Hi, I’m Lynne Fairchild, Wayfinding Coach.
I’m a Professional Certified Coach. Since 1997, I’ve helped Women Breadwinners find their way to a life of balance, ease, joy, and authenticity.
I know a lot about the cost of being less-than-authentic and of living out of balance. And about the toll it takes, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
More importantly, now, I know a lot about how to bring it back into balance and to live authentically, with greater ease and joy.
My raison d’etre is to help Women Breadwinners find their way back to a life of balance, ease, joy, and authenticity.
I lost all of that for myself for almost two decades, and that set me on a quest to discover how to reclaim those things for myself, as well as how to help others, particularly women who are essential or primary breadwinners, reclaim them also.
Life is too short to live in struggle or to live inauthentically. We all deserve to be the joyful, creative, resourceful human beings that we really are.
My Story
I’m fortunate that I got a clear wake-up call – to my life – when I was in my late 30’s.
I became disabled for several months, and I knew immediately that this was the cumulative effect, on my physiology, of me denying my true self for years.
It scared me and it got my attention.
The truth is that I had known for years, in my heart, that I was putting a big part of my life and who I wanted to be on hold.
At the time I was a very successful professional, working at a large multinational organization. My work was a big part of who I was and my work was important to me. But there were huge parts of my life and my self that I was neglecting.
My small inner voice (which was very small at the time!) kept telling me that there was more to life, and that I had dreams.
The main dream was “just” to have a more balanced life, which seemed simple enough in concept, but very far away in reality.
I was disconnected from nature, living in the middle of a city of 3 million people, and living in close contact with nature is absolutely essential to my soul.
I was being someone who wasn’t me in my relationship. I was betraying myself and out of alignment with my core values.
I kept putting off my creative dreams until I had “more time,” but, as we all know, more time never seems to just come.
In short, I was sacrificing everything else in my life at the altar of my work.
I started to get a series of physical maladies, but each time I just went to the doctor and got it fixed, all the while denying the deeper issues of the malaise of my soul and spirit.
It was in the middle of all of this that my parent both got cancer and passed away within 15 months of each other.
That was my definitive wake-up call. I knew right then that life is too short to keep postponing the calling of your true self.
The story of how I managed to turn everything around and begin to live in alignment with my true self, and to reclaim a sense of balance for myself, can wait for another time. What I have learned is infused in all the work I do and the products I create. The details aren’t important, because your details will be different.
Suffice it to say that it doesn’t have to be nearly so dramatic or so difficult as it was for me. We are creative beings. Change and transformation are natural parts of our life journey, and they do not need to be feared. They are really the greatest adventures of our lives, and the most life-giving.
What I realize now is that I was going through a crisis of faith, of faith in myself and in the process of life.
I could not see a way out, so I kept postponing action and denying the calling of my life.
Now I know that what was really going on: I could not see an easy way out, and I wasn’t sure enough of who I was and what I really wanted to have the guts to move into unknown territory.
It’s one thing to move forward into the unknown territory of life without a map; that is often the case in life, and especially in transition. (The mythologist Joseph Campbell said, “If you have a map, it’s someone else’s map.”)
But to move without a compass is another thing entirely. When you don’t know your own True North, now that is a scary proposition.
My Now
As I learned to live connected to my inner guidance, and to use my inner compass to find my path and direct my life, I devoted my work to helping other women reorient to their inner compasses as well. We all deserve to live with the sense of balance, joy, ease, and authenticity that comes from knowing that inner connection, 24/7.
In the last two decades, I’ve worked to get the life coaching credentials to back up my intuitive knowledge of human change and transformation, and I have worked with a spiritual director to discern my path and refine my spiritual practice.
The Personal Stuff
I now live on 5 acres in the woods, in the country, with nature close at hand, and an intimate part of my day, every day. I’m married and have 2 dogs. And, I work from a home office, which, for me, is an ideal situation.
I am an artist, working in two primary mediums: watercolor and black ink drawings (the drawings you see on this site are mine, except the one above which was done by my husband Harold), and stained art glass mosaic.
I have been a life long seeker and spiritual journey-er. I have also been a life-long journal-er. My journals when I was a kid were more diary-like (I even developed my own code to write in my journals, so my little brother couldn’t read them!), but even then I was exploring the questions of the meaning of life. I’ve since understood that we don’t find the meaning of life, we create it.
In the last few years, I have brought together my passions of spirituality, life coaching, art, and journaling, into the work that I now do, both in custom coaching and the Spiritual Time-Out Kits that I create and offer for sale.
I feel blessed beyond measure.
And, I’ve also learned that remaining in balance is not always easy, and that it requires a sustained commitment and attention. It’s way worth it, but you just can’t let lapse your attention on your connection to your inner wisdom. That’s why I developed Spiritual Time Out Kits.
The Credentials
I am a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation. I am also a Master Practitioner of NLP. I’m a member of Spiritual Directors International.
Since 1997, I have had an international professional life coaching practice, working with clients over the phone, from the U.S., Canada, Central and South America, Denmark, France, South Africa, and the U.K.
As I have mentioned, I work primarily with Women Breadwinners to help them find their way to a life of balance, ease, joy, and authenticity. And, I do work with some very special male clients as well!
I have worked extensively with groups as a life coach, facilitator, trainer, and retreat leader.
Prior to establishing my coaching business, I worked for Bank of America and First Chicago Corporation (now Chase). I had positions as VP Relationship Manager in Global Banking (financing companies and large corporate real estate projects) and VP Head of Corporate Training and Development, which included Organizational Development.
I have a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Davis, in Sociology, and an MBA from Pepperdine University.
