~EMPOWERMENT

~clarity

~transformation

OUR STORY

On our first date in 2007, Joe broached a conversation I usually dreaded coming up. He had seen through me masking my (relatively) hidden disability and explained that he had experienced something very similar with a family member.  His empathy and understanding, without being patronising, immediately put me at ease and the anxiety dissipated. Over the years we developed strategies to ensure negative feelings associated with having additional needs were reframed in a positive way.  

I’m visually impaired and have been since birth. Nowadays there is slightly more understanding and awareness around some hidden disabilities, but especially my experience at school was incredibly isolating. Having a Teaching Assistant sat by my side in every class from Year R to Year 11 made it difficult to socialise and make positive connections with my peers. On leaving school I took advantage of my new-found freedom and connected with everyone, whether their influence was good or bad.  This impacted my judgement because I was so thankful to no longer feel isolated and largely due to this I was in a controlling relationship where my vulnerability was a huge factor.

Less dramatically, people may simply not realise there is anything different whilst internally there can be a constant stream of additional pressures. At times the pressure could be too much as I have had to rely on others to help me through life. 

 

The fear of being misunderstood. The frustration of having to explain yourself. The feeling of being dismissed because your disability isn’t immediately obvious. And sometimes, a sense of vulnerability that can make even everyday situations feel more complicated than they should. 

 

Then there is everything else life throws at you. Work. Family. Relationships. Expectations. Responsibilities. The pressure to keep going when you’re already stretched. Sometimes it was like starting a race from 10m back.

 

As a professional working in a high-pressure career, I was managing all of the usual demands of everyday life alongside the additional stresses created by my disability.

 Sometimes it could feel like I had to work harder, in any aspect of life, just to achieve a level playing field.

 

And that can have an impact.

 

You can start to question yourself. The negative takes over from the positive. Fear can become a barrier. Stress can become normal. You can feel stuck, overwhelmed and unsure how to move forward.  The difficult thing is that when you live with those feelings for long enough, you can start to believe they are simply part of who you are.

 

We know that feeling because we’ve lived it.

 

 

Everything began to change when I completed my first coaching qualification in 2013. At first, coaching was something I had learned professionally. But we soon began exploring what these techniques could do for us personally. By this time we had a house and mortgage, our dog and were planning our wedding. So many happy things, but they come with additional stress.

 

We discovered that coaching wasn’t about pretending the challenges didn’t exist.

It was about changing the way we approached them.

 

Together, we began to unpack the thoughts, fears and assumptions that were holding me back. Coaching gave me the space to step away from the noise, gain clarity and look at situations differently. Instead of focusing on external negativity, we were able to concentrate on the things that were in our control and develop our mindset to focus on making the most of them.

Instead of simply asking, “Why is this happening to me?”, we started asking useful questions:

What is actually stopping me?

What am I afraid of?

What is within my control?

What would be possible if I stopped allowing fear to make the decisions?

Those questions were powerful.

 

Through coaching, I was able to identify barriers that I hadn’t always recognised, challenged what I believed to be true and reframe the way I viewed my disability. I began to see that although my disability was part of my life, it didn’t have to define it.

 

That experience became the foundation of what we do today. We have both completed Coaching Certifications and use coaching in our everyday lives; with clients, colleagues and each other. 

We didn’t just learn coaching.

We experienced its power.

And we want other people to experience it too.

 

 

Today, almost 20 years after we first met, our life looks very different from the one we might once have imagined. We have taken control through a positive mindset and focusing on what we can achieve. We have shut out the negativity and embraced the challenges and worked together to build what we have today.   

 

Importantly, we haven’t given anything up.

We have a thriving family. We work. We socialise. We travel. We make plans. We have adventures. We experience the ups, the downs, the chaos and the joy that comes with a full and busy life. We bounce off of one another, reference quotes endlessly and have the quirks that make relationships so enjoyable.

 

We’ve learned to recognise the barriers that genuinely exist — and distinguish them from the barriers created by fear, uncertainty or a lack of confidence.

And we keep pushing boundaries.

 

My disability is part of my story, but it is not the author of it.

 That is the message we want to share with the people we coach.

Because when you live with additional needs or disabilities, it can be incredibly easy to focus on everything that feels difficult. You may feel isolated, overwhelmed, stressed or stuck. You may have spent so long adapting to what you can’t do that you’ve forgotten to ask yourself what you could do.

 

We now help people to do just that.

 

As empowerment coaches, we work with people to help them move from isolation to connection, overwhelm to clarity, stress to control, and feeling stuck to taking action.

We don’t promise to remove every challenge. Life doesn’t work that way.

Because empowerment isn’t about becoming someone different.

It’s about recognising the person you already are.

And discovering just how much is possible when you stop allowing your circumstances to define your future.

We know because we’ve lived it.

Now we want to help you live it too.

If you are a professional with additional needs, who currently feels overwhelmed, isolated or stuck in a cycle you can’t get out of, book a complimentary accessible discovery session to see how we can help you to a life of empowerment, clarity and transformation.  

Site: www.thetransformabilitycoach.com