Sometimes all you need is a vigorous stirring of your internal pot to make major progress.

An intensive can be a catalyst for lasting change.

Innerlings and Values. What are they anyway?

Innerlings are aspects of our internal world who need some attention. This might include experiences like:

  • The feeling that you’re a fraud and everyone is going to find out, commonly known as Impostor Syndrome
  • Something in you that doubts that you are lovable or valuable as a human
  • A sense of arrogance that prohibits learning, introspection, or connection
  • A tender part of you that feels overwhelmed by compassion
  • Nagging memories that still bring the zing

And so on.

Values are those core aspects of yourself that are already there and exerting influence; until we identify what they are with great precision, though, they’re working in the background rather than functioning as the conduits to your greatest wisdom and deepest fulfillment that they can be.

When we treat Innerlings as their own little yammering beings, when we identify the specific words and phrases that represent our Values, we’ve taken the first steps to putting aces in their places – that is, sorting the voices of wisdom from the misguided inner critics. Only then can we play our hand to its fullest.

Plumber under sink making repairs

Should we talk?

Talk is cheap, and this time it’s free! We know a lot of people offer free consultations that are just long, painful sales presentations. That’s not what this is. Let’s just talk and test the fit, no strings attached.

3 + 12 =

Mise en place…

In professional kitchens, there’s a concept known by its French name, mise en place. It means, “everything in its place.” Those of us primed by primetime tv cooking shows tend to think of the action of mise en place as the boring part of cooking: Chopping three onions, two cloves of garlic, one bell pepper. Peeling and cubing a carrot. Measuring the needed spices into ramekins.

And yet, a kitchen with poor mise en place practices hobbles the whole restaurant. A restaurant can succeed, no doubt, but every part of the operation will have to work harder to get to there.

Sometimes, my clients and I do our mise en place along the way. We dive into coaching – the part we think of as fun, like throwing the chopped onions into the sizzling-hot pan – and when we run into an Innerling or the hint of an unrecognized Value, we stop in our tracks, name that aspect, spend a little time getting to know it, and then we take all of that back to the stove with us.

And it works. Every time. But not as well as when the mise en place happens at the beginning, laying the foundation for all the work to come.

In this intensive, You, the Foundations, we do just that.

Notebook on a desk

Instead of julienned vegetables and condensed soup bases, you’ll end the intensive with:

  • The names, M.O.s and wrap sheets of your primary cast of Innerlings. That is likely to include leg-gnawing gremlin characters, kid versions of you still tucked away, and your shiny voice of inner wisdom. You’ll even have pictures of them.
  • A working list of words and/or phrases that describes the values that are already at play in the background of your daily experiences and decision-making processes, turning them into active tools and touchstones.
  • Practices for turning your values and inner wisdom into your trail guides.
  • Strategies to prepare for gremlin hijacks and tools to use in the midst of one.
  • A fresh perspective of the discomfort of growth that will make you laugh in its face. Really.
  • A workbook of your very own wisdom captured throughout the day to refer back to on the challenging days.

While this work can be challenging and sometimes even daunting, it will also be fun and liberating and even ridiculous in the best possible way. No doubt, there is something deeply satisfying about the coaching sessions themselves, just as there is something deeply satisfying about the sizzle of mushrooms hitting hot oil in a pan and yet in commercial kitchens, it’s during mise en place prep that there’s time for smack talking and singing along to cranked-up music.

In the work of moving toward your biggest life and baddest self, it’s when you get to play with markers and imaginary friends and discover, along the way, all of the courage and wisdom already tucked away inside you.

Jagged mountain range

Maybe you've never experienced a coaching collaboration before, maybe you're just curious about how I welcome folks into my coaching practice - either way, I made a wee brief video that walks you from first hello all the way into the mechanics of a coaching collaboration!

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Meet SB...

Known equally for her laughter and her cogent questions, SB is the business coach who takes a holistic view and the empowerment coach who brings the work down to earth. While her psychology degree from UNC-Greensboro and coach training from the Coach Training Alliance shaped her understanding of human behavior, her innate abilities to create cohesive pictures out of seemingly disparate parts and see people from the intersection of what is and what could be are what makes coaching with SB a particularly unique experience. From the brick ranch on a creek in Southwest Virginia that she shares with her wife, Theresa, and their pit bull pup, SB collaborates with those seeking their bigger selves and badder lives across the country and around the world.

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