Life Transition Coaching —
Navigate change with clarity, ease and purpose
What is Life Transition Coaching?
Life Transition Coaching helps you navigate change by bringing awareness to your inner experience, your body and emerging possibilities, so you can move into and embody what’s next with greater clarity, ease and confidence.
We are all evolving, all of the time. It is inevitable; built into our divine nature in service to becoming the highest version of ourselves. It is the inextricable energy of forward movement that fuels our longing for more self realization, that leads us into personal inquiry and reflection, through the trials and insights of living, of challenges and opportunities; and eventually into learning and growth, change and evolution.
Whether we surrender to and participate fully with that energy, or resist it; whether we go it alone or gather resources and are guided and supported through these periods, are choices we can make along this journey. Times of big transition in our lives are when these choices -"how" we show up for ourselves - are most impactful to our growth; and how this work, this phase sets us up for many more cycles of personal evolution.
Transitions Can Take Many Forms
Whatever the transition you are being asked to move through; whether it be deeply personal or a change in how you operate and relate in the world, all are unique opportunities to move in a new direction that better expresses and supports the expression of your full and authentic self.
All transitions are powerful invitations to inner work—to recommit to yourself, to prioritize deep, lasting growth over quick fixes, and to evolve into a truer expression of who you are. Most of us will experience multiple periods of transition and consequential crossroads. All are important; and how we respond to them is the stuff our life story, our character and our future fulfillment is made of.
Identity & Personal Evolution
When you are being urged from the deepest core of your being to evolve into the version of yourself that better reflects your most authentic self. You've decide to stop hiding, living your life for others, to follow your inner voice. Or maybe you've reached the end of a self destructive cycle or experienced a crisis in your life; something is forcing you to rethink everything and who you want to be, and risk losing the old you. This level of recreating yourself is a profound inner to outer process and your bravery deserves the witness and support of an understanding guide.
I’ve been at that jumping-off point many times, faced with the choice of recommitting to myself, to the work and to my evolution. I have a wealth of lived experience in meeting that challenge, whether it be as a person in recovery, living as an openly gay man, creative reinvention or as spiritual seeker. Your personal evolution is too important to go it alone.
Creativity & New Directions
Living a Creative Life is by nature one of "re-creation". It is in your nature to always be looking for new inspirations, new directions and new expressions of your gifts. Often it is also a search for how your gifts can be used, expressed and shared in ways beyond artistic pursuits; of channeling your "inner creator' into all aspects of your life, into a new career, side hustle, family or maybe it is a search for something completely new and unexpected that satisfies your creative self in a completely new way.
As a fellow creative, I've reinvented my artistic identity many times; both in the context of my professional life as dance artist; but also as I moved into teaching, mentoring and now coaching. Preserving my creative spirit while allowing it to be redirected was always a priority and has guided my choices. You don't have to diminish or sacrifice this most cherished part of yourself as you head into new directions.
Career & Professional Change
The professional world is shifting rapidly; and with the new landscape, your personal priorities are shifting also. Maybe you are rethinking your place and purpose and how you really want to be spending your time, energy and talents. Career changes can be more than changing offices or roles; they can be that opportunity to discover or create the place where the giving of your self and energy is more aligned with your purpose, your wellbeing and your uniqueness.
Relationships & Family
Your relationships can be one of life's biggest classrooms and opportunities for growth. To develop healthy sustainable relationships in all areas of our lives; but often particularly in our personal lives and families, demands first that you become responsible for who you are bringing to the relationship. Then the work of developing the communication, boundaries and love necessary to create a mutually nourishing and healthy relationship with the other person starts.
There are particular challenges in each phase of a relationship: starting, maintaining and often a necessary ending. I have experienced and learned from all of them through new friendships, romantic partners, professional colleagues; through family difficulties and trauma, loss and grieving, codependency and boundary setting; and primarily through the life experience of maintaining a loving supportive thirty-seven year relationship and marriage that has gone through multiple transformations. A continuing series of lessons in honest communication, adapting, compromise, mutual respect and support; and seeing what's my role and responsibility in growing together, and what needs to be changed in myself first, to both honor and preserve my identity as well as contribute to the relationship.
Aging, Retirement & New Chapters
Some of life's crossroads are unavoidable, and if we are fortunate, choices about aging and retirement will arrive. Adapting to and finding ways to meet this phase of your life with courage, ingenuity and grace can be the difference between a life of frustration, resentment and diminished vitality; or a new chapter that rewrites your future and gives you that "new lease on life"; a life that allows you to continue expressing and sharing yourself, to experience meaningful relationships and community. to feel useful and valued.
After a forty year career as a professional dancer, choreographer and teacher, I decided to write a new chapter in my life as I approached sixty. My personal experience in arriving to that decision, opening up to the unknown and what might be possible; affirming my values, clarifying my purpose, appreciating my strengths and knowing my weaknesses, and most importantly discovering and honoring what I really wanted were all part of the process and the experience I would love to share with you in support of your journey.
Life View, Belief & Spiritual Awakening
You are being asked to face something so consequential, existential and life changing; you are reviewing your life and looking into your future and coming to terms with the soul necessity of a whole new belief system, philosophy and relationship to existence. You are looking for sign posts, anchors and what will help you find meaning, security, hope and reaffirm your place in the universe.
For me, that moment came at the end of a long cycle of self abuse through alcohol and substances. There was little choice but to reimagine and reconstruct the most basic tenets of what I believed and had organized my behavior and life around. Deep questioning around my place in the universe and my relationship to greater powers that had delivered me to this threshold and turning point; and how I could discover, piece together and trust a new life view and personal spirituality that served me in my healing, overcoming and eventually thriving in continued evolution.
Being your guide through this sacred territory and transition is an honor; one that I take very solemnly. and to which I bring my very personal experience, along with the wisdom of the many guides who have supported me in this journey, with great care, love and humility.
The Inner Experience of Transition and Transformation
All life-affirming transitions include some degree of personal transformation; and all are most meaningfully done from the inside to out. Your inner life is your North Star in navigating this transition; this new set of possibilities. Your desires, thoughts, emotions, values, intuition, imagination and creativity are your sign posts along the way, guiding you through the normal - and valuable - flow of uncertainty, doubt, fear and conflict. The uncomfortability of uncertainty, the loss of an old identity, of risk - of not knowing.
There will also be the excitement, curiosity, anticipation and hope that comes with sensing that something new is emerging. Along with the with the inner life of your body and it's sensations, responses and messages, your inner experience and willingness to listen to it, is where your discernment, inspiration and confidence to keep moving forward come from. It's my job, to help you listen, decode and honor yourself and your inner knowing.
From Uncertainty to Possibility to Clarity to Action
When Uncertainty becomes a positive energy in the process; one you can sit with, tolerate - or better yet enjoy it; then the magic begins. It means you are ready to open to Possibilities; to bring your curiosity, desire and imagination into envisioning what is possible. Enjoying the range of Possibilities without overwhelm, able to discern, check in with your self and inner knowing to arrive to Clarity.
Clarity might not mean you know precisely what you want, or what's ahead; it might just mean that you have know more clearly what you are looking for. That's enough to take you into Action, looking with more Clarity at the Possibilities; or Action that sets you out on a path that has appeared through this process. It may take many loops through this sequence, many open minded, open hearted beginnings down different paths before your have that whole being recognition that you are on the right one.
Why Somatic Coaching Can Help During Transition
The body definitely knows when it is time to change! When change is being called for, is inevitable, coming or being avoided, the body emits strong signals and feelings that can be uncomfortable and hard to ignore. We can learn to accept and listen to these signals, to commit to learning what the body is telling us about our current situation and what future would bring us more equanimity, peace, fullness, expression - even pleasure - in our body. We can engage with and follow the sequence of Somatic inquiry: Awareness to Sensation to Movement to Change to guide us through the transition we are being asked to make.
Life Transition Coaching with Lance
My most valuable contribution to your process is bringing my lived experience through multiple life transitions, reinventions and transformations into the coaching space. This doesn't mean advice, suggestion, or even "tips". My experience will show up through my deep listening that recognizes the process your inner-life is going through, by helping you hear the deep discernment and working out that is going on in your most inner wisdom and intuition. Helping you to open to the unknown and what might be possible; affirming your values, clarifying your purpose, appreciating your strengths and respecting your weaknesses; and most importantly discovering and honoring what you really want. All while assuring you through presence and heart, that you are being guided and led towards the path that expresses your highest and most authentic self.
What You Can Expect from Me
Foremost, you can expect a dedicated, compassionate and non-judgmental listener who has only your best interests at heart; and holds our exchanges in complete confidentiality. I promise our work will be filled with heart, creativity, joy, depth and appropriate challenge - always following your lead and supporting the direction, movement and outcome you desire through this important work.
Who I Work With
I work with motivated, courageous people who are ready for meaningful change. Some are navigating a major life transition. Others know that something in their lives has changed, something isn't working any longer or moving them in the right direction. They desire a more authentic life that is an expression of their whole selves. Often though, they cannot yet name what that looks like. You may be questioning your direction, relationship, identity, creative life, work, or sense of purpose. You may feel that you are being called to change, you feel ready to move beyond an old way of living and discover what is possible for you now. Wherever you are, our work begins there.
If you are ready, I'd be honored to be your guide through the Life Transition you are facing. Let's begin this life-affirming work and start you on
your way towards the fullest and most expansive
expression of yourself in your next chapter.
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
— Joseph Campbell