live-wisely.net -- frequently asked questions

Thinkers and innovators... nonprofit directors and social entrepreneurs... educators... artists, writers and musicians... and maybe you. Do you need help getting hold of how to live what you are called to live? We can do that!

$400 for a block of 4 half-hour conversations, or $725 for 4 hour-long conversations. A single half hour is $125, and a single full hour is $225. (The 4-session discount is approximately 20% in both cases). Payment is in advance.

Further discounts are available if you are a student, if you are working with me weekly for several months or longer, or after a retreat at Casa Azul. If you'd like to arrange this, just ask.

Whenever possible, I give partial scholarships to existing clients during major life upheavals, where it would clearly be impossible to pay the usual amount. Depending on circumstances, I can sometimes do this for new clients as well.

I prefer payment by check (so no merchant fees are taken out!), but I'm happy to accept Paypal or Stripe for an initial conversation, or the first block.

Some people have a conversation with me weekly (occasionally even twice weekly!), others are every two or three weeks. Some just schedule irregularly, when the person feels the need. A block of time is sometimes bought ahead, and kept in the bank to use as needed.

People who are seeking to deeply embody a particular way of being tend to want to work with me more often. It can help you see more about what's going on, act more effectively and in congruence with the qualities you seek to embody, and remember the deeper meanings in what you are doing.

You don't have to prepare unless it would make you feel more comfortable. If you do want to prepare, I suggest you get ready by asking yourself what, if you did it, would set you most at ease.

It varies from person to person. I fit the work to each person and what is going on right now. A couple of things that hold across every interaction, though, are very careful listening and questions that get down into the heart of things. Read through the page about my work with others and it should give you some of the flavor of what it's like.

No. Psychotherapy centers (in terms of insurance company expectations at least) on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, though therapists often do a great deal more than this. But diagnosis and treatment of disorders is what insurance companies pay therapists to do.

I don't work with mental disorders, though I sometimes do work with a person who is also seeing a therapist. Because I don't diagnose or treat mental illness, our work together will not be covered by your health insurance.

No. Life coaching is centered on identifying and achieving goals and improving performance. Many coaches do a great deal more than this, but the code of ethics for life coaching centers the coach's practice on helping the client stay on target to achieve their goals and improve their performance.

Additionally, many life coaches subscribe to a philosophy of 'new thought' which includes beliefs such as the law of attraction, and some expect their clients to take on these beliefs as well. I don't personally follow the new thought belief system--if you do, and are looking for someone whose work is new-thought-oriented who can help you integrate your beliefs more fully into your life, you may be happier working with a new-thought life coach than with me.

Most life coaches will tell you that mindset is important. I agree. But positive psychology (an academic discipline which studies happiness and other positive mental states) seems to me to provide a more well-researched foundation for looking at how to shift one's mindset, and why, than new thought does.

Though goals are important and do come up regularly in my work, they are not my main focus. I am more concerned with fostering a way of being than with succeeding in reaching specific goals. I find that at times a person may want to become less goal-directed, in order to have more breathing room and awareness of the possibilities of this moment. Additionally, after decades spent doing this work I have more than once observed someone's 'well-laid plans' become physically or otherwise impossible: people suddenly become ill or otherwise unable to do what they would have been able to before. But it is possible to find new ways, in most circumstances, to continue to embody the qualities of being that matter most to a person.

My work is centered on the experience of living, rather than metrics. When it comes to the experience of living, quality of life matters more than quantity (that is, quantity of money made, or number of possessions or achievements, or the number of things checked off the to-do list this week, or other countable markers of success).

These are insights that a person will often come to suddenly when they are diagnosed with a fatal illness, or survive an accident, or other situations which put them directly face to face with their own mortality. Life in itself suddenly becomes precious, and priorities suddenly change.

Markers of this broader, deeper perspective in which the preciousness of life becomes central, are: an acute awareness of this beautiful living world, of the moments we are gifted to spend in it, of the primacy of love and the meaningfulness of this moment of our life as an opportunity to love what we love and serve it with all our hearts. This, I feel, is the essence of wisdom. My goal is to help my clients shift their way of being more towards this 'wisdom' perspective.