The Role of Supervision & Self-Awareness in Coaching Practice with Antonia Dolhaine

In this episode of The Visibility Standard, I'm joined by Antonia—a coach who specializes in helping creatives and individuals step outside their comfort zones—for an essential conversation about supervision, self-awareness, and sustainable growth in the helping professions.

We dive deep into why ongoing professional support isn't just nice-to-have—it's critical for anyone doing this work effectively and ethically, whether you're a coach, therapist, or somewhere in between.

We explore:
✨ Why coaching supervision matters and how to find quality professional support
✨ Managing your own emotional reactions and triggers when working with clients (aka dealing with your "psychic trash")
✨ Navigating the ongoing therapy vs. coaching debate with nuance and clarity
✨ Building community and accessing clinical expertise as a coach or creative professional
✨ Creating sustainable personal and professional support systems that actually work
✨ Blending clinical insight with creativity and authenticity in helping relationships
💡 Practical strategies for continuing education and professional growth outside traditional training

Whether you're new to coaching, transitioning between fields, or just realizing you need more support to do this work sustainably, Antonia's insights will help you build the foundation you need.

Transcript

Jazz: 0:02

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to All Our Parts. Welcome to All Our Parts if you're new here. I'm so excited for my guest today. She is a coach. She works with creatives. She works with people who are truly willing to expand outside of their own comfort zone. I'm so excited for our conversation today. Antonia, thank you so much for joining me.

Antonia: 0:25

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to dive into a conversation with someone else who is, I have Yeah, I saw

Jazz: 0:39

on your website, the numerous trainings that you've taken to be able to support your clients. And one of the things that really stood out to me that I don't see often in the coaching space is the emphasis on supervision. And so I wanted to dive into that a little bit because as a therapist, like that is something that we are taught, seek out supervision, seek out supervision, seek out supervision. the value of supervision, but I don't see it often in the coaching space. What inclined you to not only seek out supervision, but also recognize the impact so much so to offer group supervision?

Antonia: 1:17

Yeah, I think it's super weird that it's not more of a thing in the coaching space. I just find it so weird that it's not. Something that you will often hear in the coaching space is get your own coach. And I think that's really valuable in the same way as if you're in a health You should be getting some personal support of your own, whether that's therapy or coaching or just something to tune into your inner world and clean up and take responsibility for your psychic trash, so to speak, just so you're not accidentally sweeping it into the room with your clients. And I was seeking my own therapy and coaching when I first came into my work as a coach, but it felt like it wasn't the right space to bring in what I was experiencing with my clients, some of the sticking points. If I did bring it in, we would transition out of it really quickly. Yeah, a lot of my training has been therapeutic training up until this point. So I'm a strange coach in that I'm not a therapist, I'm a coach, but I have a very therapeutic orientation in the way that I work and in the culture, I suppose, that I'm surrounded with. Like most of my colleagues are therapists and I only have a very small handful of coaches around me that I really trust and refer to, which isn't to say that there aren't really great coaches out there, but just that seems to be the world that I've landed in.

Jazz: 2:32

Yeah, I was so impressed by the numerous trainings and the extent of clinical expertise that you weave into your coaching style. And how did you come across your supervisors that you work with?

Antonia: 3:02

Mainly it would be that like I would come across the work of practitioners that I deeply respected and would just throw spaghetti at the wall in the email sense and just reach out to them and be like, hey, I don't know if you do supervision. And I specifically don't know whether you do supervision with someone who's not a clinician, but I'm very intrigued by your work. I'm curious about what it would look like to have some sort of support relationship here and what could unfold from that. And honestly, like 90% of the people that I've ever reached out to have been really open and every single supervision partnership that I have entered into has been really fruitful in its own way some have been more technique focused which was really helpful for me at the beginning and others have been more yeah like person of the facilitator centered so really focusing on your own counter transfers that's like really what I find the most helpful because it weaves in your own personal work and your work with your clients and a lot of what I have come to pick up with that sort of clinical knowledge being woven in comes from just being facilitated really badly as a client with therapists or really badly as a client with other coaches and just being like, okay, here's what it looks like when it goes wrong. Here's how it feels when it goes wrong. How can I make sure that I am showing up with more integrity here? How can I find the blind spot that I have been thwacked in the face with this other practitioner within myself and make sure that I'm not bringing that through? Or at least if I do bring a blind spot into a client relationship that I'm able to bridge that really quickly and repair.

Jazz: 4:36

As a relational therapist myself, I know the harm that can be done in the one-on-one container, whether that's coaching or therapy, and the emphasis that you place on integrity, but also recognizing our own stuff, somatic, psychological, mental, all of that stuff really impacts how we show up in session. And if If we're not checking those blind spots, if we don't have somebody that we're bouncing off ideas and evaluating all of this with, we can really impact our clients in the way that we may not even intend, but that's where awareness becomes really important.

Antonia: 5:20

Absolutely agree. And I think something that's really important to emphasize too, is that seeking supervision isn't about running away from being a bad person, which is, I think, something that people come It's particularly newer coaches and therapists come in with this. I don't want to do any harm. There's a sincerity to that. They don't want to do any harm, but it also, there's a parts led place of, I don't want to look like a bad person. And when you're running away from looking like a bad person, that's when you get into those situations where you can get in trouble because then you're still leaving those parts of you who do manipulate, who do shady things or leave things out, who hold back in the shadow. And therefore you can't actually take responsibility for them in the room and unplug. blend for them recognize them when they show up because there's that shame around them I don't know if I had a deeper point with that but it just felt important to bring it up yeah supervision is really about moving towards wholeness not just in your personal identity but also in your supporting identity I

Jazz: 6:17

think you made the deeper point and we as practitioners we show up and what you just emphasize is that our own shadow parts the parts of us that we may try to hide sweep under the rug try to not bring into this space with us that unintentionally brings shame into the room whether we realize it or not it's we're carrying it we bring it into the room and I really want to dissect that a little bit more because when we think about parts we think and we think about parts as practitioners we want to show up as our best we want to be the most informed. We want to be the most thoughtful, the best listener. But there are also shadow aspects to ourselves that if we try to shield our clients from them, if we tuck them away too tightly, we could really miss important relational aspects within the therapy space.

Antonia: 7:24

Definitely. I think the best thing that I can do for my clients often is not necessarily always acknowledge out loud. It depends on the client and the context being at explored, but really acknowledge the fact that I can be judgmental sometimes as my client says something and I'm judgmental about it. And I have to notice that without pushing it away and compassion bypassing it in the moment and address it sometimes silently, sometimes out loud and unblend from it. And I will say though, the moments that it feels appropriate to name out loud, it often like create such a release of tension in the space when the clients wait, you're a But that's the idea is we notice it and we take responsibility for it. We don't have to pretend that it's not there in order to be like, holy. We don't need to bring this kind of moral purity into the healing space because it's actually not going to heal shit.

Jazz: 8:14

You're speaking to even a larger conversation that's happening right now in the healing spaces. And that's the moral policing that's happening between practitioners, therapists versus coaches, like therapists who show up online. And it just, honestly, it's just so much Right. way to be or show up and I don't fit that mold.

Antonia: 9:07

Very much. Yeah. I have experienced that as a client and that really informed the way that I... show up as a practitioner with my own values and my own beliefs because it was a therapist of mine who was very justice oriented and I learned so much from her. I have no regret being exposed to the depth of knowledge that she brought from her academic training in the justice space. And it came with a sort of covert authoritarian flavor to it, where if I said something slightly that with the languaging that I was using was just as I was in my mess and trying to explain my thoughts. And if I use a slight wrong word, I'd see the eyebrow raise. And that created such an internal sense of shame that it didn't actually feel safe for me to explore how I actually thought and felt. So I stepped into my kind of justice work initially from that place of, I don't want to seem bad to my therapist. So I absolutely have a set of values and beliefs, but I'm really careful. I wouldn't say it's not to bring it into the space because I think that's impossible. It's impossible not to bring your own biases into the space, but to really Yeah, it really takes, like you

Jazz: 10:28

said, being able to create space for the client and therapy coaching is a human relationship. And so naturally we have our own values. We have our own thoughts. We have our own opinions. And being able to allow all of that to sit in the room, what a gift. And as you're reflecting on your own experiencing, I'm thinking about when we think about the word trauma-informed and that hypervigilance that showed up for you. I know you share on your website the healing that you've been able to do in your own journey from complex trauma, eating disorders, even relational chaos. Sitting in that space, being able to not only be aware of the relational impact that session was having on you, what's coming up for you, and then weaving it into your own work later just speaks to the complexity and the level of work and commitment that has to happen in order to show up and be effective in the healing space.

Antonia: 11:41

And it's tricky too, because the way that coaches or therapists are trained is very theory based and the most PhDs out of anyone. But if you can't hold presence because you can't actually be present with yourself, like you're really not going to be very effective. Like you can't hold a relational space if you're not in relationship to yourself deeply. And it's this sort of paradox of this work that if one hasn't developed or cultivated the saintly intimacy with their own personal health, that you can't really guide them. guide someone toward building whatever their version of heaven is. And I say that in the most non-denominational, non-religious sense for anyone who's listening. But yeah, like it has to go in both directions. The roots have to go deep or branches and reach tall.

Jazz: 12:30

As you've evolved as a practitioner, what has it looked like for you to return to yourself or what has anchored you? in doing this work.

Antonia: 12:45

That's a funny question because it feels like the, I know it's a choice that I continue to engage in this work, but often, and I'm sure many people who are deep in this work for themselves can relate to this, but it feels like the choice I can't not make sometimes. I have a really deep connection to my dream world and sometimes I'll have a dream and I'm like, fuck, now I have to unpack my animus. And just last night, I had a really big dream with that. I was up in the morning for an hour, like really dissecting it and being like, all right, there's stuff to do around this. Or it just, because of my history, I have a... I think a higher degree of sensitivity, which I have done a lot of work to integrate the fragility that can often come with that. But with that sensitivity means that I can't escape the whispers and the shouts of my own life. So when my life wants me to move in a direction, it's just like, I know that if I don't listen to it when it whispers, that it'll scream at me at some point. And I've just gotten really good at listening to it. So I don't know if that's like the poetic answer that you're looking for, but just it's yeah, it's constant and it's through dream work. It's through my own personal therapy. It's through coaching when I needed I do a lot of yeah I'm really lucky to have a really fantastic community of practitioners around me we do a lot of trades like we'll just do support trades so it doesn't become unmanageably expensive for us to continue to deepen our inner work and I've also developed like a really deep like respectful reciprocal relationship with plant medicine specifically over the past I want to say six and a half seven years

Jazz: 14:12

when you just said about feeling like you can't do this work just resonated with me so deeply as someone who has their own spiritual practices and as someone who's very connected to their dream state, like almost to a point where I'm like, can I just dream about nothing actually? Can I just see the sun maybe in my sleep? It's something that sometimes I wish I could maybe turn off, but other times I'm like, what a gift to be so deeply connected to myself. What a gift to be able to do such deep like shadow healing work and then being able to show up in the container of healing and offer someone else that space to explore that for themselves to explore what that looks like and I find that spiritual practices and being in tune with my dreams is also what anchors me to being able to show up being able to be present when I'm trying to bypass something or tuck something away That's when I show up the most distracted and the most dysregulated, but really leaning into that. And the other side of it that you just spoke to as well as community, the being connected to like-minded individuals that challenge you, that support you, that can offer that collective space together to be able to share in one another's strength so that it doesn't become unmanageable. It can become expensive. to hire the right support to be surrounded by experts that you respect and admire and so cultivating that within one another and really leaning into that level of support is such a game changer

Antonia: 16:00

completely oh there was something I was just going to add it's gone it's gone into orbit this happens to me sometimes yes I completely understand what you mean though with when it's not being looked at it's like you can't do your job it makes for a very adventurous life though like a very memoir worthy if you're really listening to your life like it will take you in some pretty wacktastic directions that in the moment you're just like god damn it like why in the same way that an adventure can be a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes but ultimately it's like thrilling yeah I don't regret it for a moment

Jazz: 16:38

yeah I have one thing I've learned is to be able to bounce back a little bit more quicker and with that I'm like oh cool Like this is just the ride of life. This is just the ebbs and the flows and experiencing this allows me to connect more with the clinical work that I'm doing. It allows me to be more present. One of my mentors, someone I so deeply respect, she was teaching a trauma informed class that I took and she said, you basically come into session with your own backpack. of stuff trying to leave the backpack outside the door trying to just sit it down and then go in a session doesn't work but if we allow ourselves to have the awareness that we're coming in with our own shit with our own challenges as people and we allow ourselves to notice it rather than judge it or shame it we actually get to be more present in the work that we're doing When I decided to grow beyond the therapy room, I knew I needed systems that could keep up. Enter JaneApp, the practice management platform that has my back. From online booking to charting to payments, Jane keeps everything streamlined so I can show up for my clients and create content, build my brand and run my business with confidence. If you're ready to level up your practice, head to Jane.app and use code JAZZ1MO for a one month grace period.

Antonia: 18:14

And sometimes there's useful stuff in there, even like for the client, sometimes there's like a canteen and you're like, oh, you thirsty? Got a cup here and drink your fill. Yeah. One thing that I like about the coaching orientation over the therapy is so diverse as is coaching, but something I do is that most of my clients have a baseline level of regulation that they've built already. They've usually been doing personal work for a really long time. And so I can bring a lot of that backpack into our session responsibly in a way that like is ultimately deepens the connection. and we're reflected that it's really helpful for people for me to be like all right this is what's in the bag today and always with consent obviously you don't just like empty the bag onto the floor without but yeah there's a bit more flexibility there

Jazz: 19:01

yeah it's nice one of the things that i admire about coaching containers is the it is so relationship rooted like there is a base baseline regulation, like you said, where people are coming in with. And so you get to show up very differently in the relationship. I think that's why a lot of therapists are getting more exploratory within the coaching space because they both offer so much. They're we get to bring a little bit more of ourselves into the room whereas therapy is at least how I see it is there's like a co-regulation aspect that's happening but more so you are helping regulate this other person and that comes with its own level of restraint and practice and being able to be present but being able to say look I'm a person too like it evens the playing field I think and it also allows the person to show up in their full human messiness because they recognize they're sitting across from a person who is also sitting in their own human messiness.

Antonia: 20:21

Yeah, absolutely. Because at one point, I really needed that. And I know there are people who really need that. And there's space for every different style across the

Jazz: 21:02

spectrum to exist, finding the right one. I just want to go back to even the value of community that you speak to, the value of being surrounded and allowing yourself to be held by other experts that you trust, that you admire. Because what I've found as I continue to do this work is that I can't do this work alone.

Antonia: 21:51

I'm always expanding my network of practitioners. If anyone listens to this and wants to reach out, my inbox is open to you. But yeah, I love getting to know each person, their way of working and what their superpower is. Because sometimes someone comes to me and I'm like, you need a superpower that I don't have. And that's not about you being too much or not enough. It's just, you need to see this guy. This guy has this superpower. You should talk to him. And then they're like, oh my God, this is such a perfect fit. The idea of competition is just so ridiculous within our profession. There's just always, there are so many wounded people in the Word of people who need help in the world where there's just no competition required at all. The analogy I like to think of is tomatoes and basil work really well together when you plant them in a garden, but tomatoes and I think that's sunflowers go horribly. I'm totally getting this wrong, I think. Basil do get along. I think it's sunflowers. Carrots don't get along because one of them attracts a certain kind of leaf eater that leaves a trace of something that creates poor growing conditions for the other, but it's not that carrots or tomatoes are wrong. They're just not meant to be planted next to each other. And then the tomatoes, you get the idea. Companion planting.

Jazz: 22:58

Yeah. And again, that goes back to us being able to do our own work. We are truly kidding ourselves if we think that we are the right fit for every single person in the world. Like we are doing ourselves a disservice. We're not giving ourselves that compassion and we're doing the other person that's seeking that support a disservice. There are so many people with their own strengths, with their own talents, who have a different perspective, a different lens to approach clinical work, coaching work, all of it. There is enough to go around. There are enough people. And being able to say, I'm not the person for you, but I know someone that is perfect for you. I think you all would get along. It also offers, I believe, a more abundant way of thinking about this work. It offers more space for opportunity when we allow ourselves to say i'm not the right fit but i believe this person beside me is i'm curious what you think your superpower is oh wow i really value Like creating space for another person and being able to connect with that is something that I really value within the container. And so it's amazing how often I'm able to connect and relate with so many of my clients and I'm in that same breath. I don't find myself morphing or trying to shift any aspect of who I am or how I show up. up it just it's very it's like this vastness has just opened up for you to explore who you are and for me to help facilitate that in a collaborative space

Antonia: 24:51

can I ask another question I know I'm technically not supposed to be asking the questions but I'm curious is there a specific kind of person that you notice seems to come to your space over and over again that you're like oh it's just there's some like a resonance there these people are coming hi

Jazz: 25:04

I also work with a lot of I also work with a lot of high achievers. So those are the two that I would say I see most, but mostly the intellectualizers turned feelers. That

Antonia: 25:44

makes sense. I work with a lot of intellectualizers too. It's so funny. I work with a really specific kind of intellectualizer. Usually they're like hyper successful in their creative career or like... on their way to becoming and they've got that like hunger your clients probably have that too but it's just like intense hunger yes some of it's fear-based but there's like an earnestness to it too if they like they really want to find their edges and it's like a lifestyle choice and something they bump up against a lot is coaches and therapists who either feel too intimidated by them and their success to work with them effectively don't really get the weird places their minds go because they think in a non-linear way just as creatives and yeah they have this like dark sense of humor a lot of the time and this kind of batshit whimsy it's just all of them have this kind of and me too so it works out but it's funny how we tend to we notice patterns over time of these are the kinds of people who just keep coming face

Jazz: 26:41

yeah it's okay this is the person I'm attracting even when I don't mean to but then when you allow yourself to really be present recognize those patterns that's also where you get to grow that's where we get to grow as practitioners and we get to not only niche down but we get to cartoon our trainings, our learning, our supervision needs based on the caseload that we've chosen, but also simultaneously has chosen us.

Antonia: 27:10

Totally. I think it's so deranged when there's this emphasis when you start your practice to niche down straight away. And it's just like, you don't know what you want to do when you just start your practice. How are you supposed to know what you want to niche into? The niche usually finds, but at least in my experience, the niche finds you. You can't tailor your copy at the beginning to, you know, yeah, you might think you know who you want to work with. I thought I knew who I wanted to work with, I quickly realized I don't know anything about anything because they were not a good fit. Oh

Jazz: 27:35

my goodness. Yeah. The amount of versions I have of my copy of who I thought I was speaking to, to who I'm speaking to right now. I'm like, those are not the same audience.

Antonia: 27:44

Oh my God. Yeah. Don't even get me started with the copywriting. It's its own journey that I love. We have parts that like their job is to copyright and think of things to put in the copy or to tweak in the copy and they like run 24 seven, I swear to God.

Jazz: 27:59

Antonia, this was such a fun conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today. How can people find you if they are curious, want to connect or want to work with you?

Antonia: 28:13

Thank you for having me too. I really enjoyed this as well. The best way to find me is Substack. I run a Substack called Space Unknown and I publish there anywhere between four times a month and one time a month. It's really based on like when things are ready to come through because that's just how they come through best. And there will be usually like a monthly-ish workshop for the paid tier of my Substack, just like $8 and people really like them. So come on in. And the other best way to find me is via my website I do have an Instagram but at this point I don't really use it like at all for any business related activity and it's mostly quotes memes and videos of me dancing so unless you're into that that's just what's happening in my story I don't really post anything to like the grid anymore and at some point I'm probably going to archive everything but Substack and my website and I always welcome people to just reach out via email as well because yeah I just love connecting with new folks even if we never work together and I'm here to serve, not to sell, except people who want to invest.

Jazz: 29:20

Everything will be linked in the show notes. And as a closing question to all my guests, I am asking, what is your commitment to yourself for 2025?

Antonia: 29:33

Good question. My word of the year is standards. And I picked that word very intuitively. There wasn't like a low standards trauma that I had in 2024 that was like, next year my word's going to be standards. I just asked myself the question, what's my word of the year? And that was like the first word that came up. And I was like, all right, don't know what it means yet, but yep, that's my word. And it's been interesting weaving it in throughout the year thus far, noticing where there are moments where I'm tempted to settle for a lesser standard, where I have parts of me that use that as a survival strategy for a long time. And just having that as my word has allowed me to catch that and blend from those parts and be like, well, actually, if there's a higher standard of support of nourishment available to me, even if I can't see it yet, how can I step into the identity of the person who can access it? And now I'm living in Menorca, Spain, which is pretty dope as a place. It's meeting my standards. I love it. That's my answer.

Jazz: 30:34

Well thank you for joining me today.

Antonia: 30:36

Thank you.