“Anyone can need help from time to time for a whole variety of reasons and starting to go for sessions can be very daunting in deed. I know that I wanted someone who would be non-judgmental, listen and help me unpick what for me was some very complex issues. Luckily I was recommended Claire and I would whole heartedly recommend her to anyone else.
It didn’t take long to build up a rapport where I felt comfortable to talk about my issues and knew that she could be trusted. At times I couldn’t see the wood for the trees and didn’t know where to start so her use of questionnaire and other assessments really helped me prioritize where to start and understand myself better. Claire is helpful, constructive, warm yet professional, I found the sessions hard work at times but invaluable and have learnt many techniques to help me help myself.”
“Claire set the sessions up well, we always action planned prior to the session what we would talk about, she listened and probed during the sessions, then made suggestions for improvements and gave me a variety of options which I was able to use.
I always had further actions to complete before the next session, which were always challenging. Claire was challenging in encouraging me to complete actions, and when I had not we then re-evaluated and action planned for the future, or reviewed as to why it had been difficult and unachievable for me to complete. Reviewing was key to the process.
Claire is very intuitive and some really good work came out of the sessions, including:
– putting together action plans for journal writing which is something I had previously done, and was now encouraged to set up doing again; I found this particularly grounding during times of stress
– using positive affirmations such as “everything is all working perfectly”, and looking back as though I was 80 year old me to determine whether it would really matter
– reading my self-help books, to reinforce the positive message to myself
– realisation that I always give too much of myself too soon and realising that isn’t the best tactic to be when searching for long-term satisfaction in life
– excellent techniques for dealing with a new relationship that had been causing me some angst”
“I would like to take this opportunity to say I have very much valued ours sessions, they have been very helpful, constructive, warm yet professional. To be honest I am very impressed and would happily recommend you. Thank you for all your support in and between sessions.”
“Thank you for seeing me yesterday for our agreed coaching session. It was a most powerful and empowering session for me that enabled some profound conceptual and emotional shifts for a number of reasons, namely:
Because of (what I consider) the really professional, excellent rapport and ‘safe environment’ established in the previous session I was able to broach ‘taboo’ subjects without feeling the potential for total self-annihilation by exploring them in our coaching alliance. This is a big step for me. Its the first time I was able to articulate sensitive subjects that impact and permeate all areas of my life and stop me from going forward. In my talking/telling (being allowed to talk) and your ‘listening’ to my very sensitive ‘problems’( in the areas of self-worth etc.) have diminished in size and significance by the mere act of being respectfully and ‘deeply’ listened to – a first for me.
The areas visited yesterday – low self esteem issues, very strong feelings of not being valued and difficulties with establishing mutually satisfying and equally nurturing relationships (generally speaking) are pivotal and fundamental areas for me to address before I could productively move forward professionally.
I thank you for allowing me the ‘space’ to do my ‘long story’ approach to explaining something that may appear on the surface to be quite simple and straight forward for the average individual. For me it was deep stuff and the ‘round the houses’ / ‘long story’ approach was/is the only way I could have addressed such sensitive (to me) issues with my current skill base. The ‘long story’ approach allowed me time to process the pain and ‘slowly and gently’ come to the point of the subject without feeling annihilated by a ‘too much too fast’ strategy that I think might have left me feeling not truly listened to and ultimately feeling like I usually feel after attempted ‘listening’ encounters by friends. To have interrupted that process in favour of the more ‘focused’ and what may appear to be a more quantitatively productive approach would have left me cold. I do like/love/need structure but in this case it would have lost the plot – that one had to be slow and somewhat indirect for me.
This little soliloquy may appear disproportionate to what we covered yesterday but believe me its not. Profound stuff got covered in that session. Shifts occurred. I feel a sense of liberation from it and have already acted on the ‘empowerment’ it facilitated.
Our session yesterday was profound. If nothing else happened in out future sessions yesterday will make up for that. With an open mind I look forward to working with these self-esteem and other professional development and related issues in the future. Finally, there wasn’t anything I would like to have done differently in the coaching session yesterday. I can’t see how I could improve on it.
I found both sessions very useful in that they focused me on pertinent areas of my life that it would be easier to ignore. Getting these areas sorted to some degree is pivotal to progress in the professional areas.”
“The problem that I had identified for myself before I came to the coaching sessions was that I try to do too much and never actually achieve (highly – or to my expectations) on any of it. In addition I had not long been home from 2 years travelling and was trying to make a plan of my time, include new activities and ensure there was clarity, direction and the ability (and time) to achieve within that.
The techniques that we used were: wheel of life, values, work/life balance, some NLP techniques, plotting of highs and lows in life on time line (and identifying commonalities), activity planning and plotting. Many of the activities were useful in addressing time planning and assessing goals and whether they were achievable or unrealistic expectations.
The life line and the values were good exercises. The values were hard work but worth the effort to find out what you are really about and good for self understanding and focus. All in all I would say that coaching was very useful as time out to concentrate on what you are doing rather than plodding on in the same direction (which may not be the correct direction) and never realising there is an alternative.
I feel that I have a good understanding of what I want to achieve now and a much clearer plan of how I might do it – small goals as part of a bigger picture is a good approach and the coaching helps the individual see that bigger picture (often hard to do) and gives step by step techniques on how to get there. People just need to keep checking that their big picture is still what they want to achieve.”
“I feel I am much more focused on what I really want, I’m more aware of what energises me and the things that can makes me happy.”
” Now most people think that I’m organised and tidy and I am when I’m at the office. At home though it’s a different matter… basically because there always seems to be something more interesting to do. Claire did a phone coaching session with me – so I was able to look around at the problem whilst she worked through it with me! That weekend I stayed at home and get my teeth into it. Well, I can now see the floor in my office at home and she’s helped me to put more structure into dealing with problem. It makes such a difference being able to have everything to hand rather than throwing things into a bag and hoping that I’ve got everything and knowing that I can’t do some things because I don’t have the technology there.
So, if you also have paperwork piled up, filing cabinets overflowing and can’t remember what your desk actually looks like or you have something else in your life that you need to think differently about then get in touch with Claire.”
“Claire helped me to clarify my thinking about what I wanted to achieve. She helped me eliminate obstacles I thought existed and to see how I could after all achieve my aim of improving my fitness (through regular exercise). I have been able to do this and now feel all the better for it.”
“I wanted to have a coach to keep me on track, increase my motivation and help me see things more clearly. Claire’s listening and questioning skills were excellent and she always acknowledged my values and strengths. The most valuable exercise was breaking down my working week to calculate the hours I do, how I could be more effective and improve my work-life balance- this really changed the way I view things.”
“Claire was really flexible with my needs; and patient when I needed to just have general counselling for the first few sessions. I would highly recommend her for feedback and work to keep you focussed and breaking large seemingly impossible tasks into smaller bite-sized chunks. Our last session which was a self-confidence hypno-therapy session was probably my favourite session, and I look forward to topping it up in the months to come!”
