How did you come to professional life and executive coach training?

It’s in my bones! Luv All Coaching is really an organic evolution of my personal and professional pursuits. It has come to me after decades of teaching, sports coaching, and navigating my own personal challenges. Experiencing life coaching first hand as a client has shown me the powerful healing and transformative nature of coaching. That sparked a light in me to want to bring that magic to others. Thus, professional coaching became a natural next step in my journey. 

You say coaching is in your bones. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Yes, well I've been coaching tennis since I was 18 years old, and am still coaching today. In fact, the Luv All name is a carry-over from my tennis business that I sold in 2020.

I graduated college with a secondary teaching degree, a profession that allowed me to both coach and teach while pursuing my Masters.

Turns out that my experiences teaching Spanish and coaching tennis were stepping stones to becoming a well-being coach. While running my tennis coaching business I became a consultant for a global health and wellness company, and I found myself coaching people about their well-being. I felt the pull for more education and experience around this kind of coaching, which led me to enroll in my first coaching course, Fundamentals of Co-Active Coaching. The rest is history!

What do you think would be an important nugget to share with women today?

I suspect many women hearing my story might be nodding their heads. I don’t think my experiences are completely unique.

Life is hard! Life is messy, complicated, and beautiful all at once. Navigating the winding path can be isolating and scary. So often we find ourselves alone standing on a burning bridge. Then what?

We are not meant to ‘do life’ alone. It takes time and effort to wake up to what your life can be and to start living it exquisitely and on purpose. Having a coach accompany you supports you as you rise from the ashes.

How does your personal experience with trauma inform your coaching?

My experience with trauma is twofold: learning how to face the trauma in my life, and doing the healing work to move with and through it. Both have gifted me courage and empathy which I bring to my coaching practice.

Years ago, I was grappling with my own personal traumas of love, loss, and grief including divorce, loss of life, single-parenting, medical emergencies, and professional growth. At one point, it seemed like my life was a string of never-ending traumatic life events. I was feeling burnt-out, disconnected, and had lost my joy.

At that time, I was working with a mental health therapist. As the trauma load grew, I needed more support. I hired a professional life coach to round out my “Team Laura” support system. The huge gaps in my satisfaction levels with the various aspects of life narrowed. My sense of belonging, which seemed like a distant memory, rematerialized. Gradually, the sadness, the loneliness, and the pain of my past became something that I was ready and able to begin healing.

I began to see how engaging with my past hurts revealed a deep well of personal strength, courage, and resilience. To this day, I find the combination of EMDR therapy and coaching to be super effective in my healing evolution. I am passionate about continuing to do my own work. It is important to me that I walk my own talk, it increases my capacity to deeply listen to my clients and hold space for them.

In reflecting further on my own personal and professional journey, I recognize that it is one thing to acknowledge that trauma is present and impacting your life, it is a whole other thing to know how to handle it. I tap my personal experience and professional training to bring my clients options. 

I say, let your traumas become a launchpad to your purpose and fulfillment. Let it deepen your relationship with yourself and how you are in relationship with the world!

In this moment, I am positioned to support women like myself in learning to skillfully care for and embrace their whole selves so that they too can play their best game of life.