How to find the right coach for you
What is coaching?
I grew up the child of a therapist and a single payer advocate. I saw these two models for support: a therapist could provide emotional support, empathy, and healing traumatic experiences from the past; a political activist could provide policy research, systemic analysis, and build movements for equity, justice, and our right to health care. I knew as a kid that both of these were really important. I didn’t know any coaches. I didn’t know coaching was a thing.
Now I’m in my 40s and I’m a coach. I realize that many of us grew up not knowing what coaching is, in fact it’s relatively new as a professional field. I also look back on my childhood and see that being a coach is a bridge between the gifts my parents offered. Coaching is a way to listen deeply inward to your heart and to take action that produces results in the physical world. It’s a call to create a world our hearts long to contribute to, and to be present, clear, generous, vulnerable, grateful, and responsive as we create it.
I am writing this so you can clarify if you want a coach, and how to find the right one if you do.
What’s the difference between a coach and a therapist?
A therapist supports you to heal and integrate past experiences. Therapy focuses on your emotions, feelings, and thoughts. Someone might go to a therapist if you frequently get dysregulated or agitated in your nervous system. That might feel like being unsettled, having trouble focusing, having trouble relaxing, thinking a lot in a way that distances you from the present moment or from connecting with someone you care about. You might go to therapy If you experience a lot of anxiety, depression, challenges with basic day to day functioning, trouble sleeping, very loud self critique, thoughts of self harm, disassociation (leaving your senses), using alcohol or other mind altering substances in an excessive way. Someone may turn to therapy to heal trauma. An excellent resource for learning more about trauma is Dr. Gabor Mate’s documentary, “the Wisdom of Trauma.” All of these are about healing and integrating past experiences.
A coach supports you to clarify what is most important to you now. In coaching you set goals that demonstrate what’s most important, and play for those goals with consistent focus, support, and grace. Coaching focuses on how you are being rather than what you are feeling. For example, I am willing to be generous, empowering, and loving. These are all ways of being, and I may be these qualities consistently even when I feel sad, angry, or happy. Coaching works at the soul level, the BEING level, beneath the changing weather of emotions.
Coaching is also focused on how you are contributing. Basically a coach focuses on the things other people will remember you for, such as how you acted, what you said, the events, relationships, books, art, and the legacy you created.
Someone might seek a coach to start a new conscious partnership, to grow an existing relationship, or to compassionately end a relationship that is no longer serving. Someone might seek a coach to launch a new workshop or ritual, to choreograph and produce a performance, to grow your business, to change careers, to write a book, to launch a podcast, to fundraise for a political cause.
Many people, including me, have both a therapist and a coach. One is not better than the other, they simply have different purposes. Therapy is like having a rear view mirror to see where you’ve come from and what’s behind you, and coaching is like having a map to see where you are, where you are going, and the path to get there.
A coach supports you to create goals and play for them
The most important part about this that I see with my clients is that a masterful coach helps you distinguish who you really are and what you really want, from who you have been told to be, and what you think you should want. I see many clients who had a dream as a young person to be a dancer, a pilot, an actor… They fell in love with an archetype and now as an adult they are confronted with the physical reality of the profession.
What’s the distinction between an archetype and a profession?
An archetype is more ancient and human than the professional tracks that are normalized in our modern day dominant culture. For example, let’s say I am a dancer. Am I the archetype of a dancer or am I mirroring how society tells me to be a dancer? Society may define a successful dancer as someone who: performs at specific reputable theatres, is awarded grants by certain institutions, has a body that reflects certain standards of beauty, has mastery in specific recognizable movement vocabularies. These are examples of how I may look to the external world to define if I am or am not a dancer. If I shift my attention to my internal “locus of control,” I ask my organism if I am called to be a dancer. I listen to my soul through my body and my energy centers. I tune in to my somatic compass and ask if I experience more harmony when I say I am a dancer.
My being says, “yes, you are a dancer. When you look at that tree your body and the tree body have a duet. The way you move towards that tree, the way you experience your sensuality in the presence of its smell, height, and movement in the wind. The way your hand opens to touch the texture of its bark. The way your belly, pelvis, and feet respond to the bark in your open hand. The way you are different after that duet with the tree. You are a dancer.”
A masterful coach supports you to have an “internal locus of control.” That means a sense of agency in your life, rather than an “external locus of control” where your circumstances define you. You may have 38 years of professional dance training, like me, yet your soul defines what dance means to you, who gets to dance, and how we use dance to shift culture. Coaching has occurred when you are defined by your heart, not your circumstances, and the values in your heart bring your best to meet your circumstances.
A coachable client is someone who is less interested in making society and oppression the reason you don’t have the life you love. A coachable client is more interested in seeing what you can take responsibility for and how you may respond to challenging circumstances in a loving and authentic way.
A skilled coach supports you to observe the beliefs that might be making your life harder than it needs to be... the conclusions that have been stopping your sense of possibility or focus. A coach compassionately and directly points to these conclusions that have been filtering everything you see, think, and dream about.
Coaching doesn’t always feel “good”
Coaching creates new pathways in your brain. The moment a coach points to a conclusion in your brain, it may feel very disorienting, uncomfortable, sometimes clients get nauseous, or extremely tired. The depth of this work literally challenges the core of how you experience yourself and what you believe to be true, all in service to you becoming who you really are.
Before I became a coach I immersed myself in anti-racism work. Starting in 1999, I attended as many race workshops and trainings as I could. I am white. I knew that race was one of the key ways I was being socialized to be someone that was not truly who I am. I was horrified and unsettled at the soul level by what I sensed about race. The more I learned about the invention and perpetuation of racism, the more my brain had fits of disbelief, anger, defensiveness, and deep indescribable grief. I now look back at that time and see that these are healthy and common responses to dismantling false beliefs. This work led me to lead grief rituals the past 4 years, carrying forward the legacy of Sobonfu Somé. Because I see how essential grief is to our capacity to turn toward the truth.
When I co-lead race work, I get a front row seat in seeing people’s response when their reality is dismantled. When the brain perceives a threat to its conclusions, it reacts as if its survival is at risk. No matter how big your heart is, no matter how much education you have, no matter how much you want to create a safe, just, and beautiful world, our brains are wired to have this response. This response, to look out for threats, is what helped our ancestors survive so we could be here now.
This is not unique to creating new pathways around race. This happens with any conclusion, especially the ones we do not realize we have. This might be conclusions about love, money, death, gender, sex, ability/disability, what’s possible politcally… Coaching is a way to partner with our brains, to understand our natural survival response when we are up to something new, unfamiliar, and really important.
Coaching gives you tools to observe your “monkey mind,” that aspect of the mind that is always chattering and swinging between worry and doubt. Coaching gives you the space to dismantle the worry and doubt, and to come home to what you really value to replace oppression culture with a culture of care and humanity. It gives you structure, focus, accountability, compassion, and acknowledgement as you set meaningful goals and play for them.
A masterful coach
A masterful coach is living their best life and playing for their own goals with support. They often have their own coach too. They aren’t just coaching others, they are playing full out for their dreams too, with courage and vulnerability like all of us.
You know there are some people who can point out something that may be hard to hear? Yet you are so clear that they love you and they are on your team, so you are able to hear it? In my life, my grandma was like that. I imagine you have someone like that in your life too. Well a masterful coach is like that. Compassionate and supports you to look at your life, see how it is and how you want it to be, tell the truth, and then take authentic action.
Areas of focus
There are many kinds of coaches: relationship, sexuality, financial, team building, diversity, health, gender, entrepreneurial… Choose a coach who has specific professional training and personal experience with the area(s) you want to focus on. Look at their website to see their training or ask them directly. Ask how long they have been working with clients specifically around the area(s) of focus you desire support with. Ask them if they have worked with other clients similar to you with regards to goals, culture, identity, baseline of where you are starting relative to your goals. For example, if you want a coach to support you in finding a partner, and your longest secure attachment has been 1 year, that could be useful information to share with a potential coach as your baseline. Then you could ask if the coach has successfully supported other clients in a similar journey.
Ask yourself
When I first had a coach I remember being annoyed that they kept asking me the same questions. “What’s important to you about that?” “What do you see now?” I didn’t understand how to be the client of a coach. A coach does not suggest ways to solve your problems. A coach does not empathize or collude with your challenges. A coach sees you with compassion and supports you to see your own wisdom, and act from it.
Below is a Coaching Roadmap that I use with all my clients. I recommend you ask yourself these questions in preparation to work with any coach. I encourage all my clients to review their roadmap before each session to return to the intention that called them to coaching. Be as specific and concise as possible.
My coaching roadmap
1. Vision: What I’d love to achieve through coaching is…
2. Baseline: Where I am now in relation to my vision is...
3. Growth: Some ways I want to grow in order to achieve my vision include…
4. Your WHY: What’s important for me about focusing on this, and doing so now vs. later, is…
5. Measuring success: I’ll know I’m getting the most out of coaching when I see myself…
Money
Clarify your budget. Look at your income, expenses, and the amount of money you have and want to invest in this part of your life. Coaches have a variety of rates. Some offer sliding scale or pro bono, especially when they are starting their career. Newer coaches may charge $250/month. Experienced coaches may charge $500 - $2500/month. Their rates often reflect their training, experience, and audience. Go for the most experienced person you can afford.
Time
It takes time to irreversibly transform your life. It’s common for a coach to have a 6 month minimum, to give you the time to shift your brain and produce results. Remember the results happen between the sessions from you doing what you said you would do. Coaching is not about having epiphanies during the session, it is about you acting on what you see.
Where do I look for a coach?
Ask your close friends and colleagues for recommendations. If you see someone you admire, consider asking them if they have a coach!
Look at directories of grads such as:
Academy for Coaching Excellence
International Coaching Federation
Somatica (sex and relationship coaching)
Many coaches have websites, newsletters, blogs, books, interviews, podcasts, facebook lives. Check out how they share their work. Many coaches offer a free discovery session. I recommend having discovery sessions with 2 or 3 different options so you get a sense of who is most aligned.
In discovery session consider:
Do you come away with a sense of clarity and possibility for the next 6 months of your life?
Do you feel seen, heard, and inspired?
Does the coach move at a gentle pace for you, one that gives you breathing room to experience what is being said?
Does the coach create a bigger context for your growth, that locates you accurately where you are now, and also looks ahead together to see where you want to be in 6 months?
Do you feel some challenge and excitement about closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be?
Does the coach keep you focused if you drift off topic?
Does the coach celebrate and delight in where you are?
Is this someone you want to collaborate with as you change your life?
Whether or not it seems aligned to work with this person, take a moment to appreciate yourself for seeking support and focusing on the life you want. Trust your gut, you will know when you’ve found the right teammate as a coach.
About the author
My full name is Zahava Griss, call me Z (they/them.) I am a certified coach and licensed trainer from the Academy for Coaching Excellence. ACE is one of the most rigorous trainings in the industry where I studied and received supervision for 5 years, 2015 - 2020. I started coaching in 2011, as a certified health coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
I serve people who are embodiment and sexuality professionals. That includes coaches, therapists, healers, bodyworkers, pro doms, facilitators, yoga teachers, dance teachers, spiritual guides. My clients come to me for support with their relationships, sexuality, and growing their soul work.
Curious about coaching with me? Schedule a chat here to see if we are a fit!
I am the founder of Embody More Love, a spiritual kinky dance community for personal and cultural transformation. Since 1999, I have offered dance workshops, bodywork, yoga, books, performance ritual, and grief ritual. Today my core group offerings are Waking the Heart of our Human Family and Rooted Eros. You may learn more about me and my offerings at www.EmbodyMoreLove.com.