19: What is Relationship Coaching and How It Can Transform Your Relationships.

  Hello, and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal what's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve. Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs,  without having it blow up in your face?

Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now let's dive in.  Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. I'm Jennifer Noble, a certified relationship coach specializing in communication and attachment styles.

And today we are actually going to be diving into the world of relationship coaching. What it is exactly, how can it help you and why you might consider working with a relationship coach like me. But before we get started, I want to mention that I'd love for you to join our free Facebook group. So it's a safe place for women to explore their relationship patterns and work through them.

You'll get one on one help from me as well as community support. So you can actually find the link to the Facebook group. In the show notes or simply search for speak honest on Facebook and the group should pop up, but if you need any help, just reach out, let me know and I'll help you find it. And once you click join, you'll have to answer a few questions just so I know that you're human and I have an idea of what you want out of the group and then I'll get you approved.

It's as easy as that. Now, with all of that said, I would love to jump into what exactly is a relationship coach and how can they help you achieve fulfilling relationships? 

Okay, great. So what exactly is a relationship coach? Well, technically speaking, anyone can call themselves a coach. And in fact, this is actually one of the main reasons why I personally put off becoming a coach for so long. Um, Transcribed In fact, I want to be really honest and say that I used to think all life coaches were honestly frauds.

Seriously, my judgmental view was that they were either people trying to scam money off of others, or young 20 something women who had never worked a day in their lives. And they think they knew how to teach people how to meditate and do yoga and just live a happier life. And in my little judgmental brain, I was like, well, it's easy for you to go do yoga and meditate all day when you don't have kids or bills or other stress in your life.

And it just seemed so out of touch with reality. You know what I mean? So this was always a real issue for me. But then one day, I heard about a certification in the Integrated Attachment Theory program with Thais Gibson, and it sounded right up my alley.  At that time, I had just started back in college to actually become a therapist, as this was something that was really important to me.

And I thought, well, if nothing else, this course would either help me get a job with the Personal Development School, which is the school that Thais Gibson runs. Or maybe one day it'll make me a better therapist. So I thought I had nothing to lose, and I might as well give it a shot. This was the most money I'd ever invested in myself before.

It was a couple thousand dollars, even through her beta program.  And I was really excited. But I truly thought that I would get a job with PDS, or the Personal Development School, as it's called. And I think a lot of us thought that in the beginning as well. So it was a bit of a crushing disappointment when most of us didn't get a job.

And I think for many of us, we had kind of hoped for that opportunity. But this experience also taught me something crucial.  It taught me that I can't wait for someone else to do the hard work for me. I needed to put in the effort. myself.  During my time in the Integrated Attachment Theory program, I noticed a lot of people coming out of the course feeling lost about what to do next with their new  certification.

The program led us to believe that we would become coaches overnight.  Uh, yeah, I know, a bit ridiculous. And while the course is absolutely amazing and I base a lot of my coaching around it, especially my course, It really lacked in some areas. And I'd like to be honest about that. There was no requirement for practice hours, no mentors provided, and the questions to pass the course were a little bit too easy, but this isn't a knock on the program itself.

I think the integrated attachment theory program  is absolutely amazing. It truly is,  but it highlighted a significant issue in the coaching world for me. So, to think someone could just take one course and instantly be qualified as a coach, it baffled me. And this is what I see as a major problem in the coaching industry right now.

And there needs to be more regulations, more standards, more practices, and more guidance for aspiring coaches. And in my search to kind of figure all of this out, I learned about the ICF.  The ICF stands for the International Coaching Federation. It is the only globally recognized organization that sets the standards for the coaching profession.

It was founded in 1995 and it's dedicated to advancing the art, science, and practice of professional coaching. So the ICF is known for its rigorous standards and comprehensive credentialing process. This ensures that certified coaches are well trained. ethical, and effective in their practice.  So once I learned about the ICF, I just ended up jumping in headfirst to get certified as an Associate Certified Coach or an ACC,  which is one of the three levels of certifications offered by the ICF.

And I like to equate the ACC as basically having an associate's degree, the PCC or the professional certified coach is like having your bachelor's, and the MCC, the master certified coach, it's equivalent to kind of having your master's in coaching. So I say all of this to say to achieve the ACC. I needed to complete at least 60 hours of coach specific training.

And for these hours, I found a company called Symbiosis that offered life coaching and neuro linguistic programming courses, which was amazing for me. Cause I had always wanted to dive more into neuro linguistic programming. So I took two of these courses together and that put me well over the 60 hour requirements.

So that was no problem. And I was really excited to jump in and get to know both of them. The life coaching course gave me so much that the IAT course did not give me. It actually taught me how to be present with my clients, how to talk to them, how to build rapport, how to really kind of work through the business aspect of coaching, which I thought was amazing.

And then the neuro linguistic programming helped me to be a better coach, how to read body language, how to really utilize our words to help our clients kind of see what they already know inside of themselves, the potential that they have. So both of these courses together were amazing, but in addition to the classes, we also need to have 100  practice hours.

In order to achieve the ACC and 75 of these hours actually have to be paid or thankfully, they allow them to be bartered, which means you can coach someone and then someone else coaches you.  So throughout all of this, I started picking up clients that started practicing my coaching. I found some paid clients.

I found some bartered clients and eventually after well over a year, I got my 100 hours.  On addition to the classes and the coaching, you also need to be working with a mentor. And so I had to work with a mentor for a couple months and I would do coaching live and then she would critique me. Now, I will be very honest and say these mentor hours, they were very hard for me.

I learned during this timeframe that I do not like feedback and it is really hard for me to hear, but that right there is exactly why I needed it. I needed to be humbled and I needed to be told what I needed to work on and what to learn about that I could still use to help me be a better coach because I needed to learn that this isn't about me.

It's about my clients. And so these mentor hours, yeah, they had me in tears most of the time. But I'm so glad I had that opportunity and I firmly believe that it should be essential for any coach to receive feedback on their coaching and have a mentor help them guide through this process, which is why I love the ICF because they really make it easy.

Pack this all in to their program and say, this is what you need to have in order to be certified through us. So once I got my classes in, I got my coaching hours and I did my mentor hours. I was finally able to apply to take the ACC exam. So yeah, even after all of that, there's still an exam we have to take and oh my gosh, they are not playing with this exam.

I know that. It said it would take like three and a half hours and you had to be in your room and you weren't allowed to move. So I had to ask for accommodations because I do have ADHD and I have some anxiety issues. And so I reached out for accommodations. It did take me a little bit longer, but it was well worth it because it ended up taking me close to four hours to complete this exam.

I definitely needed the extra time and I. We'll be really honest with you. I just barely passed. We're talking you needed a bare minimum score to pass. I got that score. Oh my gosh. I was so scared because I'm not very good at tests. In fact, this is why I never went to college after high school. This is why I never expected to even do well in college because test memory, Comprehension issues or they struggle with them.

I have a learning disability. And so this is not my strong suit. I work well with people. I don't work well with words. And the idea that I finally passed this test just barely, but I passed it. I was just so proud of that 

in addition to all of the work required. to be accredited. The ICF also requires us to stay on top of our studies and our qualifications. So I'll need to take more courses and keep my hours going to recertify basically. But my next goal is actually I'd love to become a PCC, which requires 500 hours of coaching.

And it took me over a year to get the first 100. So I have no idea how long this is going to take me to get the PCC. But it just means more classes, more courses and more coaching, which I'm all about. Because also one of the things that can happen is someone can go online, get a quick little life coaching course for 20  and then say, okay, that's it.

I'm a life coach. Look, I'm certified. And then they never do anything else again. But I just have such a passion to keep continuing my work and my, you know, Studies and research. And that's why I'm doing all of this.  And so I say all of this to say, it's important to me. It's important because I want you all to know that relationship coaches  are specifically not therapists.

And it's really important to remember that. And it's important that we're honest about this.  See, a relationship coach is a trained professional who helps individuals and couple navigate the complexities of their relationships. So unlike traditional therapy, which often focuses on past experiences where they diagnose mental health conditions and work through the traumas of your past and do a lot of talk therapy, relationship coaching is more future focused and action oriented.

That's why I actually quite like coaching over therapy. So the primary goal of a relationship coach is to help clients improve their current relationships and develop healthier patterns of interactions. And see, in my work, I find relationship coaching incredibly helpful for moving forward rather than looking backward.

And while it is important to look into our past, and we do touch on that a lot in my sessions and in my courses, it's not the same as talk therapy. In fact, a good coach should I say should refer you to a therapist if they do see anything deeper going on, like a mental health issue or a deep emotional trauma that needs more work through it.

Because see, my job is your relationship coach is to not really dig into your past. Sure, we can touch on it, but my goal is to just touch on the past  so that way we can inform your present and future.  But we need to do it in a safe way. So a coach who starts diagnosing or addressing your mental health issues, it's not really staying in their lane and that's actually not okay.

That's not their job. And so unfortunately I have seen this a few times and I will admit it frustrates me, but Hey, you know, maybe that's my own projection to work through. But I think it's important to really get clear on what relationship coaching is and that it is not therapy. It is not psychology.

It's not a psychiatrist. They cannot diagnose you. Our goal is kind of just like, we're your friend who happens to have lived a lot of life. We hopefully have a lot of knowledge based on classes and courses we've taken, and we can help you kind of identify patterns in your life that you're dealing with in order to help you better your relationships. 

What can you work through when you're working with a relationship coach? Well, each coach is going to have their own specialties. And so, for example, some coaches will work with couples. I don't really work with couples. I don't usually work with men that often either. I do have some men clients, but it's very rare and few and far between.

And it's mainly because I just connect and really relate. to women and what they've been through because I mean, I am a woman and I've been through it. And that's the same as well with mainly straight women. I don't talk to very many gay women because it's just not my specialty, but I know where I can refer you out to for other coaches that would work really, really well for that.

And as always, if you do vibe well with me, I will work with anyone, but I like to know where my lane is. And I like to really be. Understanding that there's only so many people each of us can help, and there's so many coaches out there. So if you don't work well with me, if you're out there and you're like, Oh, I really want to work with Jen, but either she doesn't do this thing that I really love or she doesn't really understand what I've been going through because, you know, I'm a queer woman and I'm a woman of color and Jen just would never understand.

You know what? Yeah. I'm with you on that. I don't understand. And I cannot get you. Can I help you? Sure. But I will never understand what you're going through. And that's why it's important for you to find a coach or a therapist or anyone that works well with you. So if you were working with me though, what I love focusing on is communication.

That's one of my really big things. I love enhancing communication. I love figuring out a way for you to express yourself in a way that allows you to be heard. That's one of the biggest things. Another thing that I love working with is creating stronger emotional connections, building deeper and more meaningful relationships, as well as really fostering your own personal growth.

This isn't just about how can you be in a relationship better? This is also, how can you be better in general? How can you align yourself with your values that you really, really hold deep and that you care about? And I love dealing with conflict management. I'm really big on learning how to handle disagreements using nonviolent communication and compassionate inquiry.

And these kinds of things can really help us to figure out how can we have empathy while listening? How can we validate and how can we do all of this in order to really build that resilience in our relationships? And then one of the things that I focus on. A lot is attachment styles. I love learning about attachment styles and attachment theory and how it can help us better our relationships.

In fact, I have a quiz you can go take if you want, it'll be in the show notes. And it's a really great starting point for you to see why is it that these relationship patterns keep happening to me over and over again. And so we'll approach. All of these areas through the lens of the nonviolent communication, the attachment theory, the compassion inquiry, the neuro linguistic programming, or anything else really that I start doing more work on.

In fact, after my compassion inquiry course with Gabor Mate, I'd really like to take a somatic experiencing course to bring that into my practices next, as well as be more trauma informed. But these are just all of the Courses that I get to experience later on in my coaching. And for right now, what I am trained in is the integrated attachment theory, the compassion inquiry, the neuro linguistic and the relationship in life coaching.

It is my personal belief that  the answers are inside of each one of us. It's not my job to fix you. It shouldn't be anyone's job, like as a coach or therapist, or even as your friend to fix you. Or to heal you or to make you better in any way or to change you. My role as your relationship coach is to just be a vessel.

It's about reflecting back the patterns I notice within you and then bringing them to light so you can decide what you want to work on next. Relationship coaching can be an amazing tool to help you achieve what you deserve in life. Which is a healthy, secure, and fulfilling relationship. One big issue I still have with coaching, and the reason I'm working towards becoming a therapist still, to be honest, is that,  yeah, the money thing.

Insurance does not typically ever Cover coaching, which honestly just really sucks. I'll be really honest about that. And while I believe I'm very, very capable right now of helping tons of people and getting them the relationships that they deserve, I also understand that becoming a therapist would allow me to help even more people.

Because therapy would allow me to work with insurances. So yeah, right now I can't do that. Right now it's not as accessible or affordable. And so I will always understand if you cannot afford working with me. I always understand that. Work towards finding what works for you. Find the therapist that your insurance covers.

Find a brand new coach who is taking on practice clients. I did that for a long time. I helped tons of women when I was in my practice hours, being able to help them. Am I much better now as a coach? Sure. But that doesn't mean they still didn't get a lot of help. So you have to find what works for you. So until I become a therapist, which like, let's be real is still probably in like 10 years with how long it's taking me to get through school, but until then, I do need to charge for my coaching services.

But I strive to make them as accessible as possible. I offer scholarships. I run free group chats whenever I can on zoom and we have community coffee chats or webinars, and I provide smaller monthly pricing options on my Patreon for those who need help, but they can't really commit to a full hour long session.

So my goal was speak honest. is to find that balance between making a living and putting food on the table, but also giving back to the community and helping as many people as I can. See, I try to be as transparent as possible about my pricing and the reasons behind it and all of that. So if you ever have any questions about my pricing, please feel free to ask.

And if you need help and you can't afford my services, please Reach out to me, honestly, we'll see what we can do. And I'm okay now at saying like, no, I'm so sorry. I can't do that. Or yeah, let me figure out a way I can put you in here because sometimes I even have clients who love sponsoring sessions for other people.

I had this happen once and a client said, well, I'd like to give you a couple extra sessions to give to someone else. That was, it's kind of like the whole Starbucks thing, you know, when you buy someone else's coffee, except this was like. really big. And that was such an honor. And I was able to pass that on to someone else.

That was amazing. And I keep track of all of these donations to make sure that I'm able to give this out to the community later. So if you have any extra money and you're looking to donate some, that's awesome. An option that you can do to help out with other people. You can let me know and I can share with you how you can sponsor, or if you're the person who needs that little extra help, don't hesitate to reach out.

Really. My goal here is not to get rich. It's to be as sustainable as possible while providing valuable support. To anyone who needs it. So whether you're looking for a relationship coach or therapist, the big takeaway here is that having an external support system is incredibly important. If you can find a therapist who works with you on your goals, your attachment styles, and your communication, and your insurance covers it.

Oh, my God, that's amazing. Go for it. Do it right now. Do not stop. Do not pass. Go. Do not collect 200 because that is the dream. That's the unicorn. And if you do know who this person is, maybe you could share their name out with other people because that'd be great.  But let's say you can't find that in your area.

And because the therapy world hasn't really caught up yet with a lot of these kind of modalities. So if you want some help and you resonate with my approach, I would be honored to be a part of your healing journey. And if you're considering a relationship coach, but you aren't sure about me, I also help run a Facebook group filled with other integrated attachment coaches.

My goal is to help you find the support that you need. You need, whether that's with me or with someone else, it really honestly doesn't bother me. You deserve the relationship you desire and we are going to get you there. I absolutely promise.  So if you have any questions about relationship coaching after this podcast, feel free to reach out via Instagram or email or in the Facebook group.

I'm always an open book and I will answer any weird, wacky nuanced question that you have. And if you're interested in becoming a relationship coach, I mean, I can try to answer those questions. I do get those a lot, but I'll admit that's not really my specialty or, or my thing. Like it's not where my passion is, but I do know a few amazing business coaches that are in this world that I can connect you with if you'd like.

And thank you so, so much for listening to this episode all about relationship coaching. If you found value in this episode, I'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment and leave a review, especially on Apple Podcasts. Reviews help more people find the podcast and allows me to continue creating content that supports you.

And as a fun goal for my birthday month, which is in June, yay, I'm turning 40 this year, y'all. I cannot believe that. Anyways, my goal for the month. is I want to get three, just three new reviews. It would be the best birthday gift in the whole world. And it's one of those ways that you can help support Speak Honest without having to pay for anything.

And your feedback means the world to me and it helps the Speak Honest community. Grow. So thank you all so much for your support and until next time, take care. 

As we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination, and it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we covered today. Be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode, right there.

And please remember to rate review and subscribe. If you enjoyed today's podcast, your feedback means the world to us and helps others discover our podcast until next time, remember to speak up and speak. Honest.