Recently I received a question on social media about how I coach dancers who need to adapt in their careers, and I thought it would be great to address this in a blog article!
Working with the right coach is an awesome move for dancers and other creatives in transition. Being creative by nature, it just takes an effective structure or container and catalyzing support to create empowered, transformational change!
Coachable Transitions
Not long ago I was in conversation with a physical therapist I know on Instagram about what we’d like to learn more about from one another. I shared that I seek resources for students with hyperextension/mobility, and Kelli told me:
“It could be interesting to learn more about how you coach dancers who need to adapt in their careers either due to severe injury or age or other factors that are cause for shifting of focus.”
– Physical Therapist Kelli Barton Schneider @electricedgemovement
My clients typically come to me for support around massive career shifts and tricky health challenges, as well as working through nasty breakups and other cataclysmic shifts. In short, folks dealing with radical change, whether it is chosen and wanted or totally unexpected, seek out coaching for effectively navigating the thrilling and terrifying transitions of life.
I have supported clients through career transitions such as from working within an organization to becoming an entrepreneur or founding a nonprofit, going back to school, taking on leadership positions, coping with injury, disability, and diagnosis, jumping from field-to-field, including radical changes of medium, specialty and/or geography.
They could be struggling to find any semblance of balance in changing life circumstances, or yearn to integrate seemingly disparate needs, interests, and passions. What all my clients have in common is wanting to live purposefully, passionately, and creatively.
I’m here to help multi-passionate creatives to dance through their difficulties and take leaps of faith into purposeful and fulfilling lives.
Facing Challenges Creatively
As performing artists, dancers are already familiar with navigating change on a daily, constant basis!
In a related podcast and blog from 2020, 019: Tourner – turning, rotation, & creative U-turns, I quoted Julia Cameron, who in the book The Artist’s Way explains, “In dealing with our creative U-turns, we must first of all extend ourselves some sympathy. Creativity is scary, and in all careers there are U-turns. Sometimes these U-turns are best viewed as recycling times. We come up to a creative jump, run out from it like a skittish horse, then circle the field a few times before trying the fence again… A successful creative career is always built on successful creative failures.”
I would argue that we take this approach to not just creative failures, but creative challenges and unexpected obstacles in life as well.
Artists are Changemasters
I am struck by how in expounding on Bartenieff Movement Fundamentals in the book Making Connections, Peggy Hackney connects the process of changing our fundamental movement patterns with the process of change in life, especially in that we need to “Remember that achieving our goals is a process of change,” and there are a number of “Steps in the Change Process,” including:
- ‘Notice what you are already doing.
- Accept what you are doing and how it serves you.
- Know what it is that you want to do, your intent.
- Clarify your intent even further. […]
- Give yourself a lot of time and many different situations in which to practice your new pattern.
- Know that change is a process. It will be ongoing. Change may surprise you!” (p.24-6)
How does it work?
My coaching works through curious listening, asking thoughtful questions designed to move you forward, and reflecting back your truth. We implement proven tools and techniques I learned in my Certified Coach Training with InsideTrack and Accomplishment Coaching, in my pedagogical study and experiences as an educator, and in navigating my own wild, creative life so far.
Synthesizing the experiences and training, over the years I’ve developed my Dance Through Any Difficulty framework that moves through the touchstones of Grounding, Centering, Orienting, Creating, and Relating informing all of my work.
My approach honors the whole person and aims to equip, liberate, and empower.
Signature Program
My signature program, Dilemma to Delight, walks you through my framework step-by-step within a 1:1 coaching container.
Being supported by the coaching relationship and going through a structured program changes everything. It’s remarkable what clients accomplish with my specialized brand of support.
Working from a grounded foundation, centered in your essential excellence, oriented towards inspiring goals, purposefully creating the work you’re meant to in the world in nurturing community. Through this structured yet individualized coaching program, we accelerate results and catalyze the changes that lead to joy and satisfaction.
My signature Dilemma to Delight program produces results through:
- Weekly 1-hour 1:1 Coaching Sessions 3 Months to provide a powerful container to navigate your current challenge
- 5 Touchstone Modules to integrate and support the work, fully customized to the specific situation you face
- Spot-coaching as needed between sessions to make sure you don’t get stuck, but rather keep moving forward with momentum
The season of coaching moves through these five phases, comprising the essential elements of clarity and change, catalyzing and accelerating your growth and transformation. We partner together to reveal your amazing essence, design clear action steps, provide accountability and inspiration in the projects and topics of focus, and deftly dance through obstacles.
Clients find themselves showing up in their lives with courage, confidence, and commitment. They may then choose to continue coaching after the initial three months are complete, when they find the process continues to be valuable in taking further quantum leaps.
Who am I?
I am Blythe Stephens, a Hawai’i-raised and Cologne, Germany-based bliss-catalyzing coach, dance & yoga educator and creator of A Blythe Coach: helping multi-passionate creatives dance through their difficulties and take leaps of faith into fulfillment!
My first major interests were ballet and theatre, as well as reading and marine biology and I pursued conservatory training in dance on the East Coast (UNC School of the Arts), liberal arts education in philosophy (Whitman College) and life coaching certification on the West Coast (Accomplishment Coaching), my MFA in Dance and teaching credential in secondary education in Hawai’i, and yoga teacher training in Germany.
I am a multi-passionate creator myself and struggled for years trying to figure out how to fit it all in: my many interests and pursuits, educational programs, romantic relationships. Having studied and worked on both coasts of the US and internationally in student success, ontological, and life coaching, higher education, choreography, dance production and education, I have finally integrated my many interests and passions with support from my own coaches.
Try out coaching
My approach is holistic, rigorous, and truly unique, but you don’t have to take my word for it, you can experience the difference firsthand in a complimentary discovery call. Better than trying to explain how coaching works is to put the tools to work and see how the coaching container and process could transform your life!
Questions for Reflection
- Have you been coached?
- What value do you see in the coaching container?
- What area of your life would you like to transform?
- Who do you know who could benefit from coaching?
- What might extraordinary clarity and support provide in your life?
I would love to connect with you on Instagram, where I regularly post and go live @ablythecoach as well as my weekly email newsletter.
More details and further testimonials also available on my coaching page. In future articles I’ll continue to share key tools and distinctions and expand upon the five touchstones of my signature program!
“Blythe’s approach is direct and kind. Working with Blythe is a weekly reminder that I am in the driver’s seat of my life. She listens for the awesome essence in her clients and supports that, reminding them to move in life towards what makes them shine.” – Jason Miers, Client
Blythe Stephens, MFA, Bliss Catalyst
they/them or she/her
Creator of A Blythe Coach: dance through your difficulties
and take leaps of faith into a joyful, fulfilling life