Susie Raymond of White Sage Spa fondly notes how many of her clients open up to her and share life’s quandaries as she provides their facials and reiki. Seeing a broad opportunity to help transform others, Raymond is expanding her emotional-empowerment life coaching services. She provides one-on-one meetings, workshops and empowerment groups for women.

“I’ve been coaching for 12 years, and it’s really just what I feel most passionate about,” she enthuses. “Especially in today’s environment, people need emotional support and a safe place to land and unpack their emotions.”

Raymond attended the Institute of Beauty and Wellness and started practicing as a licensed esthetician in 1999. She’s a reiki master teacher certified in Clear Inner Focus Education & Coaching, and Emotional Empowerment, through the International Institute for Emotional Empowerment.

“Both of those are focused on understanding emotions and the empowered emotions in our messages. It’s not about ‘just think positive and it will be fine,’” she explains. “We work on understanding why this sadness keeps coming up, and we really look at negative emotions and read the powerful messages to help us in all of our emotions.”

Women in their 40s comprise much of her clientele, Raymond says. Many have reached career and family milestones and now feel stuck. “There’s just a lackluster feeling in their lives. They’re on a treadmill and not really feeling that zest for life. I teach women the value of self-care and how to shift to a mindset that it’s not selfish to take care of yourself. In our society, there’s a very strong belief that if a woman is practicing self-care, she’s being selfish. It’s far more prevalent with women than with men. Men have an easier time giving themselves permission than women do.”

Raymond notes that many people might come to her thinking that they want to change jobs or find their passion, and she acts as a catalyst to guide people toward understanding their own internal habits and patterns, and then working with them to provide the tools and processes they need. Her ultimate goal is helping clients learn how to coach themselves.

Life coaching differs from counseling or therapy in that with life coaching, Raymond says her typical client does not have a clinical diagnoses such as depression or anxiety. “My clients have a level of self-awareness, knowing that there’s more joy to life than what they’re experiencing, but they just don’t know how to grasp it,” she says. “I’m not ‘fixing’ my clients; I’m helping them to see their own solutions. I provide powerful, insightful questions for us to investigate and uncover—but they have the solutions.”

Raymond coaches clients one-on-one, in person or virtually. She offers a free 30-minute discovery session to help determine if their coaching-client relationship would be a good fit. She developed group coaching to provide another avenue for women who find one-on-one coaching cost prohibitive. In her group coaching, Raymond often refers to the simple wisdom behind The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, by Don Miguel Ruiz. “It’s simple wisdom—be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and do your best,” she says.

While Raymond is always inspired to see the transformation in others, she also enjoys discovering her own human behavior. “I really look at myself as an ongoing student of life. Everything I’m coaching someone on, I’m applying to myself. I have to live what I teach. I have to be the model,” she concludes.