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...

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...

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 ...

Yup. I have new and exciting thoughts.  Remember the concern I posted some time last year, about my mother finding my website and me getting outed involuntarily? Yeah. I forgot she follows me on Instagram. On a random Tuesday a few weeks ago, I was fighting my way through a migraine, and I woke up dazed and confused to the message, "Welllllllll I guess you just came out to your parent as kinky???" Yes, verbatim. Of course I knew exactly what had happened from her phrasing. She came across the previous post. I'm not actually proud of my knee-jerk response. I played dumb for the first message, just replying with "... What?" And then the real gem of the conversation: "Was it the purple dildo?" Reader, very long ago, in my tweenage years, I had helped my mother rearrange her bedroom. When I picked up the mattress, I uncovered a sex toy. I had forgotten the details besides fleeing the room in a typical embarrassed fluster, but clearly she had not. If I hadn...

 I've made a few. My last blog post was even about one! You can read that here.   But Anneke! You've been doing this for years! How come you're still messing up? Well, dear reader, I don't actually count my mistakes as mess-ups. I count them as opportunities to learn about myself. What I learned from my first business account troll was- I'm a little naïve still. Which isn't a bad thing! I love being myself, and I love assuming the best of people. I'm willing to accept a few message threads that drag on if I can keep being me. Feeding the troll without blocking him was the real Mistake #1. However, I've been putting myself out there more and getting more messages. And due to Mistake #2, I'm seeing a theme. Mistake #2 was joining a newbies group. I thought it might be a good place to advertise, or at least drum up interest, so I posted on the introductions thread. R. I. P. My. Inbox. There's a certain class of people who trawl introduction threads ...

 I know I promised education rather than self-reflection, but I think that a quick story time can serve both goals quite handily. My first munch... was not technically my first munch. Oh god, I've now lied twice in as many blog posts. This is not a good start. Technically for my first munch, I was still in college, and a friend dragged me along because she was scared and knew I was also interested in the community. It was in a food court, I had a great time and even went out to a restaurant with a bunch of people after the mall closed down. All in all, a great success, even if I never went to another munch in that city again. My second munch was with my then-partner, during which we wandered around until someone deigned to talk to us. One particular guy was very obviously interested in me, so my ex made up an excuse that there was a server down that he had to attend to and we left. It is important to note that we were fully monogamous - had I been poly at that point I would have ha...

 Moderation is not my strong suit. As a matter of fact, I don't know where my moderation suit is at the moment. I may have left it at the dry cleaners.  I write this blog post during work hours, having stayed up until midnight brainstorming names and website layouts for coaching businesses. I spent an hour on the phone with a former coach earlier discussing marketing and genuine engagement, how to avoid sleaze, and the best and worst parts of working on the phone vs. working in person. I haven't even taken my first class yet. What is the root of this enthusiasm? What is the driving force behind my motivation to suddenly switch up everything about my life and career? It's twofold. The carrot and the stick. Firstly, the carrot. I love polyamory and I love kink.  Talking about these topics is met with rabid curiosity from people who are not involved with either. Relationship paradigms outside the mainstream are much more common than we believe, but when we don't talk about...