Transition Coaching

If you are considering transition coaching, you should work with a transition coach who has the skills, experience and insights you need for the specific change you are navigating.  Dana specializes in the following areas of transition coaching:

Nonprofit Leader Coaching: to provide an external sounding board and guide for nonprofit leaders who often do not have peers within the organization with whom they can work through sticky leadership issues.  Experienced with founding nonprofits; board leadership and development; funding, strategy and team dynamics, Dana can help you navigate myriad challenges nonprofits face and build your capacity and skills as a leader.

Career Transition Coaching: to help you navigate the process of deciding to change careers, exploring options, saying goodbye and setting yourself up for success in the new setting.  Having navigated her own  job transitions, moves to new cities, and major career transitions, Dana understands the logistical, emotional and physical challenges of this type of change.  She has coached people moving to new cities to take on new leadership roles, moving out of leadership roles gracefully, taking on a new career direction, and assessing whether a desired career continues to be a good fit.  Together, we can make this job or career change a period of insight and exploration that refreshes and renews you. 

Care-Giving Role Coaching: to support you through the transition of taking on care-giving responsibilities of a spouse, parent or adult child or learning how to better manage for a long-term period of caregiving.  With skills in dementia care, personal experience with caring for multiple family members with complex medical needs and and at end-of-life, Dana can help you navigate the logistical and emotional challenges of this time.  You are giving a great gift to another, so give yourself the gift of support you need and deserve right now. 

Forty-Something Woman Reassessing Everything Coaching: Are you a woman in your 40s (or, really mid-30s to mid-50s) who has spent the first half of your career building skills and expertise, climbing some sort of ladder, perhaps finding a spouse, making a home, having some children, and then reaching this moment and wondering "what's next?"  With many years of career ahead of you and perhaps an uncertainty that you want the next half of your career to look like the first half, you find yourself at an inflection point.  A lot of my clients are in this space. You don't have to be going through a specific change to benefit from transition coaching.  That internal change you are feeling on the cusp of is a new beginning. Reach out to have Dana partner with you in this period of exploration and revelation. 

Coaching Through a Loved One's Dying Time: If you are a primary caregiver to someone navigating end-of-life, you may need someone in your corner to support you as you care for another.  Coaching can include guidance on the dying process and what to expect, how to have the conversations you want and need to have, navigating family dynamics, and engaging in effective self-care so you can be fully present for your loved one.

Making Space for Grief while Getting On with Life:  The world does not stop when we are grieving, no matter how much we wish it would.  And our jobs, friends and communities often expect us to "move on" and get back to our happy, productive selves much too quickly.  Grief coaching can't make the world a more supportive place for your grieving heart, but it can help you make space to tend your grief, give you permission to say no, explore tools to help you carry your grief, and provide a safe place for you to be honest about how your grief is showing up.  For more on "grief coaching," visit the Grief Partnering page. 

Want to learn more? Reach out with your questions or to schedule a time to talk. 

If you decide you are ready to partner with a coach, the most important step is to find a someone that fits.  Below is a bit more about me to help you see if we might work well together.  If you are interested in learning more, let's connect.

About me:

I have faced all sorts of life changes: new jobs, new cities, career changes, unexpected care-giving responsibilities, significant medical challenges, and the unexpected deaths of people close to me. 

I know what it is like to face a big change and feel at a loss for what to do next.  I've shut down and pushed through and gotten to the other side of a transition and, when the fog cleared, wondered why it was all so damned awful.  I felt that there had to be a better way. 

As a witchy intellectual, I got curious.  I explored every avenue for guidance on how to navigate a big change with more grace and gusto.  I've learned change management theory, explored spiritual teachings and ancient wisdom schools for insights, and hung out with Harvard researchers studying how folks forge unorthodox career paths. I held my mother's hand as she died and noticed what the nurses did that helped and what the doctors did that hindered. I interviewed neuroscientists about how our brains and bodies respond to traumatic experiences, dived deeper into my tarot practice, and paid close attention to my gardening successes and failures, learning when to step in and when to let go. I've read dozens and dozens of books on death, dying, grief, transitions, fear, burnout, oppression and trauma. I developed sustaining rituals aligned with the cycles of the seasons, the moon and my body. 

They led me to the realization that the best ways to navigate all kinds of change — in a career, in a relationship, through the dying process — are remarkably similar. A good transition requires that we honor the emotional aspects of change and stop pretending it is all, or even mostly, logistical.  It asks us to give thanks for what has been and let go of what no longer serves us well to make room for what's to come.  Hardest of all, we must allow for a space between what's ending and the next new beginning — sometimes an uncomfortably big space — before taking the next steps.  

I partner with people through change while holding all of my learning and lessons delicately, not dogmatically, and I use what is needed to address the moment at hand. Change management theory, psychology, gardening and ancient spiritual practices all tell us there is a void between an end and a new beginning.  I have deep experience holding the void and I can help you learn to do that, too.

I create a supportive container for the important work you are doing.  We will always be guided by your goals, values and hopes.  I can help you ask the right questions, explore unexpected options, connect with your intuition or guides, and get to the other side of this change in a way that you feel proud of and excited about. 

Contact me with your questions or to set up a time to discuss your options to find the one that works best for you.