Beatha Coaching

Dear friends,

At time of writing I am settling into the first few days of my third year in private practice, my third year of self-employment, my third year beyond academia. This time of year is filled for many of us with bittersweet connections, I think. Something about the cooling of the air and the autumn colours, those smokey hints that people are lighting fires and digging out their thicker jumpers, can activate memories of past seasons. This autumn I have been particularly attuned to the ways in which my life has shifted. In October 2022 I was just launching Beatha Coaching with a tiny handful of clients (hello to those of you still here!) and my last few university paychecks – building this website, trying to be active on social media, and writing the blogs that you can scroll back through this archive to find. At that point I was fairly clear what my niche was going to be, working with women in academia. I was also freaking out just a bit at the prospect of my income running out.

I gave myself two years to experiment and find out what worked, what was needed. I have been both surprised and unsurprised. My clients are pretty much as expected! But my practice still looks radically different from the model outlined to us on my coaching training, way back in 2021. For one thing, I work far more eclectically in terms of my coaching modalities. When I started coaching I was using person centred tools and a bit of CBT. These days I am as likely to be digging into IFS (internal family systems), mentalisation, and somatic therapy. Indeed, my unexpected and delightful collaboration with Rebekah Ballagh over at Journey to Wellness has probably cemented me as a nervous system and neuroscience informed coach. I now find myself running trainings on these tools for other practitioners (more on that below).

Meanwhile, I went on a long circular journey with my background in Chinese cultural history and trauma research. From a complete disavowal of ever writing about China again, over the last few months I have found myself gently picking it up. The roots of my practice lie here – in the fascination I found as a teenager trying to understand the Cultural Revolution and how so many people could rewrite their memories, in my PhD research noticing the gaps and spaces where trauma wasn’t acknowledged, and in my teaching and the methodologies I explored with students interested in memory studies, curatorship, and dissent. I still have a somewhat ambiguous relationship with these subjects, something I am exploring in my book manuscript at the moment. But more and more I notice connections between the psychology of the mind and nervous system, and the cultural phenomenon I wrote about in the past.

And, of course, there has been yoga – not an anticipated addition to my practice at all. In fact, truth be told, for years I deliberately avoided teacher training because I didn’t want to turn another hobby into work. But, as my work with clients has developed and I have been asked to do more and more groups and trainings, the well of somatic awareness and healing that yoga offers has been an instinctual place for me to draw from. In October 2024 I am in the (I would have said, unlikely) position of making a good third of my income from yoga classes. And it is sparking something new in me, for my writing and my coaching practise, that I can’t quite articulate yet – but I am looking forward to it continuing to gently evolve.

Work with me

As we head toward the end of the year, I have lots of lovely options to work with me for coaching and workshops. I am currently taking clients. If you would like 1-2-1 coaching support, please do get in touch to book a 30 minute discovery call. I generally meet clients via zoom on weekdays between 11am and 7pm, sessions last an hour or an hour and a half. You can find out more about my approach and my prices here.

The community is currently open for new members. This support package offers three price bands based on income and aims to be as accessible as possible. The community gives you access to a weekly co-working space, a monthly workshop and a monthly group coaching session, as well as reduced cost 1-2-1 coaching. It also gives you early access to all my retreats and courses.

Workshops this autumn

Coming up in the community between now and Christmas:

October – Dealing with Dread (overcome the Sunday scaries and the Monday blues)

November – How to Unf*ck your Writing (for NanNoWriMo)

December – Surviving the Season (ho ho ho…)

Non-members can join workshops by requesting access via Buymeacoffee – drop me money for a few coffees and put the name of the workshop in the message, I send you the link.

Or, even better, join us in the community for safe, supportive coaching and workshops, as well as consistently high quality craic!

Trauma Informed Supervision Group:

If you are a coach, counsellor or therapist, I am launching a special package of workshops and peer supervision! Join me and up to nine other practitioners for three sessions experiencing trauma informed approaches to support yourself and your clients. Each session will last two hours, beginning with workshop material and then continuing as an experiential practice and peer supervision space. We’ll be covering:

• The neuroscience of compassion and empathy
• Working with survival states in you and your clients
• Experiencing somatically

Registration of interest is now open, and you can find out more here.

Last but not least….

I am delighted to let you know here, first, about The Slow Writers Club – coming in December. The Slow Writers Club will be a special new membership option for anyone specifically looking for space, time, and support for their slow writing projects. The Slow Writers Club will meet monthly, write together, and share the journey of writing around or as well as other work, with some gentle prompts and input from me. Current members of Beatha Coaching Community will be gifted one year of The Slow Writers Club, if you would like to join, because I love and appreciate you. Anyone else will be able to join the club for £110 for the year, or £10 a month. Look out in upcoming newsletters and on Substack for more info about The Slow Writers Club.

And don’t forget, you can connect with me and my writing via Substack where I write as The Anxious Academic. You can read this recent post about integrative strength and leaving academia. I am also still uploading a weekly yoga class to YouTube so why not treat yourself to a little stretch, maybe using this video.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back later in the month with more updates. Please do hit reply and let me know how you are doing! What are you writing right now, and what has been supporting you recently? I love to hear from you.

Thank you for all your support

Francesca xx