Life is easier when you “speak subtext.”

​One valuable skill I learned while earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theatre – aside from how to stand up in front of hundreds of people and perform through my fear, a skill I use most often today as a parent and step-parent to four teenagers – was that every word spoken has so much more meaning than what one might find in Merriam-Webster.   That is called subtext.

​Like an onion, only occasionally less smelly, humans have layers.  And so does their communication!

Since middle school, I’ve wanted to study people and their many layers.   But when the time came for college applications, I allowed the lure of the song and dance to win my heart and I chose the path of performing.  But understanding and serving people never got watered down in my blood – just like singing will always run hot in my blood even as I serve.

Being bold and fresh out of college, passionately pursuing the arts as my profession soon gave way to the path of least resistance, which included a “desk job” with some dinner theatre on the side.  A mortgage and two amazing children endured even though my marriage didn’t.  (We never mastered the art of subtext, for sure.)  And where there are children involved, safety and security always takes the front seat.  The desk job endured, the dinner theatre did not.

But here’s where it gets romantic – a year after my split, I met a man who saw my heart and loved me anyway.  (And that’s where the romance ends!  We have four kids between us – romance isn’t much of an option.  I’ll take dinner at home with a side of baseball on TV and a quickie on the couch.  Don’t judge – nothing a little Lysol and Febreze can’t freshen up.)  I’ve learned more in our ten years than I did in the 36 before him – if you don’t count the learning I did as a child of a contentious divorce from age 4.

In a transition to a world geographically 45 minutes from my home but a world away from the culture, I opened some old wounds and decided not to ignore them, but to treat them and learn from them.  My life coach certification is only half of what makes me qualified to coach;  the lessons I’ve learned in life, through my own personal journey with yoga, therapy, and other healing modalities, along with a good ear, a genuine curiosity and love for people, and a strong sense of intuition is what makes me a good coach!

So here I am today with my own scars and imperfections and areas of expertise (and a mad skill with subtext) helping others improve their own situations, asking hard questions and growing into the most amazing versions of themselves – in their perceptions of their own selves and in relationship with others.  I hope you’ll consider trusting yourself first and then me, as a coach, to take a journey together you will appreciate and treasure.