Why choose Pat?

Choosing a life coach is personal. For our collaborative partnership to succeed, you need to be comfortable with me and believe I offer what you want. So, here’s a little of my story. I look forward to hearing yours!

• What are my qualifications?

• Who am I?

• What do I offer?

What are my qualifications?

I am a graduate of the Institute for Life Coach Training (ILCT). The ILCT curriculum is a content-rich, theoretically based curriculum equivalent to a graduate-level education. My training includes both foundational and continuing education courses, including coaching for life transitions, caregivers, personal resilience, and relationships, as well as ways to maximize client success.

Becoming a life coach was a natural next step for me professionally, prompted by the personal events of my life, increasingly shaped by who I wanted to be, what I wanted from life, and how I wanted to contribute to others. My life coaching evolved from my masters in adult learning and development, my previous experience with behavior change and wellness, and my lifelong learning of natural sciences — all with the common aim of helping people do what they need to do.

This diverse expertise enables me to personalize our coaching interactions and offer resources in a way that benefits you. To be successful, the life coaching process will draw on relevant coaching models and frameworks. As your coach, it is my responsibility to not just know these models and frameworks — and their related concepts and practical tools — but to appropriately adapt them to you.

Ultimately, the life coaching process depends on your wants and needs, shaped by your own ongoing process as you direct your own progress. Life coaching provides the structure, you provide the content.

Who am I?

I am a quiet person who lives simply and responsibly, comfortable with complexity and uncertainty, appreciating diversity and wholeness. I am respectful and grateful, also curious and questioning.

The early years

I was born in the Midwest, second of five children of loving and hardworking parents.

An intentional path

In 2001, my husband and I moved to Western Massachusetts in search of a cleaner, simpler life. Working from home, I applied my talents to writing and editing — helping people do what they needed to do. Our family celebrated weddings, dealt with chronic illnesses, and mourned at funerals.

In 2009–2011 while recovering from a car accident, I attained a masters of education focusing on health literacy. Upon graduation, I worked in education and support at a local community health center. After leaving suddenly, my focus turned from helping those with illness to helping others to prevent illness. I became a wellness specialist and trained as a wellness coach, learning wellness practices for lasting behavior change. At the time, I couldn’t find local employment.

Becoming a life coach wasn’t easy for me. As my life kept shifting bringing more personal challenges, no one coaching niche or approach seemed enough. I needed them all — wouldn’t others? This was important. I persevered. I felt compelled to do so. I used my head but lived from my heart. And I kept learning.

Becoming more

Life is not just unpredictable, life brings a convergence of issues. And when lives intersect, we’re asked for part of ourselves, to become something more.

In 2018 my most profound lesson came with a dual crisis of my parents who live out of town, I moved in for a while. Then 2020 was the ultimate family crisis within the global one of Covid. My pop came home on hospice, I moved in again for a while. Then for a year I helped my mom deal with the aftermath. I still video chat with my mom most days and visit every other month.

Along the way the caregiving experience changed me, I coped by updating my life coaching knowledge and gaining experience using new concepts and enhancing key processes in my own life. To make sense of it all, I created two workbooks: Living into Life in 2019 and Enriching Life in 2021. Eventually there will be a third, Being Human.

This year as things have settled, I’ve been restoring my resilience and building back my day so I can bring my best self to clients. Most importantly, I’ve been expanding my life coaching approaches and more clearly understand why years ago ‘no one coaching approach seemed enough.’ And I will keep learning.

What do I offer you?

As your life coach,

I aspire to help you achieve your aim in a way that helps you live today better, better not in the sense of relentless improvement rather as human desire to enrich your life with what you value most.

My aim is to help you make wise choices and take effective action from a position of strength with the clarity, choice, and capacity to progress and achieve better in a way that makes sense to you.

Guiding principles include

at C3, life coaching is a collaborative partnership. We have a genuine dialogue to explore and understand each other’s views about what would help you achieve your coaching objective, what coaching tasks would support your progress, by what coaching methods. Decision making is shared with regular feedback to enhance the process and outcome satisfaction.

at C3, life coaching is personal. It ‘depends’ in all the expected complex ways, but most importantly on you and how you make sense of it. Why? Because if we can’t name something, we can’t understand it either. How we name things carries our way of knowing that thing and gives us a way of acting on what we know. Connecting these things helps us understand relationships and become aware of ways to influence.

at C3, life coaching focuses on what you value. Values are beliefs, qualities, or philosophies that are so meaningful that we are willing to shape our lives by them. Our values lead us to certain choices that lead to certain results. It’s useful to know what we value, what we hope for when challenged, and what we find meaningful when facing adversity. It’s also important to consider others and to recognize that any moment is a dynamic balance of many values.

at C3, life coaching respects all aspects of your life, knowing it’s all connected, the whole is greater than the parts. Balance determines whether all aspects of life either support or robs the others, recognizing that balance is in the eye of the beholder, as is completeness. Completeness accepts the messiness of life for what it is, finding a purpose for all of it that enriches life in some way. What matters is what is worth doing now, considering shifts across all aspects of life.

at C3, life coaching is progressive. We start where you are in the situation, in life, and with knowledge, skills, and abilities. We build gradually from ‘what is,’ in doable small steps. We work not wait, moving in a desirable direction, shifting with circumstances, making the most of opportunities. What’s key is nurturing, supporting, and sustaining progress.

at C3, life coaching activities are a natural part of what you need to be doing, with your efforts woven into what’s going on in your life. Yes, coaching sessions are a set-aside but provide a valuable opportunity to check-in and course-correct. Yes, between-session activities may be new or different, but they have a purpose and benefit. When you leave coaching, you’re already ready to continue on your own.

Some useful practices include

Believe in yourself. Our perception of our capacity is important, shaping what goals we choose, how much effort we invest, and how long we persist in the face of obstacles. It does this by affecting our sense of hope and optimism.

Lead yourself by nurturing, guiding, protecting, and caring for yourself by providing basic resources and managing the many pressures and demands of life. Devote attention to those things that support moving you in a desirable direction by recognizing your current specific challenges and then strengthening the key processes involved.

Support yourself by expressing your needs, making wise choices, fostering secure and honest relationships, setting realistic expectations and goals, and learning from feedback.

Yes, you can!

 What small step can you take today?

What now?

If you feel comfortable with me and believe I offer what you need, I invite you to learn more about C3 services.