Higher Vibes Coaching Blog

These posts were written for leaders who seek coaching and coaches working at the intersection of identity, trauma, and recovery.

Welcome to the Blog

Your Best Employees Have Side Hustles. That’s the Point.

Dear recruiters and hiring managers, side hustles aren’t a red flag—they’re a power move. People with lives outside work think more sharply, burn out less, and don’t play office politics. If your team needs extra income, that’s a pay issue—not a loyalty problem.

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Workplace Bullying and the Nervous System: How to Respond Without Losing Yourself

Workplace bullying isn't about power — it's about a dysregulated person offloading their panic onto you. Learn why bullies target confident people, what chronic exposure does to your nervous system, and how to fight back without losing yourself.

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Stop Asking Me to Fit In: A Love Letter to the Brave Weirdos at Work

It takes courage to examine what “belonging” actually looks and feels like, so it becomes accessible to more people. Learn how relational leadership and brave authenticity transform workplaces into spaces of trust, repair, and innovation.

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What Mamdani’s Win — and How Cuomo and Trump Reacted — Reveal About Power, Safety, and Change

As fear escalates under Trump’s second term, trauma-informed leadership offers an antidote. Through the lens of Zohran Mamdani’s historic NYC win, we explore how nervous-system awareness, regulation, and ethical power can transform fear-based leadership into connection-based change.

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Performance Improvement Plans and Neurodivergent Employees

Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) are the illusion of fairness. If you’re on one—or giving one—read this before you cause or endure more harm. This deep dive exposes how PIPs damage mental health, reinforce bias, and ignore ADA protections—and includes checklists for employees, managers, and HR. Plus, a glimpse at what comes next: the Human Development Plan.

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Coaching Education, Intersectionality Minal Kamlani Coaching Education, Intersectionality Minal Kamlani

Decolonizing the Coaching Industry: Power, Patriarchy, and the Myth of Neutrality

The coaching industry promises liberation—but too often reproduces colonial and patriarchal power. This article explores how neutrality, credential culture, and “professionalism” sustain dominance, and offers practical steps toward a decolonized coaching ecosystem built for everyone.

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Neutrality Is Not Silence: How Coaches and Leaders Can Honor Identity, Inclusion, and Psychological Safety

Explore why “neutrality” in coaching and leadership often becomes a tool of erasure. This in-depth article reframes neutrality as emotional maturity—not avoidance—and offers new research, inclusive frameworks, and self-reflection tools to help leaders, coaches, and teams build real psychological safety.

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The ADHD / AuDHD Recovery Loop: Why You Burn Out After Every Comeback

ADHD burnout isn’t just exhaustion — it’s chemistry, culture, and chaos colliding. This deep dive unpacks how ADHD and AuDHD brains self-medicate with stimulants and sedatives: caffeine, Adderall, nicotine, THC, alcohol, and anti-anxiety meds. Discover why dopamine spikes, sensory overload, and masking create a perfect storm of overdrive and collapse. You’ll learn how the ADHD recovery loop really works — from hyperfocus highs to emotional hangovers — and why it’s not addiction but adaptation. 

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When People Police You: Their Reactions Say More About Them Than You

When people correct your tone, shrink your expression, or accuse you of being “too much,” it’s not about your behavior — it’s about their discomfort. This article explores the psychology of tone policing, projection, and envy in personal and professional spaces. Learn why people react defensively to authenticity, how silence enables control, and what it means to stand in your power without apologizing for it.

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Adapting the GROW Model with AI for Neurodivergent Clients

Integrating AI with the GROW model enhances adaptability, inclusivity, and personalization for neurodivergent individuals, empowering them with greater self-agency. By leveraging AI for insights, flexible goal-setting, and accountability, ND clients can overcome executive dysfunction, improve brainstorming, and develop action plans that align with their unique thinking styles, while human coaches provide essential emotional depth and ethical guidance for sustainable growth.

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10 Truths About Recovery Every Coach and Client Should Know

Coaching someone in recovery—or coaching yourself—requires more than tools and credentials. These 10 truths cover harm reduction, relapse, identity shifts, and the deep impact of trauma and systemic oppression. If you’re a life coach, wellness practitioner, or trauma survivor learning to lead yourself, this guide lays the foundation for recovery-oriented, trauma-informed coaching that actually supports healing.

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What Hot Seat Therapy and 360° Reviews Have in Common

Too many internal coaches and managers still measure growth by how well you conform to other people’s expectations—especially if you’re neurodivergent, BIPOC, queer, or disabled. The result? More masking. More burnout. Less truth. This post offers a radical reframe of feedback. We’ll also dig into why the beloved 360° review process often mirrors a shady group therapy tactic called hot seat therapy—and how both can go off the rails without care, consent, and context.

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BIPOC Managers: Lead Without Losing Yourself

Being a BIPOC manager means balancing leadership, mentorship, and unspoken expectations—often at the expense of your well-being. Here, we break down the unique challenges, burnout risks, and systemic barriers BIPOC leaders navigate, backed by data, with actionable insights on how to lead without sacrificing yourself.

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The Myth of “I Can Coach Anyone”: How Lily Zheng’s FAIR Framework Elevates Coaching

Discover why the belief that “I can coach anyone” can be harmful to clients and the coaching profession in this eye-opening case study. Learn how Lily Zheng’s FAIR Framework (Fairness, Access, Inclusion, and Representation) can help coaches develop cultural competence and create truly equitable, client-centered coaching experiences.

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Coaching Education, Intersectionality Minal Kamlani Coaching Education, Intersectionality Minal Kamlani

Coaches: Using the Narrative Coaching Model Through an Intersectional Lens

Traditional narrative coaching often focuses on individual mindset shifts without addressing systemic oppression. An intersectional approach helps clients reframe their stories while acknowledging external barriers, validating lived experiences, and fostering both personal and collective empowerment.

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Coaching Education, Intersectionality Minal Kamlani Coaching Education, Intersectionality Minal Kamlani

Coaches: Make the Be-Do-Have Model More Intersectional

The Be-Do-Have Model is often framed in a way that assumes everyone has equal access to the same opportunities, but that’s not the reality for people navigating systemic barriers due to race, gender, disability, class, or other intersectional factors. If coaches want to make it more intersectionality-friendly, we need to acknowledge privilege and structural challenges and redefine success beyond dominant narratives.

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The Dark Side of Coaching: Women Gatekeeping Women

Coaching promotes growth and inclusion, but behind the scenes, competition and quiet gatekeeping often tell a different story—especially for women of color. This is how a seasoned executive-turned-coach navigated subtle but persistent challenges from a fellow coach determined to keep control of the conversation.

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Caregiving: The Unpaid Labor That Women Shoulder (And How to Set Boundaries and Reclaim Your Time)

Caregiving is unpaid, exhausting work that disproportionately impacts women, especially women of color, often forcing them to sacrifice their time, money, and well-being while society takes it for granted. Learn practical strategies to challenge this expectation, including how to set boundaries, push back against guilt, redistribute responsibilities, and reclaim your time—because caregivers deserve support, too.

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THRIVE WITH YOUR VIBE