off script

Someone introduced me a coach last week. I didn’t correct them. Not out loud. But something in my chest pulled back — like a door shutting itself from the inside.

It’s not that the word is wrong. It’s just too accurate in all the wrong ways.

The truth is, I do coach. That’s the verb. I meet with people — through glass and signal — and I move with the living edge of their change. I press into it with them. I provoke, reflect, reframe. I don’t let them leave through the same door they came — because the door isn’t there anymore.
If that’s not coaching, what is?

But the noun — coach — that’s where the distortion creeps in. It’s where a form becomes a performance. A role becomes a costume.
It’s where the shared field we were just tuned into together — unscripted, unarmoured, electric — turns back into a service product, just another line in the marketplace of self.

And I know what happens next: testimonials, click funnels, seven principles, a webinar, free PDF. Somewhere along the way, whatever was alive gets flattened into the pitch.

So no — I don’t call myself a coach.

Not because I’m better than it. But because I’m too close to it. Because I’ve seen what happens when the work starts performing itself. When the space that was meant for you — starts shaping into something to be proven — not trusted.

I’m not here to give you something finished.

I’ve built this practice from the opposite instinct — not polishing, not preparing, not showing up in your life with the perfect framework — but being with people in the moments that don’t fit a method.

And here’s the part that matters:
I don’t do this as a profession. I work like an artist.
I’m not here to deliver a result. I’m here to hold shape while something unnameable unfolds.

This is the same instinct that runs through my writing, my visual work, my refusal to optimise.
I follow form, texture, tension — not outcomes.
And I know how to wait for what isn’t ready to be said.

It won’t always be clear what we’re doing at first. And I won’t pretend that’s a flaw.

Because that’s when the suitcase splits open — and you realise half of what you’ve been carrying isn’t even yours.

So no — I don’t call myself a coach. Because once you name a thing too early, you stop questioning what else it could’ve been.

This work doesn’t wear a badge. It doesn’t sit behind the desk.

I meet you in the space between your stories — the one that once made perfect sense, and the one you haven’t found the words for yet.

Let that be enough.

linked mentions for "Why I Don’t Call Myself a Coach":

1. Prickly Oxheart 
   Unpack old baggage, overcome fear, reclaim autonomy, and create real change. Prickly Oxheart merges coaching and the art of psychology, enabling authentic transformation and self-leadership.