Tag Archives: connection. coaching

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Shining My Light Forward – Join ME in The FUN

Montana Lighthouse – Going To The Sun – Yes!

When Covid hit I had just completed my Master Facilitator training with Koelle Institute. I was ready to launch a pilot leadership development program in the Seattle area, bringing the horses into the program. I also had just offered a day event, From The Barn to The Boardroom – right here in the Valley for Flathead Leadership and was excited about the potential for more. In other words, my light was focused on Equus.

Covid bought my Equus Coaching and the Leadership development program to a halt! Really, Covid sort of bought most everything to a halt.

I did though continue to be able to get out to the pasture and actually found the time with the horses quite helpful for my well being.

The Birth of Lighthouse Coaching

I started focusing more on my coaching practice, defining Lighthouse Coaching and Lighthouse Leadership Coaching. Thrive!, CrisMarie and I, made the shift to supporting leaders navigating remote working, greater uncertainty, outrage and fury of longstanding issues of social injustice and the added challenge of finding a new normal that still is a long ways off.

Our work, finding the beauty in conflict, is really key to supporting people in dealing with the uncertainty of these times and the clear need for change. We really don’t want to go back to ‘normal’ and since the new normal hasn’t been defined or created yet, we have an incrediable opportunity if we can stay presence and be fully engaged in what comes next!

One surprise I found during these many months is how much I have enjoyed re-building my coaching practice – personal, couples and executive coaching – through being a lighthouse.

I think in many ways, right now we all are being called to be a lighthouse. To be able ground, reach out and shine as we navigate through these waters.

Sounding Board and More

I love being a sounding board and a non-judgemental or agenda-free advisor to executuive leaders who are smart, focused and sometimes just need straight feedback and a reality check to align their business, leadership and life in an authentic and effective way that can lead us into a new business paradigm that is collorborative and resilient.

I also love working with people who simply want to make a change and see the need for a coach or a lighthouse to support them in getting unstuck, bringing more of themselves to there career, their relationship and living their best life even with a pandemic.

I figured at some point I’d bring the horses back into the mix. However, I am not quite sure when that is going to be possible.

So I have decided to focus on building Lighthouse Coaching and looking out into 2021 when I believe I can more comfortably schedule and ensure that the timing is better for bringing people together.

New Definition of Community

I have realized that the way I have best built community has been in groups – in person and online, intensive experiences together. Which has been one of the reasons I think my coaching practice hasn’t been where I have placed my attention. Now I am beginning to get community isn’t simply the intensive journey together or a location. It is being connected – like many lighthouses – shining our light, message, vibrational gifts etc – out into the world as a way to create connections, build bridges and remember we are all in this planet and human journey together. It might start with me being a lighthouse for you – but I just know as we move forward you will also be a lighthouse for me!

Yes, I want to build community. More importantly, I want more human ‘lighthouses’. People grounded, embodied and shining their light. In other words, I am willing to be a lighthouse and if you are interested in being a lighthouse during these challenging times – well I hope you will join in our community!

Beauty of ConFlict in 2021

I am already designing and getting excited about The Beauty of Conflict Within, the forthcoming book and a new program. The program will be designed to support individuals diving deeply into their own process. Finding their inner lighthouse and mojo. If all goes according to my plans, this offering will be an integration of Find Your Mojo and Come Alive happening right here in Montana!

Plus the new Beauty of Conflict for Couples is coming. It started as Couples Mojo but didn’t get the needed time or attention last year! I think because I was so focused on bringing the horses into the Couples program that I wasn’t fully focusing on the amazing foundational progam we have for couples – with or without the horses. However, I sure hope that in 2021, we’ll have the luxury of both. Couples can come to Montana and have a great location to enrich thier relationship AND also discover the beauty and wonder of Montana and the horses!

Between now and proabbly the fall of 2021, I am going to be GROOTing (if you don’t know what that means – check out this blog).

Lighthouse Community Project – Join

If you really want to join in the fun of helping me build this community of lighthouses – sign up for our newsletter and Monday Mojo. Consider trying out Lighthouse Coaching or a coaching package with CrisMarie. Start a company or team book club with our book. (We’d be happy to come and do a Q&A for your team or organzation.) Invite us to speak at your organization, association or next event – virtually and if it can happen in-person! In other words – become a lighthouse wherever you are and connect!

In today’s world we need lighthouses and we need to know we are connected and are in this together!

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Not Broken. Not Alien. Human

My message today is this: we are wired to relate to connect and to bridge and live well together, using our differences, our pain and our stories to make contact and know we are human – not broken and not alone.

I’m an Equus Coach, for me that means that I partner with horses to support my clients in becoming more embodied (aware and utilizing ALL their resources – body, emotion, spirit and mind) and are congruent in their communications. and relationships (meaning the inside matches the outside).


Horses do this naturally. They are keenly aware of their environment and rely on their relational skills to keep themselves safe as well as all the other members of their herd. Horses are not about power and dominance – they are about building relationships that create a powerful network for each horse in the herd to stay alive and well.


Don’t you wish, we has humans did more of this?


For years, I have been engaged as a program leader, therapist, coach and consultant to encourage and help people develop stronger and healthier relationships with themselves, with their partners and out in the world. My journey in discovering how to relate through being more vulnerable and curious started in circles at The Haven, a personal growth center in Canada. What I learned there transformed my health and life. Literally I was dying when I arrived. ( that’s a longer story). I believed that my willingness to engage with vulnerability in curiosity allowed me to become more intimate (in-to-me-see) and relational with the world. The project was humbling, at times hard and is one that is never ending. Thus becoming a relationship coach was a natural way to not only support my journey but to help others discover the possibilities when we work to live well together.


What I know for sure is that the quality of my life is way better when I am not defending, protecting or simply surviving. Now I will be the first to say, I still struggle with being vulnerable. I resist. However, with the horses as I walk through a herd, I relax. My defenses drop. I become more present.


So of course it seems only natural to want to use the resources I have found most helpful in my journey to help people who may be facing some of the barriers and roadblocks i have faced. Like health challenges, childhood trauma, being dyslexic and wrestling constantly with the underlying belief I am either broken or an alien.
Having now been working with hundreds of people, I know I am not an alien. The many circles I have been in and stories I have heard that all have underlying similar themes makes it clear I am not alien – I am human. As humans, a big part of our journey is to discovery how to use our unique storytelling abilities to bring us together not take us a part. Oddly though we do seem compelled to make this very difficult.


Thus the challenge.
So why am I telling you this.


If you can relate to a deep desire to connect and struggle with something in you that stops that desire from being expressed fully in the world. I think I can help.


I’d love to hear from you. Sure you hire me as a coach or you can just write me back let me know your story and struggle.


I’m just wanting to work to keep finding ways to get my message out there. My message today is this: we are wired to relate to connect and to bridge and live well together, using our differences, our pain and our stories to make contact and know we are human – not broken and not alone.