Niche Coaching those battling with eating disorders

We love to celebrate the success of our coaches many of whom are doing great work within fascinating niches. 

Today we are looking at helping those with eating disorders with Michelle Parsons.

What is your niche?

I deliver very personal support to those who are suffering a battle of disordered eating, helping them towards recovery and freedom to live and love life again.

What made you decide upon your niche?

I held a very successful career in sales management for a vast majority of my adult life. For over 7 years of this time I juggled my career, my life, my family and friends, with, my eating disorder, Bulimia. Whilst learning about coaching and NLP within my job role it helped me to help myself to reach my recovery. It was then that I really felt the need to study this further and help others break free from their own battles with food and disordered eating.

Why are you so passionate about your niche?

I wholeheartedly studied my coaching diploma and NLP Practitioner diploma with The Coaching Academy with my dream in mind of triumphantly helping others reach their own successes. Yet, I had a problem. In one hand I held my dream, my niche and reason for pursuing my new venture, and in the other hand I held my secret, seven years of silence that only three people in my whole world knew about. I recognised that to be effective and congruent to myself with my dream I needed to man-up and reveal my life that nobody knew about or, let go of my dream and return to a comfortable and familiar career within sales management. I chose to man up and chase my dream. I feel so empowered by turning round such a negative situation that almost destroyed me into a huge opportunity to be able to help so many other people on their own journey towards regaining their life, knowing how much this means to them.

What benefits do you see your clients get?

A main benefit I see is that my clients with challenges like this respond really well to someone who has walked their path. Although every client within this field has a hugely different story to tell, for them to know that who they are speaking to truly understands and has been there creates a safe and more comfortable environment, certainly helping the process forward. Many clients I speak to have received counselling, as I had been prescribed. With the combination of my coaching and NLP, I am able to give them a far more future focused approach, to help them leave sessions feeling more empowered and proactive. Two of the most welcomed aspects that clients respond positively to is knowing that, through NLP presuppositions, I truly believe that the ‘person is not their behaviour’ and in 100% of cases we work closely in discovering the positive intention of the behaviour, helping them to work forward. I believe counselling can be effective in certain circumstances, however for myself and also many clients that interact with me, a more proactive and forward thinking approach is called for.

How do you market myself?

This is where my niche can become tricky. Any form of disordered eating is not something people are proud or even happy to reveal, so therefore marketing has to be tactile. In addition to that, the deeper you are absorbed in an eating disorder, the more recluse you become. Due to this reason, social media is good for awareness, those suffering can see you and contact you in private when they are alone. I also I spend a lot of time generating awareness and giving advice for those who are worried about someone they care for via social media sites and local health facilities. I engage in a lot of networking. In fact I wonder how I have time to fit much else in. The reality is, that everyone knows someone who is suffering, but due to the privacy of the illness, they just don’t realise it yet. Creating awareness is key, and networking has definitely taught me, it’s not necessarily what you know or even who you know anymore, it’s who knows you!

What other services do you offer?

I work one to one with clients either face to face, skype or even phone. I also now provide interactive packages for clients to use on a more ‘supported home study’ basis if they wish, again a lot of clients would feel more comfortable accessing me via email or web rather than having to speak directly, yet still receive the benefits that my packages take them through.

What sort of challenges do you help people with?

It would be too obvious to say I help them overcome their challenges with food and eating habits. In essence it is that, though on a far deeper level. Clients have anything from anorexia or bulimia to compulsive eating, binge eating, food addictions or simply can’t stop picking! We work on the identifying the actual root cause of a client’s thoughts and beliefs that lead to these unhelpful behaviours then progress towards accepting them, understanding them and finally replacing them with more resourceful ones.

Do you have a coach myself?

Yes I do, I have a corporate coach to help me keep focused, stimulate my mind and generate new exciting ideas, often ones that I don’t even realise I have within me, for my marketing and my business on an operational level. Due to the nature of my work, I have ensured I also have another, really fantastic coach who is also an NLP Practitioner, who helps to ensure that my own physical, social, well-being and psychological needs are met, keeping me happy and healthy to, which I feel is very important.

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