My Coaching Journey
Coming Home to Self
Coaching for Healing Justice and Liberation
My professional coaching certification is from Coaching for Healing Justice and Liberation. This 9-month program is for BIPOC social justice movement leaders who are committed to learning coaching skills for individual and collective liberation.
The program is all about:
Growing in Self-leadership in order to ground yourself in creativity, compassion, courage, and connectedness.
Deepening your understanding of white supremacy and settler colonialism and how to address them in your community, organization, and the larger movement.
Addressing and releasing individual and generational trauma into a source of joy, abundance, and energy.
Identifying your needs and values and learning to identify needs and values of your team members, coalition partners, elected officials, coach partners, and clients in order to move into alignment with what is longing to be birthed.
Topics included: Resource Interdependence, Somatics, Partswork, Liberation Coaching skills, Creating Energetic Boundaries, Decolonization/Re-indigenization, Abolition and Transformative Justice, Blackness Ancestral Wisdom in Coaching, using coaching skills to address white supremacy and settler colonial culture in organizations, and more.
My cohort was an incredible constellation of humans:
Love Letter to the Movement
Love Letter to the Movement served as our textbook, which is a a beautiful weaving by Sarah and Damon of personal stories and coaching skills to support individuals and communities to connect to what really matters for collective liberation.
Love Letter brings in political analysis, centers Spirit, and offers practical examples and exercises to help deepen individual practice. This book is an important resource for those looking for liberatory tools to support social justice movements.
“Navida: you are a song on the lips of a Beloved. You are an architect of building loving justice ways of being in Self and community. You are a lighthouse of care for yourself and others. Thank you for saying YES.”
Graduation
The final step in our coaching certification wasn’t a paper, it was a visioning project. Instead of submitting a written reflection, we were invited to co-create a visual one. Each of us was paired with a visual artist, and through a series of intimate conversations, we explored three questions: What have you learned about yourself on this journey? Nine months later, what has shifted in how you see yourself? And what are you celebrating about where you are now?
I was partnered with Adriana Contreras, whose artwork became a mirror and a portal. She created a piece that depicts me meeting my highest Self, seated atop a watermelon with its vibrant body opening into a cosmic gateway of liberation. A pomegranate rests nearby, a symbol of the wisdom gained through this journey. The backdrop reveals the cross-section of a pomegranate. Its intricate, womb-like geometry embodying the divine feminine wisdom that cradles, nourishes, and holds it all.
Gratitude to my Teachers, Mentors and Guides
Sarah and Damon, the two co-directors of CHJL, are the pillars that make the magic possible. So much love to them for bringing this coaching school into being and showing us all that you can live the life of your dreams.
Thank you to Henry Wai, whose presence as Cultivator of Virtual Spaces grounded our learning journey in care and connection.
To Alison Lin: deep gratitude for your mentorship. Thank you for listening to my recordings and giving me feedback to help me find my Self stand and connection to intuition.
Thank you to Mohamad Chakaki and Jamari White for the coaching sessions that stretched and deepened me throughout the program.
To Nitika Raj: thank you for walking beside me during the threshold moment of stepping out of the program and into the world as a capital-C Coach. You’ve called me into my power and helped me to witness my own becoming.
And to my peers. Thank you for your vulnerability, humour, and brilliance. Being sea otters with you in the waters of liberation was unforgettable. This journey wasn’t just about becoming coaches, it was about remembering the power of building relationships rooted in love.
CHJL Cohort 4