A Narrative Coach and Spiritual Nomad Empowering Women – Interview With Jinpa Caroline Smith

Jinpa Smith is a narrative coach, teacher and writer. But she is also a longstanding Tibetan Buddhist, nomad and survivor of Cptsd. She lives with chronic pain syndrome and a cat. A life of travel, teaching drama and poetry, being a mother to a Quantum Physicist, and exploring life from the spiritual to the sexual to the intellectual, has given her a unique blend of humour, compassion and wisdom. She believes that journey metaphors can be useful, but so can cycles. There is no arrival, and we are all just doing our best to be happy. She works with people across the planet online and in person, rewriting stories and changing habits.

Jinpa Caroline Smith, Wild Woman Coaching

Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.

My name is Jinpa and I’m 54 years old and I’m surprisingly some kind of digital nomad these days. After a long career in teaching English and drama, education management and writing, I found my way into narrative coaching, which is the perfect match for my skill set and my interests. I live with my partner Mark who is a hypnotherapist and his large dog Dozer, and my small cat Peaseblossom, and at the moment we all live in our campervan and we are travelling. When I’m not on the road, I’m based in the Algarve in Portugal where I complain about the heat, but secretly I love it. I am a practising Tibetan Buddhist, having spent some time in my youth as a nun, and find that this way of seeing the world, including regular meditation, has served me very well in dealing with the ups and downs that life has thrown at me. I have a daughter who is now 26 and she has become a quantum physicist and is building a quantum computer as part of her PhD. Somehow, my Buddhist practices and her scientific ones overlap, and we have a remarkable amount to talk about, although we come from very different angles. What inspired you to start Wild Woman Coaching, and what is the main mission or purpose behind your business?

I was lying on a massage table in Brighton, talking to my wonderful friend and healer, Rachel Blackman, many years ago, and she said, given your life experience, your career path, and just the way you are, I really think you should become a coach. The seed was sown, but it was many years later that I actually trained to become a coach, and very soon retrained in narrative coaching in particular. Narrative coaching suits me well as it is all about telling stories, listening to stories and viewing our life as one long story. Saying something is a story does not undermine its importance or its truth, but it does open it up for possibilities, retelling, reimagining, or discarding. We all grow up with stories that come to us from culture, family, society and friends. How far we live those stories, and for how long, is where we have choices. So, in my coaching practice, this is what I like to do with people: to playfully listen to their stories, support then to map them, explore them, reframe, or indeed, rewrite them. I like to advocate for the story itself when is appears in the coaching space. What is its message? Could you tell me about the range of coaching services you offer to women? What specific areas or aspects of personal or professional development do you focus on?

Whilst not all my clients are women, many of them are. The areas that I help women with mostly relate to those transitions we come to in life. Maybe we’re at a crossroads, we can’t see our spiritual, relationship, or career path very clearly laid out ahead of us and we are trying to find our way. Maybe we feel like we’re not completely aligned with our values and the things that we are doing in our life somehow don’t sit well with the things we believe. A rite of passage or a threshold ritual may be called for.

I also help women who are negotiating new relationship structures. For example, some women are hoping to open up their marriages, or have already done so. Others are exploring the world as a solo poly person and don’t find that the constraints of monogamy are working for them. Having explored these areas in my own life, I can be a sympathetic listener and a guide as I help women navigate these difficult and exciting waters. Indeed, sexuality is also an area that I support many women with - particularly those who would like to explore their sexuality in non-mainstream ways, such as BDSM and sexual play. There are no areas that are taboo for me! I always say the way we do one thing is the way we do everything. So, every story has a pattern somewhere else, including sex. There are many ways in – and sometimes coming in sideways is easier. How do you tailor your coaching approach to meet the unique needs and goals of each individual client?

My coaching approach takes into account the stories I hear. As I get to know my clients, I take in the lives they have built-up in layers and patchworks of stories, metaphors, characters and reactions. They are stiched together in a great blanket, and I call upon stories they have told in the past or imaginings they have had to link them to what they are talking about in the present session. We may be looking at achieving a goal, untying a knot from the past, or exploring new journeys, but each session is completely unique. I do not plan my sessions, but I rely on my experience, knowledge of my client and some intuition, to draw on the many exercises and techniques I have in my tool bag and apply them in the given moment. We may go on a pathworking to explore the unconscious or we may make a practical spider diagram of options. I once helped someone rearrange her furniture during the session – it is all a metaphor afterall. I have a client who regularly visits her ancestors to seek advice and clarity. We may role-play a difficult conversation we have had or would like to have done differently, or indeed one we are going to have in the future. We may embody different aspects of ourselves and look at what they are wearing, how they sound and what they are doing. One of my clients often has her 8-year old self, in her ballet shoes, safely holding hands, accompanying her as she goes into family situations. We sometimes personify and then negotiate with tricky personality aspects, give them funny names, then negotiate with them to integrate themselves into our lives a bit more gently. What sets Wild Woman Coaching apart from other coaching services available in the market? What unique benefits or advantages do you offer to your clients?

I think what is unique about my approach to coaching is that I don’t have a pre-formed idea of where it should go. I’m also not afraid to give advice if it is asked for, and I am extremely creative in the things I get clients to do. I like to play, do drama, encourage writing. I am also a qualified Feng Shui consultant, Chinese astrologer and I regularly use tarot as a way into a session. Where it is welcomed, I prescribe literature. One amazing woman I am working with is reading ‘The Heart of Darkness.’ It all depends on the person. Whilst my training in narrative coaching does form a framework, so does my work in Literature, teaching, senior management, and indeed spiritual practice. So the sessions are fluid, creative, and fun. I like to help people do more than talk, but to solve issues live and in the moment. We find our way together, and I see myself more as a participator on the journey with the honour of holding someone’s hand as they walk, rather than someone who knows more. I create a window through which clients can see their own purpose and journey, but maybe with different hats on and maybe from different angles. I like to create spaciousness and opportunity to try things out in different ways.

Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.

One of the most significant events in my own life in fairly recent years, has been a diagnosis of Complex PTSD. My own journey into understanding it is ongoing, and I’m a few years into the rocky process of healing. Childhood trauma has given me both insight and compassion. I know that working with trauma from the past is never a done deal. We learn techniques to manage inherited pain, but that does not mean that there is a magic wand to make it all okay. Understanding my own past, and how this has impacted my life, health, and relationships has been invaluable to me as a professional. I cannot overestimate how valuable my trauma therapy has been in my own life, and I never forget that every single person that I meet with personally and professionally has an entire story that I know nothing about. So, I really believe in approaching each client’s journey with compassion, delicacy, and curiosity.

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