Hi, I'm Jemma...
and I'm so glad that you're interested in coaching. I've been passionate about supporting the well-being of humans (and animals) in some capacity for my entire life. I was a shy kid who came alive anytime I experienced a meaningful connection with someone. When I look back, those bonds, whether they spanned days or years, were significant to me because I felt safe, seen, heard, and valued—the very experience I strive to give my clients. The gift of my sensitivity was that I became a keen observer of people, their strengths, emotional states, interpersonal dynamics, and behavioral patterns and felt compassion for their struggles and celebratory of their triumphs.
In addition to coaching clients for over a decade, I've also been a designer and entrepreneur for twenty-five years, collaborating with customers and retail stores around the world. Coaching has allowed me to combine my education and keen interest in psychology, the excitement I feel when engaged in creative pursuits, my firsthand knowledge of what it takes to put yourself out there and the immense pleasure I get from directing my energy and insight towards guiding people to more fulfilling lives by developing a rewarding connection with themselves and others. Coaching brings to life the incredible healing power cultivated by the kind of quality connection I came to value so much as a kid and further witnessed as an adult while supervising a treatment facility for emotionally disturbed teens before I launched my coaching career. I've observed time and time again how growth-fostering relationships can lead to increased self-worth, courage, optimism, positive transformation, expansion and overall well-being. I approach relationships from a place of curiosity, compassion, an interest in genuine connection and humor...lots of humor.
I've also learned that life will surely provide you with endless opportunities to grow (sometimes in the form of very unpleasant experiences) and if you allow yourself to feel, explore, learn and trust how you're being guided, it's possible to respond in a way that moves you towards a more integrated sense of self and ultimately, greater fulfillment. Recently, after twenty years of what I consider to have been a successful marriage to a wonderful man, I found myself feeling unhappy in the relationship and suffering from the crisis of connection that I believe is the reason so many heteronormative marriages end. I realized that as I'd been learning and practicing the skills I introduce to my clients, I'd expanded my sense of self and outgrown the relationship. When you're married to a good man who has been one of your best friends for decades, it's painful, terrifying and quite shocking to fully awaken to the "knowing" that you have to leave the marriage in order to be true to yourself. Giving myself permission to leave my marriage was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Though it's always been important to me to walk the talk of the coaching principles I use with clients, moving through the dissolution of my marriage certainly tested my fluency in many of these growth practices. I became keenly aware of how I had silenced my intuition to my own detriment. Now that I'm listening to it loud and clear, I'm able to reconnect to the aspects of myself that I'd been neglecting. The experience has also reminded me (thanks to my supportive friends and family) of the very thing I want my clients to know, "You don't have to figure it all out by yourself. You're not alone."