All for Love Coaching

There’s a song in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” detailing all sorts of happy thoughts. Ice cream, learning, doing, loving.  None of it is wrong. But none of it is complete. You can eat ice cream sad. You can love someone sad. Anyone who’s had heartbreak probably has done both of those things at once. Happiness comes from two elements acting mutually.  Presence and pleasure. People can only be happy in the moment. That’s presence. Existing in the here and now, with all senses active to the input they are receiving. Pleasure comes from the mind’s interpretation of the senses. A tasty food, a pretty picture, all of these things derive pleasure. Pleasure is also the most confusing and elusive element of this formula. Many people think certain things bring them pleasure when actually, they… don’t. Something associated with that thing is the true source of the good feelings they feel. How many people do you know who are serial monogamists? They get into relationship after relati...

  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...

I’ve been in a “helping” field for my entire adult life. On a resume it would be branded a “human services” field, but most people use the former wording when discussing it. “I became an XYZ because I wanted to help people!” “Oh you’re so noble for helping XYZ demographic!” Hearing either of these statements makes me feel kind of grody. And I never really knew why. Especially because when I tried to formulate my own career desires, it generally also boiled down to “help” someone do something. Then, on a recent call, one of my clients absolutely blew my mind. Casually discussing her own issues, she said “The dark side of help is control.” Once more for the people in the back: The dark side of help is control. Well… fuck. If you read my last post about leaving behavior analysis, that was kind of my whole deal. I went into a field that I believed would raise people up, and instead found it forcing them down into boxes. Instead of environmental modifications, accessibility options, or gene...

Well, maybe not “you” specifically. But the vast majority of people? They have no clue. Let’s define our terms. “Sex work” is “the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation.” Prostitution is the one most people think of, but lots of different activities fall under the umbrella of sex work. Stripping, porn, camming, phone sex, all of these are forms of sex work. Sex work, most importantly, is valid work. Sex workers clock in, perform their contracted or agreed-upon services, and clock out. It is no more “selling your body” than any other physical labor we perform. Sex workers have a right to all the usual worker protections, even though in the US they are not currently granted them under the law. I have nothing but respect for those who perform sex work. I’m just not one of them. For context, I get approached to do sex work on a regular basis. Mostly by people who don’t understand the term “coaching” in the context of polyamory and kink. My coachin...

Why I'm Abandoning My BCBA As of June 2024, I am no longer a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. That goddamn certification took me a Master’s degree, years of work, a gnarly exam, and more money than I care to disclose in a public forum.  I chose it, so why am I ditching it? This camel has been taking o n straw for a long time. I think the answer can only be found if we go all the way back. And I do mean, all the way.  All The Way Back Picture a tiny chubby ginger hellion, unable to sit still for any amount of time, communicating in high pitched squeals. Then standing next to her, a seven year old with perfect manners and an expansive vocabulary, practically a miniature adult. Both of them were me. I had rituals, rigidity, difficulty communicating, sensory seeking and sensitivity, struggles socializing with peers, the lot. If I were born today, I would have been diagnosed as autistic basically on sight by most professionals.  But I wasn’t. I was born in the 90s. And I hit ...