"It has been truly a pleasure working with Gabriella as my coach for the
last 3 months. She is such a warm and generous listener, taking in the
essence of my sometimes long-winded ramblings and reflecting it back to me
in a form and perspective that I can newly appreciate and more clearly act
upon.
No matter what the challenges or triumphs of the moment in my busy inner
and outer life, it has been wonderful and rewarding to pause each week for
that purposeful hour, and to have her listening ears and heart fully
available to hear whatever I am working through at the time. I have
benefited greatly from her intuitive understanding of my deeper meaning,
her insightful questions that prompt yet another level of inquiry, her
gentle nudges and occasional challenges that keep me moving steadily in
the direction my soul has always wanted to lead me.
I have made tangible progress on several fronts - in being myself with
certain people close to me, in my confidence about the gifts, talents and
commitments I bring to my work, and in fulfilling an important
but long-procrastinated personal promise to myself. Thank you, Gabriella,
for being a friend and partner on this part of my life's journey, and
someone whose example will continue to be a positive inspiration as I
begin my own coaching practice.
In case others may have similar questions, I would like to also address
some initial concerns I had, that entirely disappeared for me as the
coaching relationship progressed. While I was immediately attracted to
Gabriella's soul-centered focus and her empowering perspective on life and
relationships, I initially wondered how good a fit her "soul mate" focus
was going to be for me. I knew there was so much I wanted or needed to
work on before getting to the eventual subject of relationships and
particularly a special soul mate relationship. I also wondered several
times if our relative ages (I am old enough to be her mother) were going
to present any impediment to the coaching process.
I needn't have worried on either count. First, Gabriella is simply a
warm, caring and intuitive human being who proved she had the ability,
willingness, and skills to support every inquiry and intention I wanted to
focus on, to laugh with me on my humorous self-discoveries and to support
me in pursuing and celebrating my successes. I found that her affinity
for the soul mate aspect of relationships was not limited to what I would
have presumed, but applied equally well to our conversations about
relationships with my mother, daughter, and co-workers as well. Somewhat
surprisingly, we did eventually get to "the" soul mate subject, and much
sooner than I would have imagined I'd be ready to explore it.
And finally, since coaching involves a set of skills for listening and
supporting, rather than a set of specific life experiences or the need to
be a "wise elder", I was greatly impressed with Gabriella's ability to
coach me effectively quite unrelated to our relative ages or even how
difficult and resistant I may have felt myself to be on occasion. I would
encourage anyone who has similar concerns to give yourself a chance to be
pleasantly surprised, as I was!"
Jo Ann ~ Maryland