From time to time we hit an obstacle and discover that our current patterns of being, thinking, leading and relating are just not working.

It usually takes a crisis, or some seemingly intractable leadership issue before people realise that a coach would benefit them.

Few of us have the perfect life, career or leadership brand, so why do we wait to hit a painful challenge before upgrading our psychological software? We upgrade the software on our computers, but most people don't realise, that in a sense, they are still operating with the same core software that established itself when they were growing up. This is why people have those hard to explain reactions and experiences that can be triggered by certain people and situations. Reactions that disconnect us from our grounded sense of being, disabling us as we struggle to handle sudden onset of feelings of self-doubt, being small or ashamed.

These experiences are more common than you think and propagated by old mental scripts that were planted during our formative years. These scripts are usually at the root of defensive behaviours in organisational and every-day life. 

As we get older, we may become more sophisticated in how we mask these defensive drives, but the fundamental platform of mental and neurological processes are largely the ones we acquired during our early years. And they are still influencing many of the leadership styles, behaviors and decisions that we see today.

A good coach should help you to reflect profoundly on how you see and experience the 'reality' of difficult situations. Partnering you as you probe into the emotional and cognitive narratives that keep such scripts in power and limiting our choices over how to response to people and perceived circumstances in more effective ways.

They should also be able to resource you as you 'experiment' with a range of different points of view that expand your perception of the whole. This can trigger an awakening to the true nature of an issue. Armed with this clarity makes it easier to know just what is needed - for your growth as a leader and how you can catalyse a shift in the situation.

This is possibly the most important question to ask.

Recognising the right person for your circumstances and for you as a person is key to getting the shift that you really need.

Maybe the problem you face in life isn't that critical. Is it a performance tweak that only requires a few new tactical skills to see you through the current issue? Then a training course just might do the trick. Or, for that rapid, bespoke intervention, maybe a coach who is specifically skilled in your current area of need, who can 'fix' you.

If you are a new leader within your organisation it may be that you just need someone who knows the company. Someone who you can trust to advise you on how to navigate the processes, politics and personalities. In which case an in-house mentor may be what you are looking for.

As a first time director, you will need to get to grips with what that really means for your role. Perhaps think of finding an externally experienced industry mentor. Or even an experienced director who is willing to advise you and share their lessons, to help you avoid making unnecessary mistakes as you embody your new role.

But, if you feel that something is impeding the flow of your natural power and presence, to lead or to influence people and contexts around you, then you may need something more.

You may need a coach who not only understands team effectiveness, leadership and creating performance cultures, but who can also apply depth, transformative psychology to your growth as a person. Someone who is outside of the business and even the industry who you can trust to have your best interests at heart. A professional trained and well versed in human processes and the corporate context in which they play out.

Maybe.

I excel at working with leaders who have sense that they are not firing on all cylinders. Perhaps it feels like something is missing.

• Running low on mental and emotional bandwidth to sustain performance?
• Lacking commitment, confidence or clarity?
• Feeling that there is more to life and lost the sense of purpose and meaning in work?
• Finding it hard to keep your mind sharp and focused on the right things?
• Is finding the right balance between work and family sapping your energy?
• Got a crucial presentation or career interview and you need to feel at your best, despite feeling exhausted and ungrounded?
• Certain personalities sucking the energy and power out of you?
• Finding hard to get your team firing on all cylinders?

As a Temenos coach, mentor and guide, I 'hold a safe space' in which people can more effectively process whatever is on their mind.

It then becomes easier to recognise and to transform the deeper assumptions that may be keeping you stuck beneath a certain level of achievement.

With the Temenos approach to coaching, you will gain a deeper insight into the thinking processes that underpin the repeating patterns that trip you up.

Having surfaced those blocks, skillful conversation, inquiry and guided visualisation will equip you to change those patterns at their root. Depth of transformation is important here. It helps inner changes to 'stick' which is key for new performance habits to endure. But it also make new patterns easier to embed and to just be part of who you naturally are without having to work hard at a specific technique or tactic.

Without transforming the deeper patterns that underpin your habits of being, the old ways of relating will soon return. Along with them will return those feelings and the narratives that are corrosive to your performance. That is why we work at a deeper level and with the subconscious mind, to help you to become aware of and to uproot those developmental beliefs which now hold you back as an adult.

Some clients make the trip to Springwood House to take advantage of our forest setting, a safe oasis of calm in which to enjoy their nourishing reflection. However the majority of our clients operate around the world, so we largely meet by phone or Zoom.

It often surprises people how powerful this work can be by phone, especially when engaging in a meditative or visualisation process for un-sticking the subconscious processes of mind.

Our egoic narratives and projections are not who we really are at our core. These are products of childhood strategies acquired through early experiences of being in an imperfect world. Essentially they were whatever we found that worked to make our experience of childhood feel safer, more comfortable and to assert greater control over how we felt.  As children we needed those strategies of being because back then, it felt as if those emotions could overwhelm us. We didn't have the awareness or the skills to handle them any differently. With Temenos Coaching you will.

Since these strategies or modes of being helped us to 'feel better', they became an intrinsic part of our psyche. Although this may have been helpful back then, they corralled us into a limited set of predictable ways of responding to situations. These patterns can then hamper our relational effectiveness. Unless forced in some way, it rarely occurs to us to wonder why and how we feel as we do. And yet these habits of feeling and thinking drive our reactions. Causing us to function and to relate in ways that may not be optimally effective in our role as leader and for our aspirations in life.

In light of all of this, my job is to hold the safe space for our connection and create a temenos, in which you can meet more of your whole self.

All you need to do is to talk and be guided in various reflective processes. These aim to increase your awareness of the mental 'programming' and assumptions that trigger emotional states that get in your way of being effective with others. Once we get clear about the block, we will likely do some guided trance-based process to relax the pattern. At the end of a session, you will often be offered a 'homework' practice, designed to anchor this new experience of yourself and of your expanded capacity to be and to lead.

You will get the full warmth of my attention and awareness as I tune in to you and your story.

As your partner and guide, I'm here to help you to explore and discover more of your power, by helping you to disentangle from those internal whispers that cut you off from living that power more naturally.

Our conversations will have will help you to go beneath the surface and to attend to the ecology of your mind. Removing the weeds and dead wood of long held habits. Moving beyond the electric fences in your psyche that keep you in place, loyal to the habits of mind that keep you smaller than you were meant to be. Habits that underpin your persona and a personal brand that may be getting in your way as a leader.

As we journey together, you will pick up invaluable maps and powerful practices for being. You will likely notice that you and your life feel... somehow more.

• More joyful and at peace,
• More fulfilled and enlivened.
• You will become more present and connected, to yourself and others, enabling you to be...
• More effective and able to contribute even more to your world.

You will discover the joy of simply being more fully in the world. 

Being more trusting of yourself that you can manage and process your fears and because of that, being more trustworthy.

Learning to regulate your inner state regardless of what your environment throws at you. A state of being that naturally emerges from knowing that you are not the sum of your thoughts, nor your feelings. That you are something much more.

Scroll down and simply click the button.

You'll be guided through to the sign up page.

Once you have purchased your session, you will be taken to an online Reflective Questionnaire. This will help you to name what you most want from our session.

A copy will be sent to us both. A reminder for you and brief for me, so that we can make the most of our time together.

That will then be our first step together on your journey.