All for Love Coaching

  Recently some space opened up in my house and I’ve been setting up a craft room! …. Okay so this is clearly more exciting to me than to most of you. I’m actually writing this from the floor of the craft room, since I don’t have enough chairs and I didn’t want to stray too far from the source of inspiration. Due to a lot of the… *cough* circumstances surrounding this newfound freedom, it’s been a stressful time. There have been phone calls and paperwork and a whole lot of nonsense that have detracted from the true joy of new space. ORGANIZING! Again, I feel like I’m losing some people. I love organizing. I love spreading all of my materials out around me and finding new and interesting configurations for them. I love seeing things lined up neatly on shelves, fitting perfectly into drawers, categorized appropriately and even maybe by color… or alphabetically! My thread is lined up in DMC number order, my crafting books are first by craft and then by height, and my posters are deli...

 I just had the strangest experience. Well, honestly, it was just your garden-variety misogyny. But it still felt very strange. I had a consultation with a potential client. He was looking for a specific type of relationship, but all avenues had failed him thus far. I did a little probing, a little coaching, a little description of the process, all my usual consultation stuff. When we hung up, I felt fairly sure he wasn't going to hire me, but I still felt good about the process. The next day he texts me that he doesn't think he's a good candidate for coaching. Totally fair! Some people aren't ready yet to take that step. I wish him well and tell him to not be a stranger if he sees me at events. Then, he asks me if I'm ever in the market for a submissive, will I consider him? Oof. That ain't me. I break the news to him gently and he apologizes. Then, he asks me to block him. Huh? Now, I take no offense to being blocked. Sometimes you don't want to engage wit...

I think a lot about boundaries. In work, naturally, but also in my personal life. What are my boundaries? How can I ensure that I respect the boundaries of others? "No" is a beautiful  word when it comes to boundaries. Especially when I hear it from another party. It's very hard to say. I am preparing two whole classes on "no," one on how to say it effectively and one on how to hear it appropriately. These are both independent skills to be taught, and very rarely do we get explicit instruction on them.  I'm not perfect at saying it yet. But I'm trying really hard. And one of those ways is examining how I feel when I am given a "no." And often? That's grateful. I'm being handed an opportunity to practice respecting boundaries! And better yet, I didn't need to guess and tiptoe and figure it out on my own, the other person told  me. "May I give you a hug?" "No, not today." "Cool! Waving it is then." It...

Imagine you live in a house. You’ve lived here your whole life. You’re very used to all the sights and sounds, all the furniture and decor. It’s home. Then something breaks. Maybe you can fix it yourself, a lightbulb blows and you replace it. Maybe… you can’t. You have to call a plumber, an electrician, a contractor.  That’s therapy. They’re trained professionals. Their job is to analyze the situation, how it happened, how it can be prevented, how it can be fixed. You have to let them in, pay them, and most likely even assist them in fixing up whatever broke. They can assess structural problems with the house and tell you how best to fix or tolerate them.  For example, I have depression and anxiety. My contractor (read: therapist) came in and told me that there was a structural issue, but with daily maintenance, the house was still perfectly livable. That’s why I take my meds. They come in periodically to inspect and assess and tweak my system, but the daily work is up to me. ...

  It’s a story I hear over and over.  “I went to a therapist and got told I have a mental illness because I’m a masochist!” “My therapist reported me for abuse because I have a consensual D/s relationship!” It’s 2024, people. Have we learned nothing about sex and sexuality and, first and foremost, consent? No, apparently not. In an ideal world, when a professional hears something that’s outside their scope of experience, they will go educate themselves on the topic. According to ethical guidelines, if it’s too far out of their experience, they will refer the client to a more appropriate care provider. In real life? Not so easy. Sometimes a therapist will try to educate themselves with the wrong resources and end up worse-informed than they started out. Sometimes they’ll prematurely terminate the therapeutic relationship. Sometimes they’ll just let their own instincts guide the conversation. Therapists are humans too. Humans raised in our weirdly puritanical sex-negative societ...