my skillset, will be of greater service – business coaching for trans and/or queer people, or within the recovery communities, or post burnout, or with chronic illness, to give a few examples. A lot of the life coaching I do is also linked to recovery, whether recovery specifically from alcohol or other drugs, or from co-dependency, people-pleasing, eating disorders / disordered eating, diet culture at large, the white supremacist cis-hetero patriarchy … when we move away from these substances and behaviours and state-sanctioned structures which kept us (relatively and situationally) safe, but then trapped, for so long – a LOT of shit tends to come up. So a lot of the life coaching I do is based around that – sifting through the shit and finding the nuggets we want to grow into big strong metaphors.
Who am I without my addictions, how do I honour my own damn needs while juggling familial and professional requirements, how do I move away from people-pleasing without telling people to go stuff themselves, how do I appropriately tell those people to go stuff themselves, how do I fall back in love or lust with my partner when I’m no longer drunk, or lovingly leave them to start the next chapter of my life? All these questions and more tend to arise once we step out of our comfort zone – in order to keep moving, growing, healing with love and respect for ourselves and those around us, it’s important to address these concerns in a healthy way, rather than ignoring them or reacting to them impulsively. Recovery coaching itself is such a beautiful area of coaching where we get to find what is currently holding us back in patterns or relationships (to people, substances or physical/mental states) that no longer work for us, and instead work to find and build healthy, stable structures where we can get our underlying needs met without resorting to unwanted and unhelpful behaviours and substances.
Jo Walduck Coaching 