Narrative Coaching
Something has to change. You can feel it.
For people done living someone else's story and ready to write their own.
rooted stories. restored hope. reclaimed power.
Most of us are walking around inside narratives we didn’t write. They were handed to us by families, faiths, relationships, and systems that cast us as supporting characters in someone else’s plot.
Maybe you didn’t write yours. Maybe you did, and you’ve outgrown it. Either way, you know something has to change.
Narrative coaching is a creative, story-based practice for people who are ready to act, not just understand. Using tools from theatre, storytelling, and the narrative arts, we look at the story that’s been running your life, name it clearly, and figure out what you know in your bones about what comes next.
This isn’t therapy. It’s a thinking partnership grounded in imagination, honesty, and the belief that you are the author of your own life.
Who this is for
You might be ready for this if:
You’re at a crossroads — a career decision, a relationship pattern, a life chapter that isn’t working — and you can feel it but can’t quite name it
You’re carrying a story about yourself that feels inherited rather than chosen: too small, too polished, too much someone else’s version of you
You keep living out the same pattern in relationships, work, or identity, and you are done with it
You’re neurodivergent, creative, or both, and traditional approaches to self-understanding have never quite fit the shape of your mind
Something in you knows what’s true, but you can’t quite hear it over the noise
How we work
I use narrative, metaphor, storytelling, and sometimes unexpected creative tools — drawing, folk tale, theatre, even play — to help you see the story that’s been running you from the outside. Awareness tends to arrive sideways. That’s by design.
Then we figure out what you actually know in your bones: what’s true, what you want, and what story you are ready to live instead.
This work is rooted in the Narrative Triad: Narrative Arts → Narrative Awareness → Narrative Agency.
Because so many of our most powerful narratives began in childhood, we often have to teach our new stories to the parts of us that learned the old one first. That might mean writing letters to your younger self, keeping a journal addressed to your inner child, or turning your new story into a simple children’s tale or picture book and reading it aloud over time, until it starts to feel true in your body as well as your thoughts.
Some days the work happens on its feet. We might explore a scene, step into a character, or borrow a moment from Shakespeare to try on a different way of being. We might reach for stories that have been doing this kind of heavy lifting for centuries — folk tales, fairy tales, myths, or fables — and use them as mirrors to see your own narrative more clearly. And often we will make room for getting it “wrong” on purpose: playing with failure, letting a choice fall flat, or allowing yourself to be delightfully imperfect, just to find out what actually happens.
The tools follow the person. Not the other way around.
Some of the thresholds I work with
Narrative coaching can meet you in many places. Some of the most common thresholds my clients bring:
Career pivots or reinventions — when the work that has defined you stops working for you
Divorce, separation, or the end of a long relationship — unwriting a shared story
Religious deconstruction — leaving a faith or high-control community that handed you your entire narrative
Creative reawakening — returning to your practice after a long silence, or beginning for the first time
Living in a changing body — aging, illness, hair loss, weight changes, and the stories you were taught about what your body means
Parenthood and self-loss — finding yourself again inside or after the all-consuming story of caregiving
Neurodivergent identity — making sense of a diagnosis or realization that reframes your whole history
Repeating relationship patterns — when the same dynamic keeps showing up and you’re ready to understand why
Surviving and leaving — abuse, control, or family systems that rewrote you
The “I did everything I was supposed to” story — when the life you built still feels wrong
This work is not limited to these areas. But if you see yourself in any of these thresholds, we will have plenty to work with.
Three ways to work together
Story Audit — $150
90 minutes. One session. See where you are.
A focused 90‑minute session to look at the story you’re currently living, where it came from, where it’s taking you, and what it might want to become. Many people start here and leave with more clarity, whether or not we keep working together.
New Chapter Sessions — $480
Four 90‑minute sessions over 6–8 weeks to help you close one chapter with intention and begin the next one on purpose.
For people at a crossroads: a decision, a pattern, or a chapter that needs to close. We work together long enough to reach the moment of real seeing, and then map what comes next so you can actually live the new story you’re writing.
The Ongoing Story — $250/month
Two 90-minute sessions each month to keep tending the new chapter as it unfolds, with the flexibility to cancel anytime.
For people who are actively living their new chapter and want a thinking partner alongside them as they go. We work together month by month, naming what’s shifting, holding the thread, and helping your new story take root in the way you live and lead.
Not sure where to start? The Story Audit is the easiest yes. One session, no commitment, and you will leave with something real whether or not we work together further.
About Janine
I’ve spent twelve years working at the intersection of theatre, folklore, and the science of how stories shape human lives. I’m a Global Arts in Medicine Fellow, a trained folklorist, and the creator of the Narrative Triad framework. I bring genuine warmth, deep craft, and more than a little play to this work.
But more than any credential: I know what it is to be living inside the wrong story. And I know what it feels like when something finally clicks.
