“One Voice Can Change The World”

Kate is a coach who works in the place where passion, purpose and possibility meet. “We all have a purpose,” she says; “and a voice. The world needs your passion and your voice, you count for something. You make a difference.”

“When someone gets up and speaks up from their heart, there’s an immediacy and aliveness that happens. This changes the person and changes the room”.

Kate’s special interest is “Voice in Leadership”. She sees ‘voice’ both as a physical process, as well as a wider metaphor for developing awareness and responsiveness to our “inner voice” calling us to fulfil our potential. It’s experiential work, in which she combines her multi-faceted experience in transpersonal psychology, linguistics, theatre, bodywork and voice. She helps people recognise when to step in and when to step back, when to speak up, when to listen, to have the impact and agility they need in an ever changing, turbulent world.

She’s been doing this work for more than 25 years.

Much of this work will involve helping clients recognise how their relationships influence them, understanding & adapting the beliefs and behaviours keeping them stuck. She helps them cultivate insight, confidence and strategies to embody their own personal power to put insight into action.

Her body-voice work is lusciously rich and powerful. Kate’s voice work goes beyond the classic “jaw and tongue” of voicework. Her background is rooted in a holistic psychological and creative approach. Voice is about connecting body, feelings, mind, spirit and speech. “If you want someone to really listen to you, you have to really show up. That means getting in touch with the spark inside you that really lights you up.”

Much of that is about remembering how to breathe.

The best work isn’t instant. “Sometimes I am invited in to “fix” something quickly, to remedy a communication difficulty”. There’s always a practical intervention that can help, a short-term improvement. But the real work needs more time. “People often “get” the change in their head, but don’t yet have the trust to let the experience enter their body. It takes time to explore, process and unknot this resistance, so body and mind and join up and trust the work of finding a new way to show up in the world”.

Kate’s isn’t interested in an outcome where leaders merely get “power-over” others in win-lose outcomes, that’s not enough. Basing her work on the psychosynthesis notion of “right relations,” which honours both self and other, she helps people create mutually satisfying outcomes, that are “good for them, and good for the wider community.”

That means listening, as well as speaking. ‘‘When we are truly present to someone who is speaking, it cultivates trust and confidence. We can learn to listen to what’s underneath their words, to what they are trying to say. It’s wonderful when you meet someone who listens at depth.’’

From this foundation, Kate is brilliant at helping people to get their message clear, memorable and inspiring: “cut the fluff, ramp up”, so the core of the message is authentic, compelling and relational. She draws on years of performing arts and applied linguistics here: using improvisation exercises, ways that are practical and fun. “It’s important to bring this all together, because that is what people experience from you when you turn up in the room”.

A great example of Kate in action helps to show the impact. Working with nurses on assertiveness in a highly pressured hospital setting, it was clear the power relationship with medical consultants meant nurses found it very difficult to say no. For example, it was difficult to take their breaks. Kate helped to bring about a shift by paying attention to the balance of “responsibilities” with “rights” in their organisational system. The nurses were aware of their responsibilities but had lost sight of their rights. Eventually they saw that they not only had a right to say when they needed a break: their own wellbeing was critical to patient safety. Reframing taking breaks as part of their professional responsibilities, as well as supporting their own well-being, made it became possible to speak from their own power.

Kate mobilises a rich combination skills, interests and experiences to enable everyone to bring their voice into the world.  She’s been an assistant manager at a Planned Parenthood clinic in California. She’s been an actress. She speaks Spanish. Curiousity about language & communication inspired her to study Applied Linguistics at Masters Level, followed by a Diploma in Voice at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Wanting to understand why we sometimes ‘lose our voice’ led her to qualify as a Counsellor, with an MA in pschosynthesis psychology. Her experience of psychosynthesis radically shifted her work from being a ‘voice coach’ to a coach with a deeper, wider perspective that recognises the inner wisdom beyond our every day ‘monkey mind,’ and our essential interconnectedness with people and planet. This process helped her reconnect to her own creativity. She’s now a published poet and is writing her second novel.

As Kate says, “If we listen with our heart and gut to the voice within that’s beckoning, and respond to that call even if it’s frightening, something magnificent can happen.”

Perhaps Kate may be exactly the thinking partner you need, to help you to bring your richest and fullest self into a world that needs you.