The Wholehearted Certification Decolonized Coaching Philosophy
MEET OUR FOUNDER & TEAM AND LEARN ABOUT OUR VALUES
“The Wholehearted Coaching Certification was created out of my deep love for coaching and my belief in what this modality can truly do. This certification is my love letter to a modality that changed my life and the lives of the countless folks I’ve had the privilege to work with.”
I’m Shirin. I’m the founder of Wholehearted Coaching and the Wholehearted Coaching Certification.
Throughout my career as a certified coach, I have worked with 1000’s of incredible humans helping them achieve their biggest dreams. I have facilitated workshops for companies including Google, Ulta, The Sundance Film Festival and Microsoft. And I have been featured as a wellness expert in the NY Times, The Today Show, Shape Magazine and Cosmopolitan. Prior to building my coaching practice, I was an award-winning opera singer, performing at Carnegie Hall and The Metropolitan Opera.
I found coaching during a time in my life when I felt very lost and unsure of who I was.
I felt completely unfulfilled and undervalued in my career. I knew I wanted to be of service and to make a real impact in the world. But I also knew that I didn’t want to go back to school (you know what I mean?).
I found my first coach through a podcast. That one decision changed my life. By working with her, I found myself again and I found a new career- coaching.
I started Wholehearted Coaching close to a decade ago. At the time, my practice began with me coaching a handful of one-on-one clients. My business has now expanded into multiple group coaching programs, several online courses, a membership and international retreats. I have been featured on the Today Show, The New York Times, The Doctors, Shape, and Cosmopolitan Magazine.
And I now get the incredible privilege of helping others step into this incredible career, where they can not only be of service to others but create a business and a life they love.
Our mission at the Wholehearted Life Coaching Certification is to change the landscape of coaching by fostering a new generation of diverse coaches who practice through a decolonized lens that prioritizes healing, inclusivity and liberation for all.
This certification is my love letter to coaching. I deeply believe in the power of this work and I also recognize that there is a lot of harm and toxicity in the coaching industry.
So much of what we call coaching today is a watered-down, toxic version of a modality that is centuries old. We have come to a point where many coaches don’t want to call themselves a coach, not because they don’t believe in what they are doing but because they don’t want to be associated with the negative stereotypes connected to this work.
When it comes down to it, the issue isn’t coaching. It’s how folks are coaching. And if we look at the core issue, it’s connected to the education that coaches receive or the lack thereof. This is why I created The Wholehearted Coaching Certification.
I want to bring the heart and soul back to coaching.
The Wholehearted Coaching Certification is a holistic life coaching certification that shows you how to become the impactful coach you deeply desire to be. We want our students to have a diverse toolkit. We delve into somatics, mindfulness, ethics, inclusivity, trauma-informed space holding and how to reduce harm in coaching spaces.
Our Wholehearted Coaches are making a real impact in the real world. From TEDX talks to podcasts and group coaching programs, they are truly living out their dreams. We have coaches who focus on various coaching fields- business, parenting, executive, health. And we have graduates who have applied their learnings to their careers such as teaching, physical therapy, movement, HR and birthing work.
If you’ve gotten this far, it most likely means that you’ve dreamt of becoming a coach. Imagine what could be possible once you become certified as a Wholehearted Coach.
Will you be leading retreats?
Will you be creating intimate group coaching programs?
Will you be working with the communities you hold most dear?
What kind of impact will you be having in the world?
During The Wholehearted Coaching Certification, you will be given the tools and support to become the coach that you desire to be and to create the business of your dreams.
I so hope that I get to do this work with you and help you unlock the coach within.
Love,
Shirin
Values and Mission
Our mission at The Wholehearted Coaching Certification is to change the landscape of the coaching industry by fostering a new generation of diverse coaches who practice with ethics, skill and care. We aim to make coaching a more diverse and inclusive space by training coaches who practice through a healing-centered lens that aims to create liberation for both the coach and the communities they work with.
Our Core Values
INTEGRITY
A wholehearted coach is committed to an ethical practice that upholds the values that they hold most dear. They are committed to their learning journey so that they can practice with as much care, ethics, and skills as possible
COMMUNITY
A wholehearted coach is committed to creating equitable and inclusive spaces where people feel and know they belong.
EQUITY
A wholehearted coach is committed to challenging policies, power structures, and beliefs that stand in the way of collective liberation. They commit to explore and understand the needs of others so they can practice equitable processes that create equality for all.
POSSIBILITY
A wholehearted coach is committed to ways of being, dreaming and believing that move beyond the possible and stretch into the unimaginable.
Core Principles of Coaching
From Coaching for Transformation, 8
People are whole and simultaneously moving toward a fuller experience of their wholeness.
People are inherently resourceful and wise
People have the freedom to choose how they respond
Honoring the full diversity of our experiences and intersections expands awareness
Much more is possible than any of us can imagine
It’s time to reclaim what coaching is and can be.
Our Team
Coaching Mentors
Juanita Molano Parra
Juanita is an Engineer and MBA turned Life and Leadership Coach. She is originally from Colombia and moved to the US almost a decade ago, first to New York to attend Business School at NYU Stern, and then to Indianapolis where she currently lives.
For a decade, Juanita worked in Corporate Finance with multinational companies in Consumer Products, Retail and Tech. She entered the world of leadership via coaching: starting her own coaching business, training new coaches through Accomplishment Coaching, and more recently partnering with Edge Mentoring and Purposefused
In her business, Jump Coaching, Juanita works with multicultural, kind and soulful business creators through individual and group coaching. She offers honest and vulnerable conversations that support them in connecting with themselves so that they get to fully express who they are and bring it to their organizations, their communities, their relationships and their lives.
Juanita leads her clients to recognize that their power lies in the intersection of seemingly disparate domains. In that, she gets to create beautiful deep connection that are both fun and powerful, and foster a space for expansion for her clients.
Juanita coaches both in English and Spanish which allows her to support a wider range of leaders across the continent and generate the ripples of impact she is committed to creating.
Anela Barboza Seliskar
Anela Barboza Seliskar (she/her/ʻoia/they) is a PCC Certified Somatic, Transformation, and Leadership Coach and Mentor Coach. She is deeply committed to creating a safe and loving container for exploring questions of identity, culture, race, relationship to place/home, and resiliency as a means of personal transformation and healing.
Anela’s perspective has been shaped by her experience as a diasporic kanaka maoli, born and raised away from her home, culture, and into assimilation. Impacted by cultural isolation, her personal transformation included Somatics as a means to healing the cord that connected family to land and to one another. In 2022, she returned her family back home and lives full-time on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, in the sunbelt of Keaau, Puna.
Guest Teachers
Jessica Dickson
Jessica Denise Dickson is a life empowerment coach who teaches and coaches for the reclamation of our full humanity through the intersections of the Enneagram, antiracism, and embodiment. She does this in one-on-one coaching, in groups and workshops, and with organizations.
To this work, Jessica brings a Master’s degree in Counseling from the University of Central Florida, a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan, a (now expired) teaching certification in the state of FL, a Career Counseling Certificate from the University of Central Florida, an Entrepreneurship Certificate from the University of California San Diego, a Training Certificate from the ATD, a certificate in How to Communicate Effectively from Dale Carnegie, and embodiment training with several teachers.
In addition to that, she brings over 15 years of experience in diversity education; 9 years as an Enneagram student and teacher; time as an adjunct professor at the university level, developing and delivering curriculum; several years recruiting, training, and providing professional development for staff; a commitment to her own personal and professional growth; and more.
Jessica supports clients in healing work that leads us to equity, justice, and freedom on interpersonal and collective levels. When we do this work, we live more authentically with self-trust, self-safety, and fully-embodied freedom. This work echoes into our communities and beyond. When we do this, we change the world.
Sam Greenleaf Miller
Sam Greenleaf Miller (they/them) is a queer and trans psychotherapist working in New York City. They specialize in treating trauma, depression, and anxiety and its impact on patients' relationships, capacity for intimacy, careers, and self-concept. Their work is psychodynamic and attachment-focused and rooted in the belief that feeling truly seen and heard holds the radical potential for healing.
Sam received a Bachelor of Arts in Critical Theory and Studio Art from Sarah Lawrence College in 1999 and a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work from Smith College in 2011. Sam spent their formative years teaching Safer Sex Education to Middle and High School students as well as working for many years as a Sex Educator at Babeland and continues to invest in this area of study through clinical trainings on relationships, sex, sexuality, intimacy, and desire.
Additionally, they continue their clinical training in the relational and intersubjective traditions of contemporary psychoanalysis via personal supervision and through attending workshops, talks, and conferences at the various relationally oriented psychoanalytic institutes in NYC.
Amy BerberVanzo
My name is Amy BeberVanzo. I help people discover what they want and how to make it happen. Meaningful practices have made me successful in many aspects of life and business. I bring this success to my work with teams & leaders, small business owners, and individuals in times of transition.
I work as a Somatic Coach, as a Mentor Coach, and as a Feldenkrais Practitioner. Somatic Coaching: operationally, what it means to my clients is learning how to listen to all their resources --body and mind -- to build a more complete self-awareness. Each of us comes through life shaped by our experiences.
Katie Kurtz
Katie Kurtz, MSW LISW-S (she/her) is a leader in trauma-informed care and its application across multi-disciplinary industries. Over the last decade, Katie has specialized in using trauma-informed practices to inform and lead curricula, programming and collaborative initiatives within the healthcare, government and business sectors.
Katie is the author of the Trauma Competency Framework™ and Trauma-Informed Space Holding (TISH) Blueprint™ which is the foundation of her trainings and consultation. She is also the author of the Contain Card Deck©, a reflective tool to hold space for yourself and others which was published in fall 2022.
Katie is a partner and Chief of Content & Consultation of the Evellere Group-a social impact consulting firm. Her leadership and work has been awarded and internationally recognized within both the social work and coaching fields.
Katie holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Gender Studies from the University of Dayton as well as a Master of Social Work degree and Certificate in Non-Profit Management from Case Western Reserve University. Katie is a licensed independent social worker with supervision designation (LISW-S) in the state of Ohio, an Internationally Certified Coach with BYCA, and a trauma-informed 200hr registered yoga teacher.
Katie’s approach is her own but instructed & inspired by so many teachers & modalities most notably but not limited to: Julie Parker, Resmaa Menakem, Brene Brown, Nadine Burke Harris, Zabie Yamasaki, Bruce Perry, Ann Linnea and Christina Baldwin. Katie lives as a guest on the unceded stolen lands known as Cleveland, Ohio with her partner and puppy.
Tristan Katz
Tristan Katz (they/he) is a writer, educator, digital strategist, and equity-inclusion facilitator. They offer training and consulting on gender equity, trans inclusion, queer competency, and justice-focused marketing practices. Tristan’s intention is to share this work with an anti-oppression and intersectional lens.
He was named one of Yoga Journal’s 2021 Game Changers and awarded the Reclamation Ventures grant in Spring 2021 to expand his offerings and dedicate time to writing their first book.
Tristan is proud to serve on the Board of Directors at Accessible Yoga—a non-profit working, through education and advocacy, to share the teachings and benefits of yoga with those who have been marginalized, and to identify and remove barriers to access, build strong networks, and advocate for an accessible, equitable yoga culture.
Danielle Davis
I launched LD in 2019, after I’d spent 16+ years steeped in a career of talent development, strategic planning, and training design and delivery in the education and nonprofit sectors. My roles and areas of impact consistently focused on organizational culture and development, with a unique concentration on the influence of identity, wellness, and race. I bring an active lens of formal training as well as lived experience to the work — both of which equally influence my approach, ethos, and theory of change.
When we develop ourselves and our teams, not from a fixed formula of what leadership and work “should” be, but from a place that makes room for the unique variables that each person brings, the result will always be belonging, inclusion and liberation. This is where innovation lives and where leaders grow and thrive!
Emily Anne Bryant
Emily is an Indigenous author, speaker & mentor working at the intersection of personal development and decolonization. She’s on a mission to decolonize the personal development industry! Emily works both directly with folks of the global majority (“BIPOC”) as an empowerment coach, and is also a consultant for ally coaches who want to decolonize their business. At the heart of it all is fostering communities where everyone feels seen, safe, and truly supported so that we can all rise together!
Kunbi Odobogun
I help businesses and brands like yours become legally secure. I am an Attorney and Online Business Owner with over 10 years of experience in the creative and legal industries. My practice in New York focuses on providing strategic legal guidance to help entrepreneurs stay out of trouble while growing and maintaining a successful business.