I was diagnosed at age 38 with ADHD. Throughout my life I have had incorrect diagnoses of generalised anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and eating disorders. I have previously tried Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, psychology and other therapies and have never felt that they worked.

Being a “high functioning”  female who has lived her whole life masking a form of neurodivergence I started coaching to understand my condition and how to manage in my professional and personal life. I only had experience in coaching in a sporting sense.

Joanne was compassionate, patient and understanding. I felt that she got to know me as an individual and adapted her approach in light of what worked for me. I liked having dedicated time to attend at coaching and having “homework” to try to implement new practises. I valued feeling like there was someone in my corner helping me to understand my needs and respond to them. Joanne helped me build a toolbox of resources and tools to develop insight into regulating my emotions, taking steps to manage my workload, ensuring rest, and preventing burnout.

Since I did my coaching with Joanne I have become more able to identify and meet my needs. I have been more accepting of myself, and I am kind to myself. I no longer try to do what I think I should do but ask myself what I need. I accept that I am different to others and understand my physiological reactions to things. Coaching has helped me manage better at work, accept that I cannot do 100% all the time and allow myself time to rest and recover. It has also helped me in social situations. I am better at stopping anxiety spirals or catastrophising daily adversities. I feel that I have developed empathy and insight towards myself and have a toolbox to keep myself healthy and happy.

Joanne has helped me to help myself. I would recommend her services to anyone who is struggling.

Before I started coaching I had a difficult time prioritising and often got bogged down because I felt overwhelmed. It made me depressed and drained my confidence. After 3 months of coaching I feel like I have learned to break down tasks that previously felt overwhelming, and develop strategies to accomplish my goals.  Simply put, I feel much more in control and capable... My confidence is BACK!  I no longer shrink from tasks. I  can confront them head on because I now understand how to approach them better... Coaching has taught me to manage my stress better, mainly by helping me set and reach my goals, which has in turn reduced my stress... My life satisfaction has greatly improved.  I  have learned to identify things which make me happy and peaceful and incorporate them into my daily life... Before I was a bit sceptical of wellness coaching. Now, I am a huge fan.  It was exactly what I needed.

Coaching has helped me to break down my weight loss journey into steps.  In the beginning I raced to just start losing weight and I kept falling off the path I had set for myself.  Joanne taught me to see small successes in the form of my weekly goals as wins to help me stay motivated.  I also learnt some very useful tricks to help me – preparing and shopping for menus in advance, filling lonely times to prevent me eating, eating more regularly to stop me feeling hungry and focussing my mind on my wellness vision and what I’m trying to achieve.  I might not have lost the weight I’d hoped to but I do feel better prepared to succeed now that before I started coaching.

I feel more confident in my relationship than before – partly because of the self analysis I have done through coaching.

I’ve basically learned to appreciate the life I have.  Fundamentally not a lot has changed (I still work stupid hours and spend lots of time on my own) but I feel more in control of my life and have learned to enjoy what I have rather than focus on what I don’t.  This to me has been a real success from my coaching. I thought I would loose weight but I didn’t expect to discover and implement some changes in my life which would help me to realise my goals.  I actually think that they will have a longer lasting effect than any weight I might have lost.

The wellness coaching process has helped me develop very effective tools to handle destructive behaviours and practices: “before” I would tend to get stuck in a certain state of mind related to some unhealthy behavioural patterns (working, smoking, eating etc.) - “now” I am able to prevent myself from reaching/dwelling in these situations; “before” work was my primary/only priority in my daily life – “now” I have a good variety of weekly priorities not related to work (yoga, pilates, language class, squash, mental health etc). In addition, my eating habits significantly improved and I am  maintaining a proper work-life balance and upholding good practices to deal with ‘restlessness’: the coaching has supported my stress management through a more sensible work-life balance. The coaching has contributed greatly to my confidence in my ability to change my own behaviour in a positive way if I set my mind on it. Knowing that it is “relatively” easy to change unhealthy and destructive behaviours, I feel motivated to deal with future challenges or barriers for ultimate wellness. Though I did not have very big or specific expectations I was positively surprised by the systematic approach and focus on concrete measurable results.

Through coaching I was able to see where I struggled with a lot of food anxiety and foreboding feelings as it related to food, exercise and health. Joanne helped me break them down into manageable, bite-sized pieces.  Being a person who always had to read everything now, conquer it all today and be perfect at everything in the moment, I now feel more equipped to take on things systematically and realistically given my time. Having struggled with weight and eating issues for so many years, I have now come to realise that those issues are symptomatic of other areas unfulfilled and unrealised. The objectives set within coaching supported a healthy lifestyle and life changes versus what I felt before, which was just to be motivated and loose some weight. I have learned in 13 weeks to take a more holistic look at my life. I want to achieve overall balance and a HEALTHY LIFE.  Most importantly, I have learned to be A LOT more self-compassionate.

This is the story of my wellness journey...It all began in 2011 with a call from a friend suggesting I put myself forward to be a practice client for Joanne, a trainee wellness coach, for three months.

Although I certainly needed the push, shove and kick to change some bad habits I had slipped into regarding eating and exercise, change requires effort, commitment and taking risks. Was it better to stay fed up but safe or happier and perhaps a little unsafe?

Challenge got the better of me. After chatting on the phone with Joanne and filling in several assessments that asked very pointed questions and required me to give a degree of commitment, I decided wholeheartedly this was an opportunity to try something new and get my life back on track in a physical way that I had been putting off for so long.  After all, if something is worth doing it is worth doing well.

I began with drafting a wellness vision, and setting goals -  monthly and weekly, daily and even hourly ....phew! This was going to be much harder work than I had imagined. Initially I had thought that, as most of the hourly coaching is done by phone, I could get away with things as Joanne would not be able to see me. I soon realised it is not wise to cheat, lie or deceive the coach:  after all it is not the coach I would be cheating but myself. Was I worth the effort? was she? was anybody? I would be the beneficiary to the hard work and that became obvious.

So off we went with our weekly phone calls and goal setting and strategising and planning and problem solving and brain storming. Setting a goal...not difficult I thought until I had to give the specific time I would carry out the action. In hindsight, it is easy to see that being specific is necessary to fulfilling the commitment!

Results followed: weight loss and increased energy levels through exercise....within a short while I was goal setting for myself, the family, friends and even the pet bird!

Soon I found myself exploring  other areas of my life that needed attention, e.g.relationships, and identifying my personal strengths so that I could harness them to feed into plans for my future, which I had started to think about in a serious way. Suddenly the future looked brighter with more opportunities. The opportunities had always been there but I had not been able to see them. Confidence bloomed with improved physical appearance and old thinking habits were replaced with more positive, newer ones.

I plan to continue with my wellness attitudes towards exercising, eating healthily, goal setting, planning, strategising, brainstorming, and confidence building. It has to be a way of life and not a quick fix.

I highly recommend wellness coaching but it is not for the faint hearted. Saying that, there is room to fail and learn, to mess up and keep moving on. Keep the goals in sight, do not give up and do not be discouraged.

Joanne is very knowledgeable on the coaching process but also on the substance of the issues I wanted to work on such as weight.  I had complete confidence in her advice and was very grateful for the way in which she imparted information – i.e. that she introduced concepts gently and was very aware of what I was ready to hear.  I also felt assured that she had good resources around her and if she didn’t know something she knew where to go for information.

Joanne was very helpful: she sent me very helpful links to websites I might find helpful and I really appreciated the 'thoughts for the day' emails.  Sometimes I was too busy to think about them, but other times they really made me refocus on myself when I read them.  An easy but very useful tool.  I also really valued the session notes Joanne sent me which I found myself reading when I was struggling to stay on track – it must take her a lot of time to do, but I found them very helpful.

Joanne obviously has a good understanding of weight loss issues which was the main focus of my coaching, and gave me some new ideas and tools to think about.  I already had some ideas of my own about how I was going to loose weight but I knew she was on hand to give advice if I needed it.

Joanne introduced ideas and issues at the right moments during our sessions – I never felt like I was being hurried or pushed to do things because week 6 of the coaching manual says you should achieve x.  But I did always feel as if we were moving forwards.  And I particularly appreciated the times when she opened up our sessions to talk about wider issues – I wasn’t being pressed to come up with goals, just to say out loud things that were concerning me.

Joanne has a way of making me want to be honest with her and me about my progress against the issues I’d identified to work on.  She isn’t demanding or confrontational but will push me to challenge myself by making challenging goals.

Although I didn’t lose as much weight as I had hoped to lose, I did address some of the factors that affect my weight.  More importantly I realised that it isn’t just about losing weight: it’s about getting your mindset right and preparing your environment to deal with the setbacks and challenges that will inevitably come your way.

Earlier this year I met Joanne. She asked me if I was interested in wellness coaching.  I was in a rut and could find no way out so I decided to give it a try.

I had very low expectations as I had no idea what it was all about; I just knew I couldn’t do it by myself anymore. I had hoped to loose weight and find something that interested me with the potential of career development.

In the first session, Joanne asked a lot of very personal, probing questions. That was the point at which I decided to go for it so I answered as honestly as I could even though I didn’t feel comfortable talking about private issues or myself.

This opened up my investigation  and knowledge of my own personality, things that I wasn’t aware of  or had forgotten.  As the sessions progressed the numbness began to lift and the harder I worked the more self aware I became. The most useful lesson I learned from the sessions was how to help myself. Joanne gently probed and skillfully guided me through the process until I arrived at the process myself.

After two children, being a stay-at-home Mom and an Expat wife I had lost my own identity. I had a poor self-image and low self-esteem even though I was outwardly confident. As the sessions progressed and my exploration developed I started to feel more confident. I found my niche even though it was under my nose. I became more assertive and began to like myself again. My eating habits changed slightly but my outlook changed completely. I realised that to be a healthy weight with a fulfilling life was far more desirable than being thin without a satisfying life.

It was definitely Joanne's personality that attracted me in the first place. She is the strong, silent type who you can trust completely. She could empathise with me immediately and had a gold mine of information and resources ready to guide me on my path. I never felt judged or as if I hadn’t achieved a goal, it was always personal to me. She skillfully guided my train of thought until I found my own answers and for this I am truly grateful.

For those skeptical of Wellness Coaching give it a try - you will be pleasantly surprised.  In my experience it was the start of a path not a solution in itself.

I had been trying to get some purpose in my life after several years of maternity leave and short-term jobs. My confidence had taken a big hit and I was unclear what I wanted to do with my life.  As an expat wife, I felt tied by my circumstances and also keenly aware that my time at my posting was limited and that I needed to come to some decisions and get moving as quickly as possible.

I knew Jo as a friend and mentioned to her my general confusion about where I was heading with my work life. She pointed me towards some useful material and just chatting with her informally was very helpful. So it absolutely made sense to develop this into some more formal coaching.

I was hoping to achieve more clarity about where I was heading. I also knew that I needed to build up my confidence and get out of some cycles of negative thinking.

I really enjoyed my coaching sessions with Jo. They had all the personal, informality of chatting with a friend but were more structured and focussed so that I felt like we had achieved something after each session. It helped enormously that we have shared some experiences, particularly that of being an expat/diplomatic partner with kids and needing to adapt to circumstances and constant change. I think I would have struggled to explain some of these issues to a coach who did not share this background.

Jo was an excellent listener and was so accurate in reflecting back my thoughts and feelings that I often felt like she knew me better than I know myself!

It was challenging sometimes to look back at my life, identify my drivers and passions and to put my strengths and weaknesses into words, but it really helped to remind myself who I am. These were building blocks in strengthening my confidence and redefining my identity in work and life in general.

Coaching helped me to clarify my direction and built my confidence. I gained a much clearer picture of where I would like to be and what drives and motivates me.

From my first conversation with Joanne, I knew I was in safe hands. I wasn’t exactly sure what a Coach did but I soon learned that I was on a learning journey where I would become aware of my true identity and not the person I thought I was.

Throughout this journey, Joanne guided me gently and professionally into finding the answer naturally myself. She was a constant, learned practitioner who showed her natural ability to nurture and support me through my pathway and to find a way to be more at peace with myself.

I truly believe that, having had numerous therapies throughout my 60 years, these sessions with Joanne have been the most effective and ultimately life-changing for me.