The Creative Coaching Collective
This book has been shaped by a group of coaches with a passion for poetry, who became The Creative Coaching Collective, and the seven co-editors.
Our Vision is that the use of poetry for coaching becomes widely accepted in the coaching profession.
Our Mission is to promote the use of poetry for coaching within the profession.
For further information on how we can support coach education providers and individual coaches to use poetry for coaching, please contact us.
As a social enterprise, our commitment is to distribute fifty per cent of the profits from the sale of this Anthology to philanthropic causes.
Our Story
As we are an international team, we met on Zoom and started to collectively visualise and formulate a plan of how the book would come together. Recognising ourselves as a collective of creatives helped to give the team behind Poetry for Coaching a collaborative identity. This grounded the contribution that we were each bringing and set the stage for future partnerships linked to events, projects and possibly even further books.
A big moment for us was when we settled on the themes within the book, that felt in alignment with our personal and professional drivers. Of course, the final themes couldn’t capture EVERYTHING, which is why LIFE was included to add the parts in between, creating a more open space for poetry.
The themes for each chapter are: Connection, Love, Acceptance, Forgiveness, Resilience and Life.
As professional coaches, counsellors and therapists, we also wanted the themes to reflect the transformation and goals that our clients wish to see in themselves.
Each of the 41 authors we brought together for this Anthology share the vision to positively impact lives through poetry. Every one is a professional coach, therapist or counsellor, so please take the time to explore the authors biographies as there is a wealth of expertise to tap into here. With each author distilling their professional knowledge into poetic verse and sharing their insights behind it, this Anthology carries an impact and energy which feels greater than the sum of its individual parts.
A community has grown up around the book which we welcome you to become part of (click here) on Facebook. This is a space for you to share your own poetry as well as enjoy that of others and be part of upcoming events.
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Anjli is a writer, designer, organiser and coach who loves to work with creativity and colour. Currently in the Marketing field, her first career was in textile design. The creativity and methodical approach of that experience remains with her. Layout, style, and space are at the heart of her craft, whether working with content or home organising. Harmony comes both visually and functionally, and the diverse threads of her experience infuse both into her work. When coaching Anjli works with mindset-awareness. Clients and colleagues feel calm in her presence and deeply heard. She brings creativity and practicality to her pursuits in home, work and business. She loves working with words, art, colour, visual story, and being a part of creative collaborative projects. She is truly grateful for the opportunity to use her skills in service of this book, which brings poets together worldwide.
Kate is a research Biologist turned award winning HR leader and now Executive Coach. With over 25 years’ corporate experience in Engineering, Education and Life Sciences across UK, Europe and India, Kate is a trusted, credible partner to a leader’s development. She helps global clients shift limiting beliefs, refocus coping strategies, shape development goals and take purposeful action. Kate creates the safe spaces needed for self-expression and exploration, enabling deep transformational insight and empowering personal and professional progression. Kate is a Business Poet and sought-after Spoken Word Artist, incorporating her love of words into her business. Identifying as Neurodivergent, Kate employs creative practices to guide the development of other Neurodivergent professionals. Kate believes in the power of poetry to humanise work; epitomised by this Poetry for Coaching publication. Kate co-hosts open mics for performers with hidden disabilities, uplifting marginalised voices, providing platforms for people to be heard and to shine.
Tracey McEachran is a team and executive coach as well as a multi-media artist working with large format photography, film, sound, and installations. Her creative practice sits within the genre of portraiture and still life, employing constructed sets and existing backdrops to reveal contradictions in the human experience. Her work explores myths and the ever present tension between group and individual identity. After working for 20 years as a senior leader in a large corporation, in 2007 Tracey left to pursue her ambition to achieve a degree in the arts. After gaining her BA in contemporary photography in 2010, she went on to graduate with an MA in fine art photography in 2012. Since then, she has been working as a professional artist alongside her career as a coach and facilitator. She predominantly works in the social housing sector on all aspects of culture, leadership, performance, creative thinking, and well-being.
As an Emotional Alchemist, Sarah helps us strip away our emotional lead to reveal our worthiness within. So often the greatest distance between us and our goals is the emotional baggage undermining our confidence! Harnessing the power of the subconscious and superconscious, Sarah is a Journey Practitioner, coach, mind-body therapist and Qigong teacher. Writing poetry gives Sarah insight into what’s arising within her psyche. Her head clears as negative thoughts are creatively expressed, enabling her to witness, rather than stay attached to her feelings as they pass through the prose. As her believed story transitions, higher consciousness flows in with a new perspective. Creating transformational movement meditations to music from her perspective-challenging poetry, Sarah believes her emotional alchemy M.A.G.I.C. formula to be key because we can be lifted out of the limited cerebral belief that who we are is not enough, into experiencing ourselves as infinite beings of possibility.
Ross Nichols
Ross is the Editor of Poetry for Coaching. He served 26 years in the British Army. The experience of reading great poems and stories shared on social media by other coaches inspired him to collect them as a resource for the profession. He mentors and coaches business owners, directors, and professionals for: business; leadership; career; wellness; and cancer. He mentors other coaches for professional credentials with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). As a supportive member of the ICF, Ross is part of the team writing the Body of Knowledge for the coaching profession. His coaching style is Transpersonal, working with values, energy, vitality, and spirit. He is drawn to working with the shadow side, which is where he believes the learning and healing is to be found. Ross leads the Creative Coaching Collective, the Salisbury Coaching Circle and the Cancer Coaching Community.
Sharon Strimling is a coach, speaker and writer who lives on a quiet island in a beautiful corner of the world. Smitten by nature and mystery, she writes to them, fumbles through them, falls into them. She tells of tall grasses and pounding waves, the noise of the mind and the quiet of the heart. Having healed herself from PTSD in her twenties and inspired daily by her clients’ remarkable mental health journeys, Sharon writes with authority to the brilliance beneath our shadows that can never be broken, that knows how to heal. Sharon coaches youth, entrepreneurs, leadership teams, couples and trauma survivors. She offers retreats on Martha’s Vineyard and internationally, and focuses her voluntary efforts on youth mental health. Sharon jumped at the opportunity to help create this book, to bring the power of its stories to you. She is the final editor of all stories and poetry.
A warm-hearted, creative Wellbeing Life Coach who, after spotting Ross’s outreach, was glad to support this project. Having written poetry since childhood to express emotions, thoughts and experiences, knowing that benefits of poetry would be highlighted through this work was fantastic. Poetry, and writing poetry, is therapeutic. Since leaving f/t teaching, she now guides busy, overwhelmed, people towards reshaping their lifestyle with more happiness and wellbeing. Community is important to her; she actively builds it wherever she lives. For years, Elizabeth has supported the vulnerable and marginalised, working to offer a safe and non-judgemental, mental health and ND informed space. In 2022, with Sean Bennett, she co-launched a project called Coaching Through Crises, to connect people in crises with professionals offering pro-bono time. In 2023 she launched a wellbeing podcast: Grow into Life. Alongside her husband, she hopes to renovate their beautiful, old townhouse in France into a creative wellbeing retreat.
Connect with the Authors Behind the Poems
Anjli Gheewala
Dr Kate Jenkinson
Tracey McEachran
Sarah Moores
Ross Nichols
Sharon Strimling
Elizabeth Papalia
Other Authors
(Your Name Here)
Anjli is a writer, designer, organiser and coach who loves to work with creativity and colour. Currently in the Marketing field, her first career was in textile design. The creativity and methodical approach of that experience remains with her. Layout, style, and space are at the heart of her craft, whether working with content or home organising. Harmony comes both visually and functionally, and the diverse threads of her experience infuse both into her work. When coaching Anjli works with mindset-awareness. Clients and colleagues feel calm in her presence and deeply heard. She brings creativity and practicality to her pursuits in home, work and business.
She loves working with words, art, colour, visual story, and being a part of creative collaborative projects. She is truly grateful for the opportunity to use her skills in service of this book, which brings poets together worldwide.
Kate is a research Biologist turned award winning HR leader and now Executive Coach. With over 25 years’ corporate experience in Engineering, Education and Life Sciences across UK, Europe and India, Kate is a trusted, credible partner to a leader’s development. She helps global clients shift limiting beliefs, refocus coping strategies, shape development goals and take purposeful action. Kate creates the safe spaces needed for self-expression and exploration, enabling deep transformational insight and empowering personal and professional progression.
Kate is a Business Poet and sought-after Spoken Word Artist, incorporating her love of words into her business. Identifying as Neurodivergent, Kate employs creative practices to guide the development of other Neurodivergent professionals. Kate believes in the power of poetry to humanise work; epitomised by this Poetry for Coaching publication. Kate co-hosts open mics for performers with hidden disabilities, uplifting marginalised voices, providing platforms for people to be heard and to shine.
As an Emotional Alchemist, Sarah helps us strip away our emotional lead to reveal our worthiness within. So often the greatest distance between us and our goals is the emotional baggage undermining our confidence! Harnessing the power of the subconscious and superconscious, Sarah is a Journey Practitioner, coach, mind-body therapist and Qigong teacher.
Writing poetry gives Sarah insight into what’s arising within her psyche. Her head clears as negative thoughts are creatively expressed, enabling her to witness, rather than stay attached to her feelings as they pass through the prose. As her believed story transitions, higher consciousness flows in with a new perspective.
Creating transformational movement meditations to music from her perspective-challenging poetry, Sarah believes her emotional alchemy M.A.G.I.C. formula to be key because we can be lifted out of the limited cerebral belief that who we are is not enough, into experiencing ourselves as infinite beings of possibility.
Tracey McEachran is a team and executive coach as well as a multi-media artist working with large format photography, film, sound, and installations. Her creative practice sits within the genre of portraiture and still life, employing constructed sets and existing backdrops to reveal contradictions in the human experience. Her work explores myths and the ever present tension between group and individual identity.
After working for 20 years as a senior leader in a large corporation, in 2007 Tracey left to pursue her ambition to achieve a degree in the arts. After gaining her BA in contemporary photography in 2010, she went on to graduate with an MA in fine art photography in 2012.
Since then, she has been working as a professional artist alongside her career as a coach and facilitator. She predominantly works in the social housing sector on all aspects of culture, leadership, performance, creative thinking, and well-being.
Ross Nichols
Ross is the Editor of Poetry for Coaching. He served 26 years in the British Army. The experience of reading great poems and stories shared on social media by other coaches inspired him to collect them as a resource for the profession.
He mentors and coaches business owners, directors, and professionals for:
-
business;
-
leadership;
-
career;
-
wellness; and
-
cancer.
He mentors other coaches for professional credentials with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). As a supportive member of the ICF, Ross is part of the team writing the Body of Knowledge for the coaching profession. His coaching style is transpersonal, working with values, energy, vitality, and spirit. He is drawn to working with the shadow side, which is where he believes the learning and healing is to be found. Ross leads the Creative Coaching Collective, the Salisbury Coaching Circle and the Cancer Coaching Community.
A warm-hearted, creative Wellbeing Life Coach who, after spotting Ross’s outreach, was glad to support this project.
Having written poetry since childhood to express emotions, thoughts and experiences, knowing that benefits of poetry would be highlighted through this work was fantastic. Poetry, and writing poetry, is therapeutic.
Since leaving f/t teaching, she now guides busy, overwhelmed, people towards reshaping their lifestyle with more happiness and wellbeing. Community is important to her; she actively builds it wherever she lives. For years, Elizabeth has supported the vulnerable and marginalised, working to offer a safe and non-judgemental, mental health and ND informed space.
In 2022, with Sean Bennett, she co-launched a project called Coaching Through Crises, to connect people in crises with professionals offering pro-bono time.
In 2023 she launched a wellbeing podcast: Grow into Life.
Alongside her husband, she hopes to renovate their beautiful, old townhouse in France into a creative wellbeing retreat.
Connect with the Authors Behind the Poems
Anjli Gheewala
Dr Kate Jenkinson
Tracey McEachran
Sarah Moores
Ross Nichols
Sharon Strimling
Elizabeth Papalia
Other Authors
(Your Name Here)
Sharon Strimling is a coach, speaker and writer who lives on a quiet island in a beautiful corner of the world. Smitten by nature and mystery, she writes to them, fumbles through them, falls into them. She tells of tall grasses and pounding waves, the noise of the mind and the quiet of the heart.
Having healed herself from PTSD in her twenties and inspired daily by her clients’ remarkable mental health journeys, Sharon writes with authority to the brilliance beneath our shadows that can never be broken, that knows how to heal.
Sharon coaches youth, entrepreneurs, leadership teams, couples and trauma survivors. She offers retreats on Martha’s Vineyard and internationally, and focuses her voluntary efforts on youth mental health.
Sharon jumped at the opportunity to help create this book, to bring the power of its stories to you. She is the final editor of all stories and poetry.