Shifting tide. 
      Image Credit: Austin Neill via Unsplash

Welcome to Shifting Tide Coaching

The shifting tide is caused by forces beyond our control. Science can explain the shifting tide but has yet to find a way to control them. So, we plan our beach life accordingly; working comfortably around what can be explained but not changed. Acquired disability is not unlike the shifting tide. It is often out of our control. Science may be able to explain it, but in the end we must accept and work with it.

At Shifting Tide Coaching, I offer transitional coaching to individuals with acquired disabilities (and their love ones) and those parenting children/adults with disabling conditions. It’s about acceptance of change and making peace with uncertainty.

Peer Coaching groups are for those with common interest/common purpose who can benefit from coming together to support one another to learn and develop via a mutually encouraging, goal-directed process with clear boundaries. It’s about developing relational skills and practicing them in a holding environment for application to life’s abundant challenges.

Resilience Circles are workshops that provide a forum to discuss adversity and the Skills & Attitudes that can help build resilience using a tool called BounceBack. It’s about managing challenge, adversity, and crisis.

Meet the Coach

I received my B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Philosophy from the University of Maine in 1992 where I was a non-traditional student. Upon graduation, I pursued a 44-year career in human/social services working primarily with/for individuals with disabilities until 2016 when I retired due to disability. In 2015 I started teaching Resilience Skills & Attitudes and peer coaching under the mentorship of Ronald L. Breazeale, Ph.D. and became a Resilience Strategist. In 2019 I enrolled in the International Coach Academy and earned my Professional Coach certificate in 2021. I specialize in transition coaching, peer coaching, and resilience coaching. For me, they are intimately tied together.

But here’s what you really need to know about me.

1.   I am a 1:1 or small group kind of human. I have always sought out individual and small-group associations.

2.   I do not enjoy sales of any kind nor do I like “to be sold”. I usually want something or I do not. If I am unsure, I will ask questions. I believe most people seeking coaching are the same. They know what they are looking for and will recognize it when they find it.  

3.   I have both a personal and professional relationship to disability. My resume speaks to my professional experience. Disability is well represented in my immediate and extended family. I have had a disabling condition since 03/1993. I am intimately acquainted with the dynamics and the challenges that present to individuals with disability and their loved ones.

4.   I have great empathy when it comes to the need to surpass impediments to achievement. It has been the squeaky gear, I must grease regularly, in my lifelong machinery.

5.   Adversity and challenging transitions are not an academic interest for me but rather a deeply personal experience as are strategies to manage them.

6.   I believe in empowering others by doing “with” as opposed to doing “for.” Forty-four years of human/social service experience has proven that it is a far more sustainable way of helping others to help themselves.

7.   Resilient individuals have been the attraction that has guided my career path. My search also included the desire to find a program/agency that was not flawed and (at times) somewhere on a rocking scale of dysfunction. I did not find it.

8.   I have come to understand that nothing (no agency…no program…no person) is perfect and that the best we can do is to see things as they are, effect change where we can, and bring our best selves forward to meet each and every challenge we encounter.

9.   I believe that I am obligated to give back to those who inspired me to become who I am today. This is why I serve those with disabilities and their loved ones. This is why I strive to keep my fees low and offer a sliding fee scale to those whose finances may be an impediment to goal achievement.

10. I truly believe that we each have inside of us the ability to find the inner resources necessary to manage difficult transitions and adversity in our lives. If you have a true desire to explore your capabilities, I am here to partner with you in your pursuit.