Hello!
I am Claire and I am delighted to welcome you to my website!
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Hopefully you have found out about all the wonderful ways Coaching can help you already through the various pages here. I love to hear from people and answer any questions they have, so please feel free to reach out through the contact form below. In case you'd like to know a little bit about me… here is a little insight into how I came to be a Coach and Developmental Trauma Therapist.
Firstly, my Qualifications
I am a qualified and accredited Life, Career, Relationship & Executive Coach (Mindful Talent and the Irish Life Coaching Institute) and proud to be Ireland's first and only Being Me Therapist, specialising in Developmental Trauma and how it impacts us in our adult lives in sometimes obvious but often surprising ways. For several years now, I have supported thousands of people to understand themselves and to improve their lives. I am also trained in Mindfulness and in the Science of Happiness and Wellbeing.
I also have an Honours B.Sc. in Management and Marketing (DIT), Diplomas in Effective Leadership and Management (UCD) and carry QQI official Train the Trainer qualifications (Distinction). It is important to me that I offer a complete, holistic package for people to support their individual needs, because in my experience just one challenge can ripple out and have impact on other aspects of our lives. Being able to look at it all with a helicopter view is important and for this reason, I am proud of my unique wider coaching and therapy offering.
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My Mission, Vision & Values
Most people live manic, frantic lives these days, constantly busy but still never feeling good enough. My mission is to support people to recognise and realise their value, worth and full potential.
My vision is of a world where we all feel safe to live a life that is true to ourselves, to have a healthy work-life balance and ultimately live beautiful, joy filled, purposeful lives.
My number one value is kindness. I truly believe in being kind to one another, and that begins with being kinder to yourself. It is incredible how many of us lack the ability to speak and act kindly to ourselves and I love to support people with this. I also value integrity, loyalty, compassion and honesty.
My Story...in short!
If you are reading this, there is a chance you might be seeking direction and support. I have been there! I spent many years struggling in life, stuck, feeling lost, with no sense of purpose or direction. I worked every hour available in jobs that brought me no great joy. I found myself in toxic relationships, giving everything I had to make others happy and wondering why I was never happy. I was simply all things to all people, with nothing left for myself. I struggled with stress and exhaustion, constantly ignoring the warning signs, until eventually I burnt out and ended up extremely ill and needing major surgery – twice! But still I carried on manic as always, constantly battling fatigue and physical illness, but just putting on a brave face and getting on with it. 'Tomorrow', I would tell myself…'I will do something about it tomorrow'…every day for years I repeated the same cycle over and over, and of course tomorrow never seemed to come.
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Then one day it hit me. I had one, precious life and only I had the power to change it and live the life I wanted. I had reached a point of realisation that if I didn’t want to be in the same situation any longer, I had to do something about it. No one was coming to rescue me. I had put too much on hold for far too long already – and if I didn’t do something now, then when?
And so began my own journey of transformation.
It took time, patience, commitment and consistency to show up for myself every day. Small steps were key. I read once that ‘courage comes before confidence’ and it took a lot of courage to challenge my self-sabotaging, people pleasing and self-sacrificing patterns and start to tune in and reconnect with myself. With each small step, confidence and resilience grew and my purpose and path became clearer.
I read a lot, studied a lot, got out regularly in nature and found what really made me feel alive. They say we rise by lifting others and I was invigorated and energised through supporting people in this new, healthy way. I finally had balance.
I trained professionally as a Coach and with the most wonderful coaching academy, where they shared my values of kindness, compassion and integrity. The immense joy I felt working with people was incredible. My most favourite thing was to witness a person having a moment of realisation, like a light bulb moment, where they would light up so much you could see it radiating out of them. Shining bright!
Quite quickly I realised that something was still missing. For all of my life, strangers shared their stories, their traumas, their wounds with me. In Coaching, we focus on the here and now to move forward, but often things lay much deeper. I then went on to study for three intense years in Developmental Trauma / Complex Trauma which is essentially the impact our childhood environments have on our development, how we adapt and creatively adjust to fit in, to receive love, to be accepted, validated, seen...and much more. While this work is not necessarily for everyone, it provides insight into our adult patterns such as self-sacrificing, people pleasing, perfectionism, hyper achieving, hyper vigilance, feeling like an outsider and more... More on that here if you are curious.
Today, life is no longer frantic. Life has never been better and I have never been happier. I live in the countryside with my wonderful husband and our big, loveable Great Dane, Baxter (who, as you can see, does not appreciate having his photo taken).
In between working with my clients, I love spending time with my loved ones, and am an avid gardener. I have a crazy amount of tomatoes from being overly enthusiastic with my planting. So tomatoes are on the menu in some form here every day!
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So that is a little insight into me, and how my coaching and therapy practice came to be. If you are feeling ready to make lasting changes in your own life or business too, please reach out below - I'd love to hear from you.
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Your Coach,
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Claire
