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If you’re interested in 1:1 coaching with me, here’s how to get started:

Step

1

Is this what you're looking for?

Here’s the plain language version of what I do:

In one-on-one sessions, I’ll invite you to tell me about whatever particular issue you bring that day.

I’ll use powerful questions and insights to partner with you, to compassionately question the thoughts and meanings that you’ve been trained by neurotypical society and family dynamics to believe.

Together we will:

  • Gently challenge things you were trained to believe.
  • Find truth.
  • Normalize the later-identified Autistic experience and what you’re going through.
  • Process old experiences in light of new info (like knowing you’re Autistic/AuDHD/HSP/ND).
  • Feel emotions and physical body sensations in a contained space, with support, in small doses, so it doesn’t get overwhelming.
  • Unpack and leave behind some of the old baggage from the past.
  • Unravel parts of your old identity that no longer serve you, and craft a newer, more healthy, and hopeful one.
  • Take practical steps in the direction of building a better life based upon this new identity and personal realizations.

This takes time, and the process has ups and downs, but is completely do-able. And I’ll be with you for support and guidance.

Is this what you’re looking for (whether you’ve previously been able to articulate it or not)?

For more info, read about my approach to later discovery autism coaching, and more about my story

Next, is my coaching style a fit for you?

Here’s a few videos (with transcripts) answering common questions about coaching with me, including what to expect, what I’m good at, and what I won’t be the right coach for (that’s just as important).

FAQs About Coaching with Heather

Answering the questions:

  • What is coaching?
  • What can we work on in coaching?
  • What can I expect in a coaching session?
  • What’s the difference between coaching and therapy?
  • Are you going to tell me what to do?
  • How often do we meet?
  • Is it okay if I stim?

What is coaching?

Coaching is a way to have a conversation with someone who has the skills and the ability to draw out from you what works for you. What’s getting in your way? Why are you not doing the things that you say that you want to do, that you genuinely do want to do but are having resistance to? There’s stress around it, or you are trying to and you just can’t make it happen. 

Or why are you struggling with certain things that you’re doing? You don’t want to do them, but you can’t stop yourself. You can’t get away from it. 

It can be a way to figure out what it is that you really want in life. How do you make things better for yourself? Not doing it the way that works for someone else, but the way that works for you specifically.

What can we work on in coaching?

So you can come to a coaching session with something in mind that you want to figure out. It might be, “This thing happened recently and I had this really big reaction to it. Intellectually I know that it was out of proportion, but I don’t know why and I want to figure out what happened there.” Or maybe there’s something stressful coming up and you want to work with it in different ways than you have in the past. 

Maybe there’s something in your life that you just want to make better communication with. A partner or at work, or how to figure out what’s you and what’s the mask. What kind of accommodations could you request that would actually be useful and how you can have that conversation that you’re dreading, and can’t get yourself to actually have, to actually request for accommodations. 

It could be any number of things. Those are common ones, but whatever it is that in your life you’re trying to make better. So we can work through that. If you’re not exactly sure what specifically you want to work on in a particular session, I can help you narrow it down. It’s usually pretty easy to find something juicy.

What can I expect in a coaching session?

So how I do sessions, usually you’ll start by bringing whatever issue it is that you want to work through that day, or we figure it out together, and then I’ll start by inviting you to tell me more about it. 

What’s going on? What are the thoughts that come up? Maybe what kind of body reactions or physical sensations you notice when you’re talking about this? What emotions come up? If those things are difficult for you, I can help you figure them out. If they’re triggering, we don’t have to go there. But I’ll try to ask questions, ask powerful questions that will help you get to the things that are happening underneath the surface, not just the things that are happening, but why it’s happening. Why are you acting this way when she says that or why when they say the other thing you have a meltdown? Why is this overwhelming? Why do you shut down in this situation? Whatever it is that’s going on. 

If you go off on tangents, that’s totally fine. I actually find that really useful, even though people apologize for it all the time. You don’t need to. Your mind made a connection to this thing, or that thing, or the other thing, and I see my job as trying to figure out what those connections are, “Why did this make sense to your brain? Why did that make sense? Why did this come up in your mind and put all the different pieces together?” And when I have a hypothesis about what’s going on underneath the surface, I’ll present that to you and invite you to tell me where I’m wrong. I don’t need to be right all the time, and you know your life better than I do. 

So we’ll start with that and refine it together until it feels to you like “Yeah, that’s it! That’s what’s really happening here.” And then, depending on what that is, we can work with it in a variety of different ways. I have lots of different strategies and tools, and we might be able to dissolve it, question it, resolve it or free it up in some way. It might involve a more thought-based questioning of the painful thought that’s underneath there. It might be like talking to your younger self, if you’re open to that. There could be a variety of different things that we could do with it. 

When it feels like it’s getting resolved, like it’s getting freed up, then so many things change at that point. Often your body will feel open or lighter, physically. Your brain starts working in new ways and new options become available. As we work through this, it frees up a lot of energy and your prefrontal cortex starts turning on all the way again. The right hemisphere of your brain, that’s creative and problem solving in outside of the box ways, starts being able to use all of its resources again.

Often what happens is the way forward will seem a lot more obvious to you. It will very naturally come back to that original situation that you started with, and you’ll know what you want to do about it. At that point, the practical stuff, the strategies and tools can become useful, and we can get into that and make plans for it. Make ideas, strategize, refine it, and those are the plans that actually turn out to work. You’ll actually do those kinds of plans now that the underlying situation isn’t getting in your way anymore.

What’s the difference between coaching and therapy?

So the difference between therapy and coaching, at least the way I do it: 

I find it useful to acknowledge that there are reasons why we’re doing the things that we’re doing, why we’re repeating certain patterns over and over even though we know they’re not helpful, or why we’re resisting certain things, even though we know it would be helpful. The areas where we get stuck in our life, things that we can’t figure out what’s going on there. There’s a reason for all of that. I find it useful to figure out where that’s coming from. It might be that this thing happened when you were six, for example, and it’s still affecting you in certain ways that may not be super obvious. 

Whereas therapy is going to go into that situation and be like, “Okay, this thing happened when you were six. Let’s get in there, unpack that, and heal the experience itself.” What I’ll do is to acknowledge, “Hey, that thing happened when you were six. Here’s the lesson that you learned from that or here’s the belief that you took away and that belief is still affecting you. Let’s play with that belief, that lesson that you’ve learned from it.” I want to play with that lesson.

Are you going to tell me what to do?

I’m not going to tell you what to do, tell you what I think you should do, or what I would do in your place, because I’m not in your place. You know your life and the situation better than anyone else, and you’re the one who will be living with it. What I can do is to help you figure out for yourself what you actually want and what you need, not what other people tell you you should want, or what should work or what would be a good idea. It doesn’t matter. Any of that doesn’t matter. What matters is what actually matters to you, and I can help you with that. I can help you figure out how to make decisions, how to listen to yourself and trust yourself. When you do, you will make the best decision.

How often do we meet?

Most people find that working with me on a regular basis is really helpful, especially at the beginning to gain some momentum. About every two to three weeks works well for most people. Some people want to work weekly, but to be honest, that can get kind of intense. Some people want to just do it once a month or once in a while when they have something particular to work through. And that’s totally fine. That works especially well after we’ve been working for a while, and you’re getting familiar with the process, and have been incorporating that into your life more often, and just need some help working through the especially sticky stuff.

Is it okay if I stim?

When we’re working together on Zoom, you are very welcome to stim, fidget, tic, doodle, take notes, eat or drink, and look away from the camera. I don’t mind any of that. Do what you need to do to feel good in your body and in your mind. You’ll notice that I often have a fidget toy or a stim with me, and I always have a weighted blanket on my lap. That helps my body relax. And if the zoom thing doesn’t work for you, we can do it just over the phone. That works fine too.

Coaching with Heather: more FAQs

Answering the questions:

  • How do you work with people?
  • How do I prepare for sessions?
  • Can I be autistically direct with you?
  • You put out so much free info, do I really need one-on-one coaching?

How do you work with people?

So I believe that that you understand how you work best. You may have been taught to ignore that for much of your life, or you might not have spent a lot of time trying to formulate that into words, or figuring it out deeply. Or you might have but there’s still areas you haven’t figured out yet. But you have years of your actual lived experience doing things, and knowing what works and what doesn’t work for you. 

So I’m not going to say, “okay, here’s a few tips that work for ADHD, this should work for you,” because they don’t work for everyone. 

I tend to work more on figuring out the underlying thoughts in a situation. 

Like you’re trying to get this assignment done for work and you want to do it, you need to do it, but you just cannot get yourself to do it. What’s going on? I’m going to ask questions to start noticing your thoughts around it, what’s really going on there? 

And there’s usually some sort of painful thought, or an association to something that’s old, or some sort of inner resistance to it. It might be a very practical thing, but even then there’s usually some sort of underlying thought or emotion that’s also influencing you. 

And I do a lot of work on dissolving those, resolving, relieving, seeking the truth, and freeing ourselves from the thoughts and beliefs that cause us unnecessary pain.

And usually what happens is when that gets more cleared up, the practical stuff becomes a lot easier. And that’s when your brain will all be automatically be like, “Oh, well I could do this,” or “I work well like this or when I do this kind of thing.”

I often don’t even need to suggest things at that point. Because you know what works for you. You’ve just got a lot of crap in your head from other people telling you that you’re not good at stuff, and you believed it and it seems like the truth. It feels very true. But usually it’s not. 

What might be more true is that you’re not good at doing things in a particular way. Because the standard way doesn’t work for your brain, or your motor skills, or your sensory system, or whatever it is.

But if you’re trying to force yourself to do something someone else’s way, and it conflicts with how you function, of course you’re going to get pretty crappy results. And when you do that enough, you’re going to have a lot of bad associations with it. 

So when you try and force yourself to do that, of course there’s going to be a lot of resistance. And it may have happened so many times, for so many years, that you don’t even notice what’s going on anymore. It just feels like this is the way things are. 

Or it might be more true, that you’ve never actually been taught how to do something. Maybe you just had people assume that telling you to do it was enough, and then criticize you for not catching on. That’s sadly, incredibly common. And we can deconstruct that one, too. And all the other false beliefs that cause unnecessary pain.

So that’s the stuff that I love to work on. When each one of those gets freed up, sure, we can do practical stuff, too. I’ve got lots of those ideas. You probably have lots of ones that work for you a lot better than what I can suggest. But sometimes it’s helpful to get some ideas to get you started.

But I don’t tend to start with practical suggestions. Otherwise you’re just trying to force yourself into someone else’s box.

How do I prepare for sessions?

Here’s a bit on how to prepare for sessions.

A lot of my clients, because we’re all Autistic, we want to be very prepared, have all our ducks in a row, and have a list of all the things that you want to talk through in our sessions together, and that’s great, when it comes naturally, but it doesn’t need to be that clear.

Having an idea of what topic you want to work through might be something like, there’s this thing coming up, and I’d like to have better skills for dealing with it this time. Or I recently had a reaction to something and, intellectually I know it was out of proportion to the actual event, but I still reacted this way and I can’t figure out why, can we figure that out? Or something you’re struggling with. Or that keeps weighing on you and you need to process. Or that you’re having a lot of anxiety around, even though it’s something that you want. The question for the day might be, what’s going on with that? It can be that vague. It’s all right.

So if you have some idea of what you want to talk about, or what you want to be different by the end of a session, that’s helpful. If not, I can help you find something at the beginning of a session. It’s usually pretty easy to find something juicy.

Can I be autistically direct with you?

A little about my communication style.

It might be useful to mention that you can be very direct with me. I am not likely to take offense or assume the worst possible interpretation. So if you have a question or want to tell me something, you don’t need to soft pedal around it or spend a lot of effort trying to figure out how to say it so that I don’t take it the wrong way. If something is phrased awkwardly, I’m not going to interpret that as being rude. You can ask me how many minutes we have left and I’ll simply give you an answer. I’m not going to assume that you’re bored or anything like that. 

I’m also likely to just take your comment at face value, think about the merit of whatever you have to say, and respond to that.

As you get comfortable with me, I hope that you can give me feedback about what does and doesn’t work for you. And because I know that’s not always easy right off the bat, when I have an idea of something that might be helpful, I’ll describe what it is and then give you the option about whether you want to do it. And I’ll often ask for confirmation two or three times, and reinforce that you really do get to choose, you don’t have to go along with what I propose out of habit or people pleasing.

And when you say you don’t want to try that or no, that’s not really, my style, or that kind of thing hasn’t worked for me in the past, I’m just going to say okay, and move on. I’m not going to push, or try and talk you into it anything.

By the way, if you ever want me to explain what the point of something is, why I asked something, I can do that. I’ll just give you a direct explanation. I see no value in hiding the how or why of why I do what I do.

You put out so much free info, do I really need one-on-one coaching?

Do you really need 1:1 coaching? 

I don’t know. Probably not. Could it be useful? Probably. This isn’t about whether or not you’re capable of figuring stuff out yourself, or whether you could get a lot out of my free materials or the courses or group stuff. I’m sure you can, and I hope you do. I hope you have. That’s what they’re for.

It’s more about, would you like a shortcut, so you don’t have to figure out everything on your own? Would you like some help personalizing the general info, translating it to your particular life? That’s more of what it’s about.

One thing about the free content I’ve put out, is it’s kind of scattered. It’s, “here’s a thought that I had today,” or “here’s something that came up in my life,” and that’s useful, but it’s not structured content. 

The workshops, courses, and ebooks are more structured. They take a specific topic and work through it systematically, but it’s still a fairly high level overview of the topic. It can’t be personalized to every individual. It can address patterns and commonalities that many of us face, but not your particular situation. Still, I hope you can apply a fair amount of it to your particular situation and get a good deal of use out of it. That’s the point of it.

And if that’s what you need at the moment, great, you might not need the one-on-one approach. 

As for me, when I’m following other people’s content, I’m a pretty quick learner, and I’m often able to put general concepts into practice on my own. But sometimes, with certain things, I need a little more help in the implementation. Or help seeing aspects of my own situation that I have a hard time seeing for myself, because I’m so enmeshed in it, and an outside perspective helps, especially one that has more experience with the subject than I do. And it can save me a ton of time and effort, and even money, to pay someone who can quickly figure out where I’m getting stuck and who knows how to get unstuck.

The biggest value that people get out of working with me one-on-one is that I can meet them where they are now, figure out what they’re wrestling with now, what’s useful for them at this stage of their journey, and get right to the heart of it.

Coaching with Heather: FAQs on goals and structure

Answering the questions:

  • How do sessions link together? How much structure is there?
  • Do you give homework? 
  • Will you be an accountability partner for me?
  • What kind of coaching do you do?

How do sessions link together? How much structure is there?

So, here’s a bit about how sessions link together.

My mentor, Martha Beck, holds the philosophy of being in _constant creative response to the present moment_. And I really love that. It’s so very much not how I lived most of my life before I realized I’m Autistic, but I’ve gotten to a point where that resonates with me. 

And so I don’t I don’t have a specific curriculum that I take everyone through. I don’t come up with goals at the beginning, and then we work towards meeting those goals. It doesn’t work. Because the goals that you would set initially are coming from a place of your internalized ableism, and your internalized capitalism, and your internalized painful thoughts, and your trauma history. 

But as you heal from those things, and as they become less of an influence in your life, those goals need to become less relevant in your life. Because the goals are going to change based upon a new understanding of yourself that’s in constant development. 

It’s not like flipping a switch, like oh, I’ve figured out everything and now this is going to be a new static me. You’re constantly going to be unpacking layers and layers of the onion, figuring out new ways to be you. 

And so having a set of goals, or pre-defined curriculum, or any set thing to be accountable to from the outset, is going to be an exercise in frustration because you’re going to be constantly failing at doing that. But failing at that is actually succeeding at becoming more authentically you and building a better life for yourself.

And I think the goal becomes a distraction from realizing the beauty of that failure. Because goals, at least in areas of personal growth development, can be a way of over focusing on a single thing. 

I mean, sometimes a broad enough goal can be valuable. Or goals that are more value based, like, figuring out what you want, how you feel more creative, more connected, more meaningful, that sort of thing.

Some people want to have more of a link between meetings, like I’m working on this type of thing, like my relationship with my partner, or making my job better, for example, and there’ll be a new aspect to it each session. 

And some people prefer that every time could be completely different. And I like to give you the freedom to be able to choose that. 

So I generally start sessions with a question like, “Where would you like to start today?” Or “what’s on your mind that you like to talk about today?” And if you’d like to keep them linked, you can bring up something that’s related to what we usually talk about. If you’d like it to be something completely different, you can bring up something new. Whatever you bring up, I’ll go along with it.

Do you give homework? 

Do I give homework? No. Except in rare cases, when someone really insists. 

Because I’ve found that often what happens, if I assign homework, is that my clients are more likely to spend the entire time between sessions focusing on the homework, and resisting doing it, and obsessing about not having done it, and beating themselves up about not having done it, and anxious about what I’ll say or think, and hating that they care about that, and not actually reflecting on the stuff that we’ve talked about. 

But if I don’t assign homework, they’re more likely to reflect on it naturally, and may even do more to actually live into it than I would have ever dreamed of assigning.

Will you be an accountability partner for me?

So, I am not an accountability coach.

A lot of coaching, and coaches, are very goal oriented, like “be able to strike up conversations with three people,” or “always take your pills at the same time,” and the coach provides accountability to get you to do it. I don’t do that. I don’t like that. That’s not my style. And I think it’s buying into the kind of coercive systems of our society that I want to break away from. 

Of course you have practical things that you’d like to work towards, and I can help support you do to do that, but I’m not going to create artificial, external goals for you, and I’m not going to get on your case about why you didn’t follow through on something you said you would, or why you chose to do something else.

In fact, I rarely even ask follow-up questions on where we left off before, even when I’m curious, because I don’t want it to seem like I’m checking up on you. And when you freely update me on what you’ve done between sessions, I’m not going to get on your case about what happened. That’s not me.

And at the same time, I recognize that we all have practical things that we’re trying to get better at. It might be taking your pills regularly, or dealing with distractibility, or other executive functioning stuff.

But how I approach it is by looking deeply at what’s going on. Why is this not working for you? Is the goal itself inappropriate? Sometimes it’s hard to tell, because we’re so used to thinking about it in a particular way, because our society assumes that’s the only way to do it. Well, we could gently question that story and loosen the grip of the expectation of doing it the same as others. 

If you know you need to do it a different way, maybe you’re not really sure what other options there are? We can explore those. 

Or maybe there’s something holding you back because of a belief that you that you should be better than this, or it’s not okay to make mistakes, or waiting is intolerable, or you’re not allowed to be weird, or you need to try harder, or nothing works for you anyway, so what’s the point in trying? or you’re bad at people so you’re bound to mess it up. We pick up so many of those kinds of beliefs throughout life, that influence how we are in the world, and how we interact with other people, and how we think about ourselves, and what we manage to accomplish, and they’re usually not true. Not entirely. And because some part of you knows they really aren’t true for you, that conflict drains a lot of energy. It takes a lot of energy to believe things that you know really aren’t true. 

So that’s my specialty; deconstructing those beliefs.

And then we very naturally go back to the original, practical question,  and if it’s something you still want, are there other barriers for why you’re not doing it? Or maybe that’s not actually what they want. 

So instead of setting artificial goals and suggesting tricks and techniques and accountability to meet those goal—that’s just more conformity training—I help people figure out what they really want and what’s getting in the way of that happening, whether it’s thoughts or beliefs, or very practical circumstances, or not knowing how to do the thing. 

And especially because I work with Autistics and AuDHDers and other neurodivergents, we often work together on how to tweak the things we do so that the methods work for your particular brain and nervous system, so that you actually can do the thing. 

Once those barriers are out of the way, if it’s something that you still want to do, you’re likely to naturally start doing it, you won’t need to have someone hold you accountable for it. I repeatedly find that when there’s something that you want to do, and you can do it, you don’t need an external, artificially imposed accountability partner getting on your case about it.

By the way, I’m not saying that goals are never useful. It’s not all or nothing. I’m specifically talking about areas of personal development.

But my style is more of working with the thoughts and beliefs that we’ve collected over a lifetime that no longer serve us. One more example, when you tried things that didn’t work, but that was billed as the only way, or the right way, was it was presented as your fault for it not working? Did you end up with shame on top of the original problem? That’s the kind of stuff I love deconstructing.

One more thing. Sometimes there’s a gap between the things that we want to do and the things that we have the capacity to do, and sometimes there’s no way to bridge that gap, but instead it needs to be grieved.

So, for all these reasons, I’m not interested in being an accountability partner. If that’s what you’re looking for, there are other people who do a really good job at that. 

But I would love to help you break free of the perceived need for accountability in your life as a motivating factor. To rekindle your internal motivation for the things that you want to do, and your belief that you can.

What kind of coaching do you do?

What I’m really great at, where I shine, is in helping you to deconstruct the effects of being told your whole life things that have been limiting and holding you back and making you feel small, unworthy, or trapped. Getting to a place where you feel free and strong and capable. That’s my wheelhouse. 

And as you start to leave behind those painful narratives that used to feel so real, but you begin to see that they aren’t, you’ll naturally start to make practical changes in your life for the better, and I can help you to help your nervous system to feel safe enough through the process that it becomes a partner with you instead of just getting freaked out and overwhelmed and shutting down.

 

If this resonates with you, and you’re eager for more…

Step

2

Are you ready?

We want this to go well, right? 

To reinforce positive experiences that will lead to an upward spiral of things getting better?

Here are the three things that my other clients have found set them up for success.

Three questions to ask yourself:

1.

Are you willing to invest your time, energy, and finances into deeply questioning a lifetime of thoughts about yourself and the world, in ways that may feel unfamiliar and new?

2.

Is this the right time to start?

You don’t need to wait for that magical moment when all the stars align, but it does need to be right enough(Whatever that means for you.)

3.

Is individual coaching the best option at this point in your Journey?

I’m currently offering a course on recovering from autistic burnout and have a couple self-guided options, and others are in the works.

Sign up for my newsletter if you want info when more come out.

 

If you can answer yes to these three questions,
I invite you to schedule a free clarity session!

Step

3

Your free clarity session

Before you spend money, do you want to meet first? 

This is a final check to see if you feel comfortable with me (not just a video of me), and an opportunity ask any lingering questions you have about working together.

One free session is my gift to you.

No sales pitch. No commitment.

Note: right now my schedule is full, so I’m pausing these free sessions for a while.

If you’d like to join my waitlist, enter your email here:

(BTW, If you don’t want to wait, and are willing to pay for not having to wait, you can book a regular coaching session here:

www.autismchrysalis.com/schedule.

Or if you would prefer a group or asynchronous course, I’m currently offering a deep dive into autistic burnout recovery here:

http://www.autismchrysalis.com/burnout 

If our clarity session resonates, and you’d like to try coaching with me…

Step

4

Schedule your first session

If we’re a good fit and you would like to start coaching with me, the next step is to pick your payment/scheduling preference:

  • Either pay for one session at a time.
  • Or choose between two package options, upfront or monthly.

FYI: my standard rates are going up a little in the new year, to $150/session. You’re welcome to schedule, or get a package, at my current rates, and use them in the new year.

One Session At A Time

$ 120
USD
  • 1 session, to work through a specific issue or an aspect of an issue
  • Get to know you questionnaire to jumpstart our first session

6 Session Package

$ 650
USD
  • 6 coaching sessions
  • Pay once, get 10% off,
    and schedule when you choose
  • Sessions are available to you for 1 year
  • Get to know you questionnaire to jumpstart our first session

6 Month Package

$ 110
/mo/session USD
  • Choose 1, 2, or 3 sessions per month
  • • $110/month for 1 coaching session (6 total)
    • $220/month for 2 coaching sessions (12 total)
    • $330/month for 3 coaching sessions (18 total)
  • Commit to 6 months auto pay, get 8% off, and schedule when you choose
  • Auto pay ends after 6 months so you can't forget to cancel
  • Sessions are available to you for 1 year
  • Get to know you questionnaire to jumpstart our first session

Step

5

We start working together

That’s it. There’s no contracts, commitments, or signatures.

I’ll email you an optional questionnaire that will help me learn a bit about you and how you work best, so we can skip a lot of the small talk phase and jump in deep.

Then simply show up for the first session you scheduled, and we start!

Continue for as long as you find this useful in creating your autism-positive life.

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