Frequently asked questions

Our trainings provide you with the fundamental skills of coaching. In addition, you will acquire advanced skills that distinguish you from other practitioners.

Here is what sets us apart:

• Our offerings are both personal development workshops and professional trainings. Your healing and awakening supports you in facilitating the healing and awakening in others.

• We bring people like you, healers and seekers, into intimate and loving relationship with yourself and with Spirit.

• We believe healing and awakening are relational processes. Therefore, we create safe and intimate circles where you are invited to take the risks necessary for foundational change. We limit our training cohorts to 36 students.

Coaching with Spirit is a level 1 coach training approved by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

This program is both a personal development workshop and a professional training.  

Coaching with Spirit is a map of the human psyche, a method for healing and awakening, and a way of life. 

The model recognizes you and all humans as already whole and intrinsically endowed with everything needed to heal, grow, and love. 

You will engage in your own evolution, which prepares you to help others transform.

This is the appropriate training for those applying for an ACC credential through the ICF.

Coaching with Spirit recognizes that we are more than our thoughts, emotions, and sensations, and that we are connected to a field of awareness that we call Spirit but that you may refer to by a different name.

While our teachings are grounded in the belief that we are all spiritual beings, we are not affiliated with any religion.

The curriculum synthesizes ideas from practical Buddhism, positive psychology, and neuroscience.

Healing is about wholeness, finding the parts of us that have been hurt and loving them back to health.

Awakening is about shifting out of thought-based mind into the clarity of awake awareness.

Awareness is about disidentifying with the contents of consciousness -- thoughts, emotions, and sensations -- and realizing that you are consciousness itself, that which experiences thoughts, emotions, and sensations.

Coaching with IFS teaches you how to safely use the IFS model in a coaching relationship to support your clients in accessing their own confidence, calm and creativity – so they can be in choice in their lives, finding the answers they are seeking within themselves.

This is an ICF-approved training providing 40 CCEs – 32 core competency hours and 8 resource development hours.

Many graduates of Coaching with Spirit continue on to Coaching with IFS.

It is also appropriate for therapists, spiritual directors, or others who are experienced practitioners in the healing arts.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapeutic methodology that is in alignment with the principles of coaching — that we are already whole, wise, good, and fully resourced. It is a constraint-release model (removing obstacles) that does not pathologize the client.

IFS looks at a client’s system as being one made up of multiple parts. (For example, “A part of me is frightened about this, and a part of me is excited.”) When parts come into relationship with Self (with a capital S — your client’s true nature), they soften back and allow Self to lead. Self is naturally confident, calm, clear, courageous, connected, compassionate, creative, and curious.

The model was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, with whom Guthrie Sayen, the creator of Coaching with IFS, has deep connection and great respect.

As an unregulated profession, coaching allows you to work with clients all over the world. Additionally, coaching clients generally pay more than therapy clients.

Our programs go beyond teaching the basic skills of coaching. They offer you training in how to shift into full presence: equanimity, clarity, and confidence. We also show you how to amplify that in your clients.

We often have therapists in our Coaching with IFS trainings due to the range of topics we cover, the emphasis on Spirit, and the degree of safety and intimacy cultivated in our classes.

Although we are not connected to the IFS Institute, you can call yourself an “IFS-informed” practitioner.

This is a professional training in all phases of the IFS protocol, including the unburdening of exiles. We also emphasize accessing and amplifying Self throughout the training.

We pride ourselves on the quality and depth of our trainings and strive to graduate highly skilled, Self-led practitioners.

We limit our class size to 36 students to maintain a safe and intimate learning environment. For both Coaching with Spirit and the Coaching with IFS courses, we have at least one mentor for every six students. We keep things small to ensure everyone gets the attention and support they need.

The one exception to this is the Coaching with IFS Consultation Group where we do not limit class size. A larger group in this case serves the learning.

The following outlines a typical day:

• Presence practice

• Teaching

• Break

• Demo and debrief

• Meal break

• Peer practice or group mentoring

• Debrief and Q&A

• Break

• Teaching

• Additional demo or Q&A

• Crystallize the learning

We recommend attending no less than 80% of class time to get the full benefit of each training.

If you need to miss more than 20% of live class time, please contact the program director for approval.

If you miss more than 50% of the live sessions, you will not be eligible for a certificate of completion.

Coaching with Spirit and Coaching with IFS both provide group mentoring during class time where you will receive valuable feedback on your coaching. We break into small groups (six or fewer) in which the students coach each other with a qualified mentor present. The mentor's feedback is meant to build confidence and support your growth as a coach.

In addition, Coaching with Spirit offers three one-on-one mentoring sessions outside of class time for individual attention.

In our trainings, you will coach your peers during class in small groups with mentor feedback. These are followed by Q&A in the full class.

You will also be put in practice triads that meet three times between training sessions.

All cancellations up to one week before a program start date will receive a full refund, less a $150 cancellation fee.

Cancellations before the start of the second session will receive a refund of 75% of the total cost of the course.

No refunds are offered after the second session.

We do not offer partial completion credit for our trainings. You must complete the entire training to receive your certificate of completion.

If you are unable to complete a training due to health or other emergency reasons, please contact the program director. We will do our best to include you in the next training to complete the course at no additional charge.

We strive to co-create a spirit of belonging. We want each of you to feel empowered to use your voice and participate fully by agreeing to: 

• Maintain confidentiality. Whatever is learned about another is not shared with anyone without express permission.

• Practice your freedom of choice. All activities are an invitation not a requirement.

• Practice your own right to privacy, sharing only what feels right and safe to you.

• Take care of yourself in whatever way you need, including asking for what you need.

We ask for mutual respect within our cohorts. This includes:

• Arriving on time to all sessions.

• Having your camera on for live virtual sessions as much as possible.

• Being prepared for the session, assuming responsibility for your learning, and contributing to the learning of others.

• Engaging in discussions with integrity.

• Being respectful of the learning space, fellow participants, and instructors, including ensuring your space is one where you won’t be interrupted.

• Embracing the dignity and humanity of all others.