My appetite for learning doesn’t look like it is going to be slowing up anytime soon...

...and that’s the way I like it!

Sometimes I still pinch myself – I can’t believe I get to work with such amazing and interesting people every day. At school and university careers sessions, I didn’t know that development management was a thing. I didn’t know what it was. But through volunteering and getting involved with organising events, I have found my way to where I am now, an experienced development management specialist with formal qualifications and a business that’s in its 23^rd year. In the last few years, I have been developing an online side to the business, working with the people who run the organisations. In doing that, I have come to realise that it has always been about working with the people.

I’ve been on an ‘interesting’ personal journey too. An unhealthy marriage left behind and two kids to raise, created a vital necessity for keeping myself well. This took me to Tibetan Buddhism, via meditation. As a work in progress and not always managing to keep my vitality vital, I also got to experience pneumonia. I do not recommend… but it did teach me a lot.

So here I am now, supported by knowledge in systems thinking from both my scientific and social science training, a strong philosophy about exploring and encouraging what’s possible, and a solid embodied meditation practise. Life is rich!

I first came across the work of Mark Walsh and Embodiment Unlimited during 2020. It was a recommendation from my long term meditation teacher, the man who had first introduced me to the deeper somatic meditation techniques as something more nourishing and sustainable than the candyfloss of mindfulness. I know! That’s quite a statement. Mindfulness is a great way to help people initially and gives relief to people exhausted by the hamster wheel of life, but it is only the beginning. To be truly sustainable, we need to think less and feel and ‘be’ more of the time. As a practise mindfulness is quite thought-full.

I have long wanted to add a formal coaching qualification to my toolkit, but I knew it had to be ethical, trauma informed and one that worked with the body. I also needed to have enough time and energy to study. Sometimes it takes time to become the right time for these things… and now I have just completed an embodiment coaching certification, having completed the Foundation level (where we developed our personal range and capacity) at the end of March.

We have spent the last four months beginning to work with other people and I am loving it! Using the information in our bodies to help make decisions is awesome. It’s gut instinct, then some. It is amazing to see relief and enlightenment spread across the face of the people we are practising on – sometimes our peers, and sometimes volunteers. The benefit is for us, and our learning, any benefits for the volunteer is incidental, so we don’t charge as a matter of principle.

I cannot wait to continue to integrate what I am learning and the best way of doing that is to practise some more. Do you fancy it? Next, I am aiming to practise working with people across six sessions of up to 50 minutes each. It isn’t a talking version of coaching. Usually, you just need to do enough for you to get clarity, or to play about with the information and choices emerging. Interestingly, everybody I have worked with so far has experienced some level of ‘Aha!’… I will be charging, but only enough to make it something that you value enough to commit to turning up for 6 (probably fortnightly) sessions. But we can talk about all of that before mutually agreeing about how we both want to proceed.

Fancy acquiring some mega tools to help you do what you do, but with less stress and more enjoyment? Message me and let’s talk about it.