I have found myself reflecting, this week, on a lifetime in the NHS and the impact it has had on me, as a coach, as well as other former nurses I know who are also in the coaching profession. My reflection was that I think we offer something special.
Most of us don’t choose to go into the high powered world of business and executive coaching, one reason being that we don’t have that background. We come from a background of caring and compassion and nurturing and we tend to choose to stay on that path. The background we do have is that of having been with people at their most vulnerable, when they were anxious, afraid, depressed and in pain. We have had years of experience of being exposed to difficult emotions as a daily occurrence in our nursing careers.

Now, in my work with private clients, I don’t counsel them and I don’t try and help them find the seat of that pain. In coaching, I see emotional pain, a pain that is like a physical pain, which often manifests as an ache in our bodies. What I do is help clients incorporate that pain, that vulnerability, into their being because it enriches them. They no longer hide from it, they embrace it and through it they are able to discover their life purpose and unleash their full potential.

If you want to know more, I recommend you watch an entertaining video by Brene Brown who calls herself a “researcher story teller”. She speaks eloquently about vulnerability, something that we may, indeed, feel ashamed of. She also talks about a group of people she researched as wholehearted; those who have embraced their shame or vulnerability. She has given me the basis in research, and therefore the confidence, to continue on this road and to embrace and celebrate this skill set that nursing and coaching has given me and my ex nurse colleagues. Together we can make a real difference in the world.

In my case, that is providing widely accessible coaching to (predominantly) women who are searching for fulfilment – when fulfilment has perhaps escaped them as a result of a condition like breast cancer or postnatal depression or because of a relationship or just the never ending pressures of modern living.

Coaching delivers outstanding results, but often time pressures mean that one to one coaching, or highly therapeutic group coaching are not an option. That’s why I’ve developed an online coaching programme for time poor women who need these resources available when they are free, which may not necessarily be at conventional times during the day.