Coaching by Kirsty
Lighting you up✨
Hello, I'm Kirsty
...AN IMPROBABLE SPARK OF (SHARED?) CONSCIOUSNESS CLINGING TO A SPINNING ROCK IN SPACE....
Nice to meet you, fellow spark!
Random Shit About Me
I swear prolifically.
I think about tea &
biscuits a LOT.
I'm an avid reader.
My favourite number is 42.
I am an introvert.
I like to run and crochet.
But not at the same time.
I love Excel formulae.
My sense of direction & spatial awareness are shite (more than half a century on the planet and I still confuse left and right, ffs).
I am a Dog Person.
I am crazy proud of having FOUR houseplants that aren't dead (yet) #prayfortheplants
I believe that Meat Loaf
is the God of Rock.
Unless it's Dave Grohl.
(It's important to keep an open mind on these things, right?)
I was almost certainly a sloth in a previous life.
I find "specifically", "edited" and "Namibia" really hard to say (you're saying them now, aren't you?!).
I felt like an imposter in my own life
Ever had the feeling that, at any minute, everyone's going to turn round and say "Did you really think you had us fooled? We were just being nice, but now we've had enough. We all know you don't belong: it's time for you to kindly fuck off"? I did. A lot. Mostly background, but sometimes very, very foreground, and always making me worry about how others were judging me.
Tried hard to be "normal"
I think a lot of it stemmed from being a quiet, sensitive introvert in a society that values confident, sociable extroversion: I learned early on what it is to feel different and excluded, that there must be something wrong with me. So I tried to be who I thought I should be in order to fit in - because we all have that primeval need for acceptance and belonging, don't we? But no matter how hard we try to be all things to all people, we can never please all the people all the time, so, of course, I never felt good enough.
Cynical toes
"So what changed?" I hear you cry (possibly!). Stuff happened in my personal life which made me feel that The Fear had been realised. It was truly shitty and I was a mess (but not a hot one - life is SO unfair). It was the need to deal with all the ensuing horrible, painful, difficult feelings that eventually had me dipping a cynical but desperate toe (can toes be cynical and/or desperate?) into the waters of self-help/personal growth (aided by books with the word "fuck" in the title - who knew?!). And it was there that I discovered stuff like NLP, Buddhist thought, coaching, mindfulness and meditation.
Blown mind
I started to discover new ways of thinking, feeling and being, and to understand that I can choose how to focus my mind and show up in my own life. What I had thought of as my fatal flaws turned out to be learned patterns of thinking and behaving that could be changed. I began chipping away at the layers of defence and pretence I'd built around myself and was gobsmacked to realise that I actually quite liked what I was finding. And coaching took (and continues to take) things to another level: because coaches let me get it all out of my head; they ask me questions I wouldn't ask myself; they guide me to find the difficult stuff, and they make me feel safe and supported while I tackle it. I never cease to be amazed by the coaching process, both as coach and client.
Loving where I'm at
These days, my growing self-belief means that I'm worrying less and less about what other people think of me; I'm finding where I belong rather than shaping myself to fit in where I don't, and I'm connecting with a sense of meaning and purpose that I've never had before. There are still times of self-doubt and general shittiness, of course - I'm human and always a work in progress - but I am lighter, kinder, happier, more at peace with myself than I ever thought possible. And that's pretty damn massive, isn't it?
If you'd like to know more or talk about your own journey (the J word was always going to make an appearance, wasn't it?!), then click the button below to arrange a chat - I look forward to talking to you!
"Find out who you are and do it on purpose."
Dolly Parton (Guru Extraordinaire)