So…yeah, I’ve been a therapist for a lot of years and was ready for a new challenge. (Okay, let’s get real…like many therapists, I found myself a bit burned out after the last couple years we’ve all been through, and wanted to shake things up a little.) But what? What am I both qualified to do and passionate about? This question led to a very brief existential crisis, until I landed on the idea of life coaching.
I’m a little ashamed to admit this next part, but in the minds of many mental health therapists, the idea of being a “life coach” was a step down. “Life Coach” was kind of a dirty word. (Yes, we mental health practitioners can be real snobs that way. #notproud) The prevailing belief about life coaches has been they are less qualified, they are unregulated, and that any random person can just hang out a shingle and call themselves a life coach. (Sidenote, this isn’t really true, but that’s what many believe.)
It was a blow to our little ol’ egos. I mean, as therapists, we have to jump through a lot of hoops that start after we’ve received our graduate level education. For good reason, the mental health field is well regulated. In order to practice, we must become licensed, and in order to get licensed, we have to accumulate a set number of clinical hours under the supervision of an already licensed therapist. (The day a therapist-in-training hits their final clinical hour is a milestone worthy of serious celebration.) For my particular licensure (LMFT-licensed marriage and family therapist), I had to obtain a total of 3,000 hours of experience before I could then sit for my licensure exam. So…it’s a big deal and we licensed therapists take pride in our training and experience, which is why I hadn’t really considered going into life coaching myself. Until I did.
I finally got my head out of my “ego” and acknowledged that there are some absolutely amazing and incredibly gifted life coaches out there, and that there is actually a HUGE need for life coaches in our world. Life coaches fill a very big gap in helping support millions of people in millions of ways (depending on their niche and specialty). The fact of the matter is, while I am obviously an advocate for therapy, and have gone through therapy myself, there are so many things we all struggle with (where we need some extra support) that are not clinical or mental health issues.
It suddenly occurred to me that I could still do the thing I loved doing (working with and empowering women) but could do so in a more specific but also much broader way. I could work with and help more women as a life coach than I ever really could by staying in my “therapist only” lane. (BTW-I still maintain a small private therapy practice simply because I do still adore my clients and I’m still passionate about providing clinical support). As a life coach, I really wanted to focus on working with the kind of women I most enjoyed working with as a therapist, but catching those women before their pain turned clinical. (Because, yes, there is a difference between life coaching and therapy.)
I’ve since launched my life coaching business, Willful Joy. My passion is working with and empowering high functioning women who struggle with boundaries, don’t take care of themselves, put everyone else first, and are emotionally exhausted as a result. They’re the empaths, the people-pleasers, the emotional caretakers, and the really, really, really “nice” (read “too nice”) women. I love these women. They are beautiful women who are full of compassion and have huge hearts. They struggle because they have so much empathy for others that they don’t know how to honor their own emotions and respect their own needs.
I love working with these women because I have been there. I’ve struggled with these issues and suffered as a result. I had to do a lot of personal work to get myself to a better place. It’s not always easy for me, but it’s better. And I’m no longer suffering the way I used to.
My message to women is it’s never too late to learn how to take care of yourself with the same compassion with which you take care of others.
So why Willful Joy? Because I believe we must get intentional about our self-care, and even willful (as in Webster’s definition, “having or showing a stubborn and determined intention”). We need to give ourselves permission to focus on our needs, our emotions, our wants, and create the opportunity to find joy by freeing ourselves of unfair, unnecessary, and unrealistic expectations about what we think we’re “supposed” to do. We need to stop hustling for our self-worth and stop looking for our self-worth through the things we do for others.
On a personal note, in addition to the traditional meaning of the word “joy,” it was also my mother’s fist name. So the name of my coaching business reflects the work I am passionate about, as well as is a testimony to the woman who laid the foundation within me to be able to do it.
Thanks so much for reading! Much more to come!
Warmly, Jen
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