20 Years, 20 Lessons
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
— Søren Kierkegaard
Twenty years ago, I set out to build a practice with a clear sense of what I wanted to offer: I knew what it felt like to be lost in a season with no map — standing in that place between trapezes, as Marilyn Ferguson put it, with nothing to hold on to. I had people who walked alongside me in that stuck place, and I wanted to offer others that same gift. What I didn't know, back then, was everything two decades of sitting with people in their in-between places would go on to teach me. Here's some of it.
Most people don't need answers. They need someone to stay in the room with the question. I used to think my job was to help people figure things out. It's not. It's to help them trust that they already have what they need to find their own way.
The client sets the pace, not the calendar. Some seasons move quickly. Some need to be slow. My job is to notice which one we're in and not rush past it.
"I don't know" is often the most honest and useful thing a person can say in a session. It usually means we're getting close to something real.
Grief shows up uninvited, in all kinds of transitions — not just the ones that look like loss. A new job. A child leaving home. A marriage getting better. Grief doesn't care whether the change was wanted.
You can't discern your way out of avoidance. Sometimes what looks like "still discerning" is actually just not wanting to feel what a decision will bring up.
The sacred rarely announces itself. It tends to show up in the ordinary — a walk, a dream, an offhand comment — and it's easy to miss if you're not paying attention.
Listening is a discipline, not a talent. I am not naturally more patient or attentive than anyone else. I've had to practice this, for years, and I still miss things.
People know more than they think they know. Most of what I do is help someone hear themselves.
Coaching and spiritual direction aren't as different as I once thought. Both are about helping someone take their next faithful step. They just move at different speeds.
A good question is worth more than a good insight. I've learned to hold my own conclusions loosely and offer a question instead.
Transitions rarely go in a straight line. Two steps forward, one step back is not failure — it's usually just what change actually looks like.
The stories people tell about themselves in the first session are almost never the whole story. Give it time.
Burnout is rarely about doing too much. It's more often about doing the wrong things for too long, or doing the right things without any sense of why.
You can hold space for someone's pain without needing to fix it. This took me a long time to learn, and I'm still learning it.
Faith and doubt are not opposites. Some of the most spiritually alive people I've walked with are also the most unsure. Certainty was never the point.
People change more from being deeply heard than from being given good advice. I wish someone had told me this on day one. It would have saved me a lot of unnecessary advice-giving.
The body knows things before the mind catches up. A tight chest, a restless night, a sudden tiredness — these are often the first signs that something in a person's life is asking for attention.
Endings deserve as much care as beginnings. We tend to rush toward what's next and skip the part where we actually say goodbye to what was.
I am changed by this work as much as anyone I've sat with. Twenty years of listening to people's honest lives has shaped how I live my own.
It is still, after two decades, an honor. Every person who has trusted me with their in-between place has given me something. I don't take that lightly.
If you're in a season of transition — whether you have words for it yet or not — I'd be glad to walk alongside you. Schedule a free introductory call and let's talk about what's going on for you.