We find your way, then find your words,

so you can articulate your identity.

Have you ever seen somebody get hit with a change so hard that it changed who they were?

Figuring out what a change like that has upended, and then figuring out what it’s going to take to shuffle and reorganize around living in a new way, is a demanding process. We’re not taught how to do this ourselves, and reliable mentors are scarce.

I shepherd people through very big changes

—the kind of lifequakes that change who you are.

As a public relations counselor of over 30 years, half of that in private practice, and narrative coach, I’ve worked with individuals who have endured and emerged from changes like natural disasters, addiction recovery, medical identity shifts, career collapses, and sudden public attention events. I work along side therapists, attorneys, doctors, and other professional providers. Our work focuses on coming to recognize who you are now and what that awareness means for how you take steps forward—small steps at a time.

We work on balancing personal identity with public reputation.

Other people . . .

A key part of our work includes ways to have conversations with the people around you as you begin to live your life differently. Often the people closest to us expect that things will be better when we return to how we were before. They may press hard for that so as to relieve their own concern and anxiety. Yet we know in our heart that we’ll be better if things change to be different. These conversations can be difficult.

The way-things-have-always-been is the “shared agreement” that has come to be between you: and maybe it was never really shared nor agreed, but that is how it was. Now that outdated “shared agreement” needs to be renegotiated. It is time to talk through what updated conditions you desire to reconstruct and exactly how to have the conversations toward making it happen.

But this is different . . .

I work in spaces that are a bit “too much” for the usual coach —like too weird, too intense, too embarrassing, too complicated. And just on the outskirts of what your other advisors address. They are doing their thing and they want to help and all, but this part is slightly left of their wheelhouse.

I work in situations where whatever happened is making you question who you are now. This is not just a problem to be fixed, but it’s turning into an identity transition. You are coming through a significant reinvention of your internal personal narrative and your external reputation and relationships need to adjust to keep up.

I’ve seen some stuff. My very first job in high school was as a 911 dispatcher. (To be fair, it was mostly me calling out relatives who were first responders in rural Pennsylvania.) I spent many years with American Red Cross as a public relations rep, a Public Information Officer, in the field during responses to natural disasters. I’ve spent my career addressing crisis situations. Now I work with individuals who are ready to pick themselves up and dust themselves off, but don’t want to go it alone. The bootstraps thing is overrated: you don’t have to do it the hard way or figure it all out yourself.

We work together on figuring out how you choose to get up and go walk —and talk— your way through this.