Dear Teens & 20-Somethings... it doesn't have to be so hard.

    I can only imagine what my life would have been like if I had access to coaching before I had kids or before I was married or before I was in college or even before I finished high school! While that was not in the cards for me, it is for you and I want you to know that it can have a significant impact on your life going forward if you let it!   

    I was what most would consider a Type A, perfectionistic, introverted, people pleaser. I got good grades. I played tennis. I was on the dance team. I was valedictorian of my class. I had a boyfriend through high school & college. I was Roanoke Valley's Junior Miss in the local program and 3rd Runner Up at the state program. Basically whatever I did, I did it well. I'm not saying that to brag, but I want you to get a sense of who I was. I wouldn't say I suffered from anxiety in high school, but I would say I was VERY hard on myself. Not getting good grades, not performing well at dance, not "succeeding" felt devastating to me.  

    When I got to college, I had a hard time. I didn't enjoy being away from home. I did have good friends there thankfully, but the pressure I had put on myself in high school didn't magically go away. I was still really hard on myself in college. I auditioned for a performance group at Meredith and didn't make it. They encouraged me to take a class and come back the next semester to audition again. It took two years for me to get up the courage to do that. I was fairly depressed through college and my doctor gave me a prescription to help. At the time, it was what I needed. I didn't cope well with the stress of college and I had still never heard of coaching, so I'm thankful that my mom and my doctor recognized that I was truly struggling.   

    However, if I had had access to coaching in high school or in college, I am convinced this whole story would have gone differently! Don't get me wrong, I was not miserable 100% of the time, but I did spend a lot of my time and energy living in stress and overwhelm and frustration. I didn't know that stress came from my thoughts and not from the deadlines I needed to meet. I didn't know that overwhelm originated in my brain and was not brought on by mountains of homework. I didn't know that frustration came from what I believed to be true instead of from the fact that I just wanted to go home.  

     What a different experience high school and college and even the early part of my marriage could have been if I knew what I know now!  

     And that's why I do this work. That's why I coach teens & 20-somethings. I want you to know why you feel anxious. I want you to hear from a "recovering perfectionist" that the there is no such thing as perfection, & you're valuable and whole and worthy whether you do it all "right" or not! I want you to know that you can share your deepest worries and your heaviest thoughts with someone who gets it and will never judge you. I want you to have a safe place to unload the difficult things so that you can learn to fully live NOW instead of waiting until you're 30-something to figure it out! I want to change the culture of what mental health looks like. I want you to know that having a coach doesn't mean something is wrong with you. It means you have a human brain and human emotions, and both of those things need managing! I want you and all of  your friends to have someone in their corner that they can trust. I want you to thrive! 

      And when you decide you want all of that too, I'd be truly honored to be your coach.   

Love always, 

Chelsea 🤍