Somewhere along the way amongst our culture’s definition of “having it all” and “productivity is progress,” we sought to sooth our burnout by chasing the ghost of “work-life balance.” We cast lassos over our precious, wild, bucking time and in this very struggle for control, we are left overwhelmed, bone-tired, and jittery from the high highs, and the low lows of being a working parent.
To boot, our caretaking stretches beyond the long hours of our career and parenting. Work is not in equal proportion to everything else we call Life: relationships with our children, partners, friends, community, spirituality and most importantly, ourselves. In our attempt to balance a lopsided equation, we end up juggling haphazardly, creating imbalances within ourselves.
Part of working with me includes tending to these imbalances by increasing the quality of self-awareness, self-regulation, and authenticity. With newfound inner balance, we gently unsubscribe from unconscious or inauthentic scripts, desires, and expectations that are not your own. We do this through values-based work, an honest look at existing beliefs, and an orientation for creative thinking. This is how we can and must make space for what really matters.
Together, we will move away from the multiplicity of roles, facades and emotional strategies that drain our energy. Instead, we’ll design a singular framework for putting your values into action whether you’re in the meeting room or the baby room. Because here’s the thing: The way we lead in parenting can be the way we lead professionally, and the way we lead professionally can be the way we lead as parents. Only then, through this work, life can begin to feel less like a juggle and more like flow - purposeful, sustainable, graceful and yes, pleasurable.
Sessions together may take us in different directions. Your job will be to drive and mine will be to keep you from falling asleep at the wheel. Whether it’s work, family, or parenting related, topics explored may include our relationship to leadership, boundaries, feedback, play, and trust. We may also address tactical strategies related to prioritization, organization, conflict meditation, negotiations, triggers in parenting, sleep deficit, struggles with our children’s cooperation, and the incessant noise of guilt.
I’m passionate about working with people ready for change. So, if you’re curious to talk about living that examined life that all the scruffy poets moan about, you’re in good company. Welcome. Book a Session.
About Me
After decades nurturing a career built on forming high-trust, high-achieving, creative teams in the space of design and storytelling, I realized my favorite part of the gig was understanding the inner workings of the individuals I was leading and collaborating with.
My colleagues were more than just inspiring artists, creatives and producers. They were mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and so on. They held adult- and child-hood stories that were riddled with unconscious beliefs and feelings that I wanted to understand more deeply in service of connection and empathy. Through them and my own remarkably intense parenting journey, I became aware of my own…stuff. And so, an investigative love affair with my own stories and healing process began which later led me to a career in coaching and working with parents.
Way before becoming a successful producer in Advertising and a Coach later, however, I was being raised by well-meaning, divorced immigrant parents hustling for food and financial safety. Their fear-based loving and disconnection from my big feelings created a profound drive to free myself, first, through physical and emotional distance and later, through deep introspection along my professional and parenting paths.
Today, as a Martha Beck certified Coach, I support career-driven individuals and/or parents through 1-on-1 coaching, parent education, parent-and-child classes, and support groups. In between, I co-parent two daughters via an edgy practice of respectful parenting that baffles my Cuban family till this day. To support my physical, emotional and spiritual systems, I practice Vedic Meditation, psychotherapy and somatic technologies. Simply put, I have a team to help me break out of generational patterns, and I hope that I can be a part of yours.
ilianahekimian@gmail.com
