Transitioning From Being A Therapist To A Coach
During the pandemic, I made a brave decision to transition from a 20-year career of being a full-time therapist with a small coaching practice on the side to being a full-time coach with a few therapy clients on the side. I made this shift with immense, intentionality, supervision, mentoring, and coaching. It was a human and imperfect process.
As many people are curious about my journey and many therapists want to know how to make this transition, I’m unpacking some layers here, including one of my initial videos from June 2021, where I publicly announced my transition from therapy to coaching.
Why I Transitioned To Coaching?
As someone who alchemized my suffering through considerable personal work and choosing to break intergenerational patterns, for two decades, I was called to be a therapist and a healer who worked with clients, who wanted to work through their own experiences of suffering. I absolutely loved this work and deeply respected and appreciated every client that I chose to work with me. Throughout these decades, I worked through existential crises and personal crossroads. I learned to listen to my soul, inner wisdom, and intuition to make brave decisions that were in alignment with them and my values.
Why share this now? It’s time.
My writing is to be of service and is intentional. As I sat down to write this outside on a beautifully cool breezy late August big blue sky morning, one of the hawks began circling overhead. Hawks have been connected to me over the last decade. When they appear, they have my attention. The guidance to write this is to be able to invite you into the bigger picture of my process of transitioning from a therapist to a coach.
When The Soul Roars…
My soul roared during the pandemic.
I have received this kind of wake-up call at other crossroads. I learned the hard way about minimizing it, denying it, or ignoring it. The roar will only become louder. In turn, my outer life would reflect my internal dissonance. My soul let me know in no uncertain terms that I was complete with being a therapist.
A Huge Divide Among Clients Seeking Therapy And Coaching During The Pandemic
Therapy had dramatically shifted during the pandemic. The divide between clients seeking therapy and clients seeking coaches looked like an inverse bell curve. Therapy clients truly needed mental health expertise to navigate tremendous suffering. Whereas clients who were orienting towards coaching wanted to find a way to create a meaningful way through whatever they were navigating and far into the future.
Previously in my private practice, there was a huge overlap between therapy clients and coaching clients were seeking. Now more than ever, I believe it is important for potential clients to understand the substantial and nuanced differences between seeing a life coach vs. a therapist to best suit their needs, goals, desires, and finances.
Just Because You’re Exceptional At Something, Doesn’t Mean You Must Continue
A mid-life career change from a very successful and impactful business as a single mother didn’t make sense to most people around me. While I received some unsolicited feedback and judgment, I had paid professional and personal support that was meaningful, honest, and clear throughout the entire process.
The only person that could me full permission to make this change was me.
I had to let go of being an exceptional and successful therapist to be true to myself, my values, and my priorities. Just because I was a kick-ass trauma, attachment, and shame somatic therapist didn’t mean that I had to be one forever.
I knew very clearly that I wanted to coach people who wanted to hold back less, move forward, and work towards the biggest dreams they never knew they had.
My First Video About Transitioning From Being a Psychotherapist To A Coach In June 2021.
Sharing about this publicly felt beyond vulnerable. Therapists are trained to only share in the service of clients’ process. This video doesn’t go into anything that I shared above. It wasn’t time for me to share that publicly back then. I was still learning to take off my potato sack that I had been wearing as a therapist, holding back who I really was.
This video is honest, and it shares an important layer around my own personal work and being able to offer work from both a skilled and personal place.
This is the caption for this video:
I’m inspired to share about my path of healing and transformation.
I am willing to be led by exceptional leaders.
I am also an exceptional leader, who leads exceptional global leaders.
I work with powerful women and humans who choose.
I come by my transformation honestly through a path of being self-led.
I invite you to listen to where you are being called from deep within, rather than from should, scarcity, comparison, or competition.
I’ve Come A Long Way, And I’m Just Getting Started
When I look back on the past 2.5 years of this transition, I can see immense growth and honor the lessons learned. I started a second career and business in my 40s. The impact of my coaching is far bigger than I could have imagined. Clients are creating massive ripple effects for their lives, relationships, lineage, and the Collective.
My therapy private practice was a word-of-mouth brick-and-mortar business that was an immense gift and labor of love. Now, I have a virtual and in-person coaching business that keeps me learning in new ways from marketing to writing daily to pocket coaching with Voxer with private clients. I created an anti-racist business model that uses donut economic theory to be able to offer scholarships to Black women, CIS, TRANS, binary, a-binary, and non-binary. My work-life balance is immensely satisfying. I deeply know that this is only the beginning.
I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Love,
Amy
PS If you’re a therapist thinking about transitioning to coaching, I offer business coaching. If you’re a human who wants to work with a skilled coach, who no longer holds back, invite you to explore private coaching with me. Apply to coach with me here. You can also email me to have a free coaching or business coaching call.