Steady Path Consulting, LLC
About
Life can be so hard sometimes. But you're not alone... mindfulness can help you ease your way forward and learn to love yourself. Working with a compassionate coach, and practicing mindfulness, you can develop skills to help you feel focused and peaceful even as as you deal with all kinds of stressful, anxiety-producing situations.
Steady Path Consulting provides mindfulness-based coaching services for three types of major life transitions: career changes, divorce, and spousal caregiving. If you are struggling with one of these situations, Steady Path can help you transform the way you engage with yourself and the world around you. Coaching provides you with a safe space to discuss your regrets about the past, your anxieties about the future, and how hard it is to deal with everything going on in the present.
I'm Dr. Mahri Irvine, and after working for 20 years with nonprofits, higher ed, and state government agencies, I found that my true passion is in working one-on-one with people who resilient and ambitious, but who are also struggling with major life changes.
I work primarily with people who are dealing with these types of major life transitions: career changes; divorce; or spousal caregiving. I've personally dealt with all three of these types of situations; I understand how traumatizing, devastating, and grief-inducing these challenges can be. I am currently a spousal caregiver for my partner, who is a long-term survivor of a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury).
Certified by Coach Training Alliance and committed to trauma-informed, mindfulness-based approaches, my coaching services can help you feel calmer, more focused, and more positive, even when you're dealing with immense challenges.
Values
I launched Steady Path Consulting because of my own personal experiences with the transformative powers of meditation and mindful living. After going through a distressing divorce, an anxiety-producing career transition, and then becoming a spousal caregiver, I realized how incredible it was that I wasn't more stressed out, depressed, and anxious! Sure, I still struggled with feelings of shame, guilt, and confusion -- but even through all these challenging situations, meditation nurtured my soul and helped me build a solid foundation of trust in myself.
Just like all humans, I still experience negative, intrusive thoughts and emotions. But because of how meditation has changed me, I am no longer overwhelmed or distracted by negative emotions or other people's drama. Meditation lit a slow, warm light burning within me, and now that light steadily guides my path forward, no matter how dark or unclear my future looks.
Over the past decade, meditation has helped me learn to love myself and feel confident in myself, even when the world around me is in chaos. Meditation has made me more resilient; it has helped me overcome profound feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety. I launched Steady Path Consulting because I wanted to share the knowledge and insights I've gained from almost a decade of regular meditation practice.
Every day, I meet people who feel like they're just barely hanging on. They are dealing with unhappy relationships, toxic workplaces, or traumatizing caregiving situations. They feel like their lives are out of control. And the reality is, many aspects of their lives are out of control! I created Steady Path Consulting to help people slow down, breathe deeply, and recognize how their attempts at controlling the uncontrollable might be making their lives feel even harder. Through individual coaching sessions and ongoing homework assignments, I help my clients learn to reflect on their situations, accept what is outside of their control, and move forward with clear goals to help them create lives that are more peaceful and fulfilling.
Steady Path Consulting is based on three core values: mindfulness; understanding and addressing the impact of trauma; and providing services that are simple and affordable.
Mindfulness-Based
Mindfulness refers, quite simply, to being aware of what's happening in the present moment. Our coaching sessions will be guided by your goals, priorities and values -- but I'll constantly work with you to help you recognize, identify, and explore how you are feeling, what is actually happening in the present moment, and how your thoughts might be affecting you physically. Sessions may include short guided meditations, and "homework" assignments will encourage meditative activities.
I have benefited from a daily meditation practice since 2018; I turned to meditation for help when I was going through a divorce. Prior to committing to a daily practice, I practiced meditation more inconsistently, with an on-and-off approach, since 2012. I was lucky to attend many meditation classes at The Mindfulness Center, a science-based program created by Dr. Deborah Norris.
My mindfulness-based approach to coaching also emphasizes our innate connection to the natural world. This is because being mindful means that we pay attention not just to our bodies, thoughts, and feelings, but we also recognize how we are part of the larger universe. Our mental and physical health are influenced by our interactions (or our lack of interactions) with nature, including sunlight, fresh air, soil, water, animals, and plants. Your coaching "homework" assignments will encourage nature-based activities to help you develop and expand your mindful presence in the natural world.
Trauma-Informed
Steady Path's coaching services are based on structured sessions; this strategy can be especially helpful for people who are trauma survivors or who are dealing with major upheavals in their lives. This is because many trauma survivors want to feel assured that they are in control of their environments or what is happening around them. Consistently structured sessions can help people feel more stable and secure, because they will know what to expect each time during each interaction.
Within these structured sessions, however, we will explore the exact opposite of control -- we will discuss how to feel peaceful and content even in the midst of chaos and unexpected situations. Life can be incredibly difficult, upsetting, and traumatizing -- but a mindful approach to life can help us breathe, slow down, and learn to respond instead of react.
I spent the first half of my career working on issues related to sexual violence, domestic violence, and child abuse, and I am a trauma survivor. I am very knowledgeable about how abuse and neglect affect people's mental and physical health; I worked with hundreds of survivors and I extensively researched sexual and domestic violence. Currently, I'm a spousal caregiver; I understand, from personal experience, how traumatic it is to watch helplessly as my partner's health declines. These experiences make me very committed to ensuring that my coaching services will be as trauma-informed as possible. I understand that each client might have experienced different types of trauma, and might need different forms of support.
Coaching is not the same as mental health counseling. You are welcome to continue or begin counseling while engaging in coaching sessions with me. Counseling can be extremely beneficial for people who are trauma survivors, or for people who are dealing with ongoing traumatic situations. Coaching can be very beneficial, too. It's important for you to seek out the resources that will be the best fit for you.
Simple and Affordable
Trained and certified by Coach Training Alliance, my approach to coaching is to ensure that we spend our time really focusing on what's important to help you achieve your stated goals.
All sessions are conducted by phone -- not video. This is a strategy that I learned in my training; phone-based sessions help both you and me focus carefully on you and what you're trying to express. Sometimes, video sessions create unnecessary visual distractions or put pressure on people who are concerned about their appearances; phone-based sessions allow us to focus on what really matters. However, if you have a disability that necessitates video sessions instead, I am happy to make arrangements for you.
I always offer a free, full length session to prospective clients. Coaching is a serious commitment of your time, energy, and money. It's important for you to feel confident that we'll be a good fit before you make this investment in your health.
While some coaching businesses tend to charge what I consider rather extravagant fees, Steady Path Consulting is different. I am committed to providing quality coaching services for a wide variety of clients, including clients who do not have vast amounts of disposable income. Sliding-scale discounts are available for those who need them. Significant discounts are available for spousal caregivers.
Services
Coaching services are simple and straightforward. They are phone-based and do not require an app. One-hour sessions occur weekly, at a consistent time that you and I will agree upon in advance. Services are available on weekdays, evenings, or weekends. Each week, you'll be given some short homework assignments or prep work to do in advance of our next session.
Services are available for 1-month, 3-month, or 6-month time periods, with the option to renew at the end of the service period.
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Contact
Please fill out my consultation request form, and I will reach out to you so we can set up a convenient time to talk. I look forward to learning about you and your incredible life!
