You’ve gone through therapy and are feeling pretty good about the work you’ve done and all of the growth you’ve experienced. You feel like you are on the path to the life you always dreamed you would have – you are just not entirely sure how to get there.

You feel stuck in a particular area – maybe it’s finding your purpose, or your perfect mate, or creating wealth, or getting to your goal weight. Despite lots of effort, you don’t seem to be able to move towards this particular goal, and none of your therapeutic tools are helping. 

Further, you are waiting for this particular thing to happen before you can “really” enjoy your life. You are trudging along a bit and you’re not exactly lit up by your daily routine.

This is not what you were expecting after therapy – though so much  better than they were, you envisioned a life where things were great. And they are not…quite.

Part of what is frustrating right now is that you are not even sure what exactly the problem is. You know finding your purpose (or your wife or your first million) is likely not going to bring the type of joyful life you want – but you can’t help believing (or at least hoping) that it might.

You’re smart and psychology savvy – you’ve dealt with issues most people run from for their entire lives. Intellectually, you know that nothing is going to show up and transform your life into the life of your dreams.

In your heart of hearts, though, you wish it would. You are tired of working on yourself and expected a little bit more out of life after therapy.

You know more therapy is not the answer – and yet you are not satisfied with the level of life enjoyment you are experiencing right now. With no real idea of what else to do, you decide to pursue…

• your purpose
• your goal weight
• your stunning investment portfolio
• your soul mate

Committed to creating the life of your dreams, and lacking any other path, you allow yourself to get seduced by the idea of “Happily Ever After.” A life where you no longer have to do any kind of personal growth or ‘healing’ of any kind. A life where joy and happiness are consistently yours…just as soon as you get that thing into your life.

(And, to top it off, a part of you is probably offering scathing criticism of how silly you are to believe in this.)

In short, you’re stuck, and you don’t know another way to move forward.

What you are experiencing is completely normal. We all believe that when we’re through the grueling work of therapy, we’ll be happy. When we’re done and life doesn’t look like we expected it to, we’re baffled, lost – and maybe a tiny bit angry.

You are way closer to the life of your dreams than you can guess right now – to understand why/how that can be true, let me share with you a metaphor:

Your Life as a House

When you arrive on the planet, you choose your soul’s land for this lifetime. Each person’s soul’s land is unique and contains the blueprint for who they are and what they love in this life.

Your soul’s land is perfect for you, but you need shelter to live and interact with the world. This is what I call your house – the social constructs that allow you to relate to others and the world. In an ideal world, your house perfectly suits your soul’s land in design, style, size, etc.

Trauma of any kind can severely interfere with the building process, leaving us with varying degrees of shacks.

Therapy is the process of tearing down what doesn’t work…

and rebuilding it to suit your soul’s land.

The only problem with this is that we often expect to have a complete, fully furnished, decorated house when we are done with therapy, and this is almost never the case. Therapy gives us the key foundation, support and framing to create the type of beautiful house we desire.

We often dream that when we’re done, we’ll stroll into our (metaphorical) living room, and find it almost exactly as we’d like:

When the reality is that we don’t have any furniture or decor, and may regret our paint choices already.

Facing this unfinished room can feel uncomfortable, and we can start looking outside of ourselves for something to fix it – a new partner, more money, a more meaningful job, a hotter body.

This is how we end up seduced by the dream of “Happily Ever After” – even when we know better.

The good news  – you don’t have to chase after something external in order to be happier – you just have to finish construction on your (figurative) house. Further – doing so is actually a lot of fun.

Renovation

In the Renovation program, we spend six months together finishing up construction of the ideal home to suit your soul’s land. We’re going to work together, side-by-side, through this process.

Some of it might be hard – but it will not be as hard as therapy (I promise!) Think about the difference between digging out a foundation and installing drywall. Neither might be your idea of a good time, but drywall installation beats foundation digging any day in my book. Once we get through the final construction, we get to decorate, and things get to be a lot of fun.

Here’s how we will do this:

Month #1: Evaluating Structural Design & Soul’s Land Walkthrough
(2 Sessions, Approximately Every 2 Weeks)

During this first month, we will be evaluating your existing house, seeing what your soul’s land looks like, and getting a feel for what your current “Happily Ever After” dream is trying to tell you. We’ll map out what we are going to focus on for the duration of the program and pick out the area of your house (both literal and figurative) to change.

Months #2-3: Exploring Your Soul’s Land & Finishing Construction
(4 Sessions, Approximately Every 2 Weeks)

These months will be the most intense of the program. We’ll be further exploring your soul’s land and getting ready for decorating your house to suit it perfectly…and we’ll be finishing construction. During this time, expect to have a series of homework assignments (including one month of daily email “due” to me) and to make some changes to your living space.

Months #4-5: Decorating Your House to Suit Your Soul’s Land
(2 Sessions, Approximately Every 4 Weeks + Redecorate Email Class)

After finishing construction, we’ll be working together on design. You’ll receive my sixty day email program called Redecorate, with one session monthly to help clarify and work through what is needed to complete your design. This is where a lot of the fun begins, as you discover what lights you up on a daily basis and we work together to improve areas of your life that are feeling a bit blah.

Month #6: Celebration & Future Mapping
(2 Sessions, Approximately Every 2 Weeks)

During our final month of coaching together, we will come back and reevaluate your “Happily Ever After” dream and see what the new version of it looks like, then develop a three month game plan for you to move towards your dream in this area of your life. (If, by this point, your dream has expanded to a broader life vision, we’ll map that out instead.)

Months #7-9: Design Progress Reports
(Monthly Email Check In)

Change takes time and consistent action. To help keep you moving towards your ideal life design, you’ll receive a monthly email template from me asking for a design progress report. This report will ask you to evaluate what went right with the previous month, what could have gone better, and what you are committing to for the upcoming month.

Results

While your individual focus and goals will be unique, this is what you can expect to experience as a result of fully engaging in the Renovation program:

• Increase your enjoyment of your life right now – before you achieve any outside goal.
• Learn and practice daily methods to increase your happiness and clear out thought patterns that may have developed from old emotional wounds.
• Break out of any “stuckness” you feel towards your goal.
• Get into motion towards a goal in one area of your life, with a focus on enjoying the journey to the goal just as much as the goal itself.
• Develop a plan to keep moving towards that goal – and have the tools to carry it out.

The Renovation program is an investment in your enjoyment of life. You invest in yourself by committing to creating the type of life you dream of having, and showing up for yourself daily to make it happen. I’m investing in you by bringing my best to you, committing all of my knowledge, insight, and ability to see your best self – even when you can’t.

Together, we’re evaluating what is holding you back from creating the life you desire, clearing out those obstacles, and creating habits that will bring you freedom and joy.

Details

The Renovation program will last approximately nine months:

• This includes 10 45 minute coaching sessions, spread over approximately six months:
  • Months 1-3: 6 sessions, approximately 2 weeks apart
  • Months 4-5:
    • 2 sessions, approximately 4 weeks apart
    • 60 Day e-class, Redecorate
  • Month    6:   2 sessions, approximately 2 weeks apart
• Three Additional Months of Monthly Email Accountability Reports
• Expect a time commitment of one to three hours per week for the duration of the program, in addition to our coaching hours.

We can modify the timing of the program to suit your needs – if you are someone who prefers more time between sessions to work on assignments, the program may take longer.

Investment

The investment for the Renovation program is $1497. You can pay in full when you sign up, or spread out payment of $250 per month for six months, for a total of $1500. Payments are made through PayPal, which can be set up to use either a credit card (with or without an account) or a debit card or link to your bank account (with an account only.)

Is this right for me?

The Renovation program is for you if:

• You have been through therapy (or another serious recovery program) and are ready for the next steps to claim your most joyful life.
• You are committed to doing the work needed to get there.
• You are motivated and willing to commit time not just to coaching, but to doing various activities and exercises throughout the six months we will be working together.
• You enjoy “homework” and background reading.
• You have one are of your life that you are focused on ‘fixing’ so you can finally be as happy as you’d like to be.

Next Steps

Are you ready to move towards a real Happily-Living-Now? If the Renovation program feels right to you, please complete the application. (Applying does not obligate you to join the program!) The application process is designed to provide clarity for both of us to see if this program is right for you. Once I’ve reviewed your application and determined that the program can deliver what you are looking for, I’ll contact you to set up a thirty minute phone (or Skype) call. We can get to know each other a bit and see if we are a good fit, and I can answer any questions you have about the program.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have a question, please check out the following answers. If your question is not answered here, please email me and I’ll be happy to answer it for you.

I haven’t done any therapy yet, but this sounds like the right program for me – can I still sign up?

It probably is not the best choice for you. There are a couple of reasons why I say this – first, sometimes, it feels easier to sign up for a coaching program rather than go see a therapist. If you think there is any remote possibility that you might benefit from therapy, I cannot recommend enough that you try that option first.

Second, if you are someone who has not been through any kind of trauma or just never felt that you recovered from a serious emotional wound, I might not be the best coach for you. A lot of my work with clients involves finding the ripple effects of emotional wounds that weren’t covered in therapy and helping them work through these ‘lesser’ issues.

With that said, I also respect your intuition and recognize that sometimes you simply know when something is right for you.. If you strongly believe this is the right fit, please apply and let me know your history – we can set up a time to talk it through.

Why are you so obsessed with homework?

There are so many reasons! Let me outline them for you:

1. You get so much more value when there are materials, reading, and exercises to do outside of our time together. Before we even meet for the first time, you will receive several things to read and an assignment to complete. This helps in several ways – we are on the same page when we get together, you have already spent time clarifying what is most important to focus on during our time together, and I know where to start and can jump right into the work when we meet.
2. My greatest gift is being able to see where you might be stuck and help you find the way out. Our coaching sessions are 45 minutes long –  I think it is a huge waste of your time if I spend 15 of those minutes explaining a concept that you could read about later. Sessions often sound like “okay, there’s an issue – {brief commentary/clarification} – great – I’m going to send you a ton of homework – next topic?” This way, we cover so much more during our time together, and you receive homework and things to read in between sessions that help you integrate the concept and work through the issue.
3. The ultimate goal of any of my programs is that you no longer need my help. The more you learn and do on your own – with guidance and support – the more likely you are to fully integrate the work and be able to do this for yourself when our time together is through.
4. I see my role as the person who can help you see what you can’t currently see, and a supplier of tools, concepts, and viewpoints that you might not currently have. Part of my obsession with homework is ensuring that when the program is complete is that you have those tools and concepts integrated into your being, able to call on them whenever you need them.

I love everything about this except the deal about background reading – will this still work for me?

While you will get the benefit of our coaching time together and any homework you do, I strongly recommend finding another coach. See “Why are you so obsessed with homework?” above.

Do you really mean I have to change part of my house or was that some kind of metaphor?

Yes! It’s both – you will be changing an actual physical area of your existing living space and we will be changing your metaphorical house.

This sounds cool, but I don’t think I need this much help – do you have shorter programs available?

Yes – you might be interested in the Redecorate program on its own.

I want to work on more than one area of my life – do you have something even more in depth than this?

Yes – please check out the year long Transformation program, where we work on each one of “the big four” areas – money, body, relationships, purpose.

This “Life as a House” idea is interesting, but I’d like to know more about it before making a decision – is there a way to learn more?

Absolutely – you can sign up here for instant access to a full hour-long webinar discussing these concepts in way greater detail.

I have no idea what my soul’s land is like – I’m not even sure I understand what you mean – do I need to know this before signing up?

Not at all – exercises to help you explore and understand your soul’s land are woven throughout the program, and part of my job is to reflect back to you what I sense about your soul’s land for your consideration. When you work with me you’ll receive my Soul’s Land Guide that will give you a lot more background on this whole concept. In fact, fleshing out this concept and exploring how it applies to your life will be an important part of the work we’ll do together.

What is your refund policy for the Renovation program?

If, after our first session together, either of us believes you will not benefit from the program, you will receive a refund for the full amount paid to that point (either the full $1497 or the initial $250 monthly payment.) If you choose to stop the program anytime after the first session, you will receive a prorated refund for any remaining months paid, less a $25 service fee. For example, if you decide you would like to cancel after the third session, and have paid in full in advance, you would receive a refund of $1100. ($250 for 4.5 months, less $25 service fee.) If you paid in monthly installments and cancelled after the third session, you would receive a refund of  $100 ($250 for .5 months, less $25 service fee.)

What happens if I have to miss a session?

You can cancel/reschedule a session anytime up to 48 hours in advance. In the beginning of the program, we will establish a back up plan in case you need to cancel within 48 hours – options include email coaching or an intuitive reading with email summary. I also understand that sometimes emergencies happen, and allow for rescheduling of one session throughout the program in that case.

How do we meet?

We meet on the phone (via a US dial-in phone number) or through Skype video or audio.

What is your schedule like?

Right now, I have available coaching hours on Thursday nights, Pacific Standard Time, and Saturday mornings and afternoons. In rare cases for long term clients, I will make exceptions to these hours if they do not work for you . Please let me know on your application if you would have a scheduling conflict and I will contact you to see if we can work out a plan.