Cross-Cultural EI Coach

I offer Cross-Cultural Emotional Intelligence coaching to help people find what brings them a sense of calm and purpose in their lives.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) coaching can help to:

• Invoke awareness
• Clarify values
• Change mindset
• Get unstuck
• Gain a sense of calm and joy
• Develop compassion

As a certified EI coach, I help others to invoke embodied emotional awareness and pay close attention to thought patterns and mindsets, bodily sensations, feelings, habits and interpretations that may be helping or hindering.

Through coaching you can learn to embody your own emotional intelligence (EI), and learn micro techniques/daily hacks to improve your wellbeing.

Cross-cultural Life and Career Coaching for Expats and Internationals

I support expats and internationals in the challenges they face in relocating to new countries. Through EI coaching, I help people navigate change and gain confidence to pursue social connections and professional goals. EI coaching helps with gaining insight into how best to live in alignment with your sense of self.

I recognize the importance, as well as difficulties, in maintaining a sense of identity when moving to a new country, and aim to help others find their direction and identify their values, meaning and purpose in life. 

Life and Career Coaching for Academics

I also support academics in navigating their careers. Having worked as an academic researcher in a university context for over fifteen years, I understand the complex environment of academic research and the difficulties that academics face when forging an academic career. Issues such as imposter syndrome, time and project management, balancing complex and diverse work tasks and demands, relations with colleagues, writing blocks, and decisions about future career pathways, work-life balance pose challenges that can be difficult to tackle alone. I help academics gain insight into how best to navigate these challenges and find joy in their academic careers.

Cross-cultural EI Coaching: Coaching with an Anthropological Approach

I integrate the skills I have gained as an anthropologist and implements these in my coaching practice. Methods such as active listening, close observation, reflection and analysis, open and expanding questioning, and recognizing the wider social and cultural context that may impact a person and their well-being are all aspects of my coaching practice. 

Through active listening, being fully present while keeping an open mind without judgment and asking deep questions, I help others gain insight and discover how to best move forward with their lives. I am not there to solve problems or offer solutions, but help others find their own strategies for removing hindrances and living the life they want to lead.

Drawing on my experience as an anthropologist, I have gained a deep understanding of intercultural relations and cross-cultural encounters. Through my work as a Buddhist Studies scholar and studies in Psychology and comparative religion, I have gained a deep understanding of the mind and interpersonal relations. And through my experiences as a long-term expat navigating the challenges of living an international and cross-cultural life, I have gained the sincere and deep-felt wish to help other people navigate the opportunities and challenges they face as an expat in new cultural contexts.   

What Others Say:

“As an ex-pat in Denmark, I found myself struggling with direction and looking for positive change and renewed focus in my life. To my great fortune, I met Elizabeth and began using her coaching services. During each meeting with Elizabeth, no matter the subject I bring to the session, I feel enlightened, listened to, supported and spurred to grow in all the aspects of my life. Elizabeth creates a safe space for her clients and her professionalism and wisdom guides each session. I can always count on an “aha” moment that I can carry with me and leave my time with Elizabeth with joy in my heart and peace in my mind. If you are looking for clarity, compassion and enlightened life coaching, I cannot recommend Elizabeth’s service highly enough.”  N.B.C.

“My experience with Elizabeth’s coaching has been similar – with just some friendly banter and a wave of her magic wand, she has guided me to make significant positive changes. Like my hairdresser, Elizabeth’s approach to coaching is light and deceptively simple – each time I entered the virtual meeting space, she would invite me to meditate or engage in some breathing exercises for a few minutes. Then, with her calm and open demeanour, she would ask me to present a couple of specific challenges that I wanted to discuss during the session. But this was no ordinary conversation – by asking some clarifying questions or suggesting prompts for reflection, Elizabeth was able to effectively lead me to breakthroughs I never could have imagined.

In my academic career, a great deal of my work focuses on conducting qualitative interviews and analysing conversations in everyday life. Being able to do this work requires a specific methodological approach and reflexivity about the process (i.e., the interviewer reflecting on how they could inadvertently be affecting the interview situation). I know that this is also part of Elizabeth’s training as an anthropologist. But the coaching experience is much different from a qualitative interview – or from psychological therapy. I wasn’t there to get to the root cause of my problems and change my behaviour. Rather, the ambition of Elizabeth’s coaching was to help me zero in on a specific issue and – by applying an embodied perspective – to feel the most appropriate solution. There is always a way forward, but what feels like the right path to take? How does my body react to Option A versus Option B or C?

During each coaching session, I had the space to explore these embodied responses and to
discursively determine my own outcomes. Discourses are a way of describing, understanding, and building our social world and our place in it. With her grounding in Buddhist teachings, Elizabeth provided an environment of compassionate non-judgement where I felt safe to consider how I could best build new social worlds in order to optimise my life. Her coaching helped me to silence the deafening noise of my own anxiety and overthinking caused by a multitude of choices – instead, Elizabeth guided me to focus on being present in the moment in order to feel what would be the best choice for me now. And, sometimes, that choice was to actively rest and do ‘nothing’.

A fundamental core of Elizabeth’s coaching is to listen WITH the coachee and not simply TO them. This means that she is able to hone in on what matters most to that person and, in this process, she considers their history of lived experience as well as their present priorities, values, and goals. The end of each coaching session focused on what actions I planned to take next to achieve my desired outcomes – this enabled me to take control of situations where I felt trapped or powerless. Thus, by acknowledging and supporting my intrinsic motivation and individual priorities, Elizabeth helped me to feel empowered to make positive changes in my life. Radical transformation with a light touch. Effortless empowerment. Elizabeth’s coaching helped me to realise that I actually have all the solutions inside of me – I just need to take a breath, listen to my body, and feel what’s best.” Amy Clotworthy

Feel free to contact me for a free and uncommitted consultation.

I am more than happy to share more about what EI coaching is, what it is not, and how it might be beneficial for you.