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Episode 135: Self-Kindness: The Forgotten Coaching Tool with guest, Emma-Louise Elsey

• Garry Schleifer

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Self-kindness might be the most overlooked tool in your coaching practice. In this eye-opening conversation with Emma-Louise Elsie, founder of Fierce Kindness Solutions Inc., we explore how cultivating self-compassion can transform coaching outcomes in our increasingly divisive world.

Emma shares her powerful PACT framework—Pause, Ask, Choose, Time—that gives coaches a practical structure for helping clients implement self-kindness. She explains how this seemingly simple concept addresses the toxic cultural belief that self-kindness equals weakness or selfishness, which keeps many high-achievers trapped in cycles of overwhelm and diminished effectiveness.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Emma reveals how to identify when clients need self-kindness most. Watch for warning signs like "I should be able to push through," difficulty setting boundaries, or signs of imposter syndrome. As Emma points out, "The challenge with self-kindness isn't knowing what to do—it's trusting and respecting yourself enough to actually do it."

What makes this episode particularly valuable is the direct connection between self-kindness and coaching effectiveness. By teaching clients to recognize their unique stress signals and respond with intentional self-kindness, coaches help them become more authentic, resilient, and ultimately more successful. Emma's approach mirrors fundamental coaching principles of awareness, choice, and accountability.

Ready to bring more self-kindness into your coaching practice? Join our community at choice Magazine and discover Emma's complete toolkit for implementing the PACT method with your clients. Your coaching impact—and your own wellbeing—may depend on it.

Watch the full interview by clicking here.

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Emma-Louise Elsey here.

Sign up for the Fierce Kindness Newsletter and receive the How to Be Kind to Yourself Toolkit.

 Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com

Garry Schleifer:

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features you just won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into this amazing article, have a chat with this brilliant author and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. Be kind to yourself there, lady. Join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share expert tips and techniques and make a real difference in their lives, rather. My goodness, what a day. I'm so excited to be here, so that's why I'm flubbing the words, but not to worry. A reminder to our listeners this is your go-to resource for all things coaching, so let's dive in. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Life Coach Emma- Louise Elsey, who is the author of the article in our latest issue What's Hot and What's Not ~ What's Influencing Coaching? Her article is entitled Self-Kindness As a Coaching Tool ~ Building Resilience in an Unkind Culture. Can't wait. A little bit about Emma- Louise.

Garry Schleifer:

She has a Bachelor of Science. She began her career as a project and relationship manager for Fortune 500 companies. I didn't even know that. Her interest in motivation, teams and leadership led her into management and then to life coaching. She's been a professional life coach since 2004, is the founder and former CEO of the Coaching Tools Company and the founder and current CEO of Fierce Kindness Solutions Inc. Her mission is to create a kinder world through fierce kindness, a practice, philosophy and movement which aims to create a kinder, more courageous world through personal growth and taking action to make a difference. Emma Louise, thank you so much for joining me today.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Garry. This is so fun.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, and thank you for writing for us and I have to say it couldn't be a perfect time to have an article about kindness, and you mentioned a lot of the reasons why in your article, so I'm not even going to ask you why, because obviously you're on a mission and a movement. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh, thank you. It's so exciting to be here. So anyone can be a writer for choice, I mean, you do have an editorial team. But I was just looking here at what new coaching techniques and methods and approaches are gaining popularity and what can we use to support the emotional wellbeing of our clients, and I thought there, that's where kindness pops in there. And as we're not going to talk about politics, but we do know the world is changing and we do see, especially online, this incredible divisiveness. So, instead of the world coming together, what we seem to see is a splintering, and I really think kindness can help bridge the gap. And then this article is actually about self-kindness, because I think any change, I mean it was, oh, who was it who said be the change you want to see in the world. It's such a famous quote. Was it Dalai Lama?

Garry Schleifer:

Gandhi, I believe.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

It was Gandhi. It was Gandhi. Yes, so we need to be the change we want to see in the world, and I think coaches are such an incredibly important resource in helping make the world a kinder place. So that's where the article came from.

Garry Schleifer:

I love your opening line.

Garry Schleifer:

We all need more kindness! But you know, before we get into you also list in here the signals of lack of kindness. Physical changes, headaches, tense neck, shoulders, things we know. Emotional changes feeling sad, bad, tearful. Thinking changes, foggy or slow thinking. That one was new to me and behavioral changes, making unhealthy choices. Well, that one I know really well

Emma-Louise Elsey:

So yeah, so that was all about, because I often get asked how do you know when to be kind to yourself? And that can be challenging. I mean, it's kind of kicked out of us fairly young, we have to plow through. If we want to be successful, we just got to plow on and keep going. And how do you know when to be kind to yourself? Well, the easiest way to get started is to notice your stress signals and that's what those changes that you mentioned that we have in the article there. So it's physical changes. So that could be headaches.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

I know one of mine is I get this big knot in my shoulder. Emotional changes, so feeling sad, bad, mad, tearful, on edge. Thinking changes. So you mentioned the foggy thinking. I think that can be a sign of stress, like just too much going on and your brain is kind of just going through mud. But it can also be racing thoughts, more judgment, an increase in judgmental thinking and globalization. You start throwing up your hands like, oh, everything's going wrong today. But then you also mentioned the behavioral changes. So when we make unhealthy choices cravings, sugar, fatty foods. When we start rushing, we can be more indecisive. We can withdraw from others. We can be snippy and intolerant. Okay, I'm going to share my top five stress signals, because that's one of the things I really think is helpful and it's one of the steps I think coaches can do with their clients is to figure out what are your top five stress signals. So mine are tense shoulders and neck, so I mentioned that one. I start swearing. So that's one of my behavioral changes. I noticed that I rush things unnecessarily. So not just rushing, but like rushing when you really don't need to and you start making mistakes.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

I snack, so I head to the snack drawer. We have a snack drawer. I've put it on the bottom of our kitchen cabinets so I have to bend over and think before I open it. But I snack, especially on sugary foods. And here's one that came out when I actually did this exercise for myself a few years ago. I have this strong urge to tidy things and to make lists, because that's what gets me back in control when I'm stressed. So those are my five stress signals and when I notice those, those are the signal that I need some self-kindness, and that's what I encourage coaches to help their clients figure out. Okay, what are these stress signals? What are these triggers that tell me I need some kindness?

Garry Schleifer:

Well, I tell you, after you told me all of those about your own, thank you very much, I'm going to stop and think about that too.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh, I want to know what yours are, Garry.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, for sure, when you said organizing, I'm like, okay, fine, I'm just going to organize it like, blow it up and put it all back together again, because that'll make me feel better, and not necessarily the best use of time. And I would have to say something around the area of that snacking, like all of a sudden having an odd craving, or just the desire to eat something, and recently stopping and realizing but you're not hungry. So it's in that, and so, yeah, thank you. So I'm going to keep an more open eye, open mind on some of those too because you do talk a lot about how to be kind to yourself in the article as well. So why don't we touch on some of those?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Yeah, OK, so well, first step is knowing what your signals are, and then I've actually developed a process because I think, okay, actually you all right if I take a step back for a minute?

Garry Schleifer:

Yes, go ahead.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

I think self-kindness is an extremely challenging thing to do because we live in this culture where we are expected to push through and soldier on, and I think, whilst this isn't unique to women, it's quite common for women that we put everyone else first. So self-kindness. We live in this toxic culture, I think, where self-kindness is seen as a weakness. It's seen as selfish. Often we don't feel good enough, we don't think we deserve our own kindness. Many of us struggle with imposter syndrome, so we just have to keep doing more, this need to prove ourselves. And then there's this negative spiral that comes from being busy and tired, so we get stressed, overwhelmed and we make poor choices, which is around sleep and exercising and eating. We also treat others not so well when we're stressed, which can also create a bit of a negative spiral in our relationships. And there are things like because we I mentioned there's a list of benefits of self kindness in the article but we're also less creative. So there's this negative spiral when we're not kind to ourselves and when we're stressed. And I see self-kindness as the antidote to all of those things.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

So I developed this process. It's a very simple process. I call it like making a pact with yourself, so the acronym is PACT. So the first step is to pause and to really notice what's going on with you. You might need to notice what you're feeling. And then the next stage. I'm going to just my brain just suddenly froze there for a moment. So, being kind to myself, I'm going to look across at the article here.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

So the next one is ask, and that's about literally asking yourself what you need, because I think we know what we need a lot of the time. We just don't necessarily want to own up to the fact that actually we want to nap or we want to go out for a walk or we need to leave that relationship or job. You know, it's sometimes they're big things, it's not always small things and then we need to make a choice. We need to choose.

Garry Schleifer:

I highlighted that one for myself. Always

Emma-Louise Elsey:

We need to choose what we're going to do for ourselves. And the last one might seem like a bit of a strange one. I use the word time because I wanted a nice acronym but it's about agreeing with yourself when you're going to do that self-kind act and it can either be now or you make a commitment to yourself when you're going to do that self-kind action and people have asked me about that. Well, what if I just say I'll do it later? And I have a lovely example. I always think of this little child, and it's like it wants an ice cream. Mummy, mummy, I want an ice cream and she says no, and so then she says, well, when, when, and the mum keeps saying later, later, and the child's just like when, when. And when we're stressed, we are like a little child and I think if we just say later, if it's not now, saying later, isn't enough to sort of calm ourselves and it's not very kind just to keep saying later to someone. So it's very important to agree a time when you're going to do that act. That is a commitment you're making to yourself. So that's the PACT process pause, act, choose, and then the time. Agree a time when you're going to do it.

Garry Schleifer:

You know, I look at this and it's like this is so, it's a coaching process. Connect to yourself, create awareness, ask yourself what open-ended questions, Choose. So what are the options? What's available, what do you need? And, like you said, you'll know what you need. And then finally, accountability. When are you going to do it by?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh yeah, that's very true. I had not thought of that before, but it takes a coach to notice.

Garry Schleifer:

Of course. No, that is amazing, thank you. And I noticed I just did it and you said, hey, can we just take a step back? Because I was rushing through. And then I'm realizing I don't need to rush, I'm not going anywhere, I'm having fun with a friend, so, you know, bring it back. So, thank you for that. You did it right. You walk the talk right there.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh, there we go.

Garry Schleifer:

You packed it in a moment. Packed it in a moment.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

So, I was thinking when I was preparing for our chat today, I had this thought that self-kindness is, I said self-kindness is an antidote to the toxic culture. But also, I think self-kindness is so important for coaches because it helps our clients be more authentic and achieve their goals. And this idea of self-kindness is that by taking care of ourselves, we give ourselves the courage, the energy and the motivation to face those limiting beliefs that are getting in the way of us moving forwards. But self-kindness always also helps us create more balance so that we have more time and space and energy to work on and achieve our goals.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

So, self kindness, you know, we haven't talked about the benefits. There's a lot of benefits and they've actually been studied. A lot of them have been scientifically proved. But I think for coaches in particular, I think self kindness is because most of us coaches, do we not have a secret hidden agenda to help our clients be more authentic? For some coaches that's explicit, like this is what I do, but for a lot of us we're working with a leader and really what we're helping them do is be their authentic selves, because that's when we're happiest. That's when we achieve the most, is when we're most successful is when be their authentic and self-kindness just helps.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, very much. You know I'm noticing that we've answered the question about what it looks like for ourselves. But what does it look like when you're sitting with a client? What are they saying or doing that you would go hold on and then you bring your packed conversation forward right? I heard the word stress or over worked. Are there any other that come to mind that?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Yeah, I think it often comes up in limiting beliefs like I haven't done enough, I can't stop because I haven't done enough yet, or first I have to finish this. So when you hear that a lot it's people pressuring themselves and putting a lot of pressure on themselves, they're clearly not being kind to themselves. There's the shoulds obviously. I should be able to push through and get this done. I should be able to do this.

Garry Schleifer:

Better mother, father, sister, daughter, employee, boss leader.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Yeah, and I think when people keep putting others first before themselves, I mean we see that. So someone who struggles to set boundaries with others, doesn't know how to say no, keeps taking too much on. So that's another big one and that's one of the areas and the inner critic, actually, where Fierce Kindness came from was helping me manage my inner critic.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, there's a revealing moment, thank you. And you said something else too, and I think this is wrapped in some of the things you're saying just differently, is the imposter syndrome. If they only knew. And it's like, oh please, people, be kinder to yourself, right? And wow, you know, now let's look at PACT. Okay, so think of the imposter syndrome and then you of PACT. Pause to connect to yourself. What do you most need right now? And you start going through these steps, and you can't help but come back and go, I've done everything I can. I'm in the right moment. I'm taking care of myself and oh my goodness, the taking care of yourself goes back to you know, when on the plane, and they say well, the oxygen mask principle first. It's not selfish, it's selfless.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Yes or self-full.

Garry Schleifer:

Self-full.

Garry Schleifer:

Oh, we came up with more new words.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh, don't we love to invent words?

Garry Schleifer:

We do, we do. well, and you' re right. It's not easy to do, but if we take the time to recognize it, starting with ourselves. And, like I say, I'm going to do more of that myself as a result of this article and the conversation, but then I'm thinking right away of some of my clients and you're right, some of the shoulds and the imposter syndrome and things like that are things that they will say or feel, or overwhelm, or or or.

Garry Schleifer:

So, yeah, I'll have PACT ready for my next call. I have a few more still this week.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

I was going to say, there's another thing that coaches can also do, which I think is really important. So you share the PACT with them and they start the journey of being more kind to themselves, because it is a journey. There's a lot of limiting beliefs to overcome around being kind to ourselves, whether we deserve it, whether we're worthy, but I think it's very important and this is again a coaching technique to help your clients find the evidence that self-kindness works, by asking what they've done to be kind to themselves and asking them how that worked out for them and, crucially, how did that feel? Because it's our feelings that really tell us the truth about whether something's working or not.

Garry Schleifer:

How are your clients accepting self-kindness?

Garry Schleifer:

When you bring this up with them? Do you bring it up directly, like that, like when you see the opportunity to have it be helpful, and what do they say?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Well, the first thing they usually say is well, how, how, how can I be kind to myself? And I think it's funny. You see a lot of articles online with 25 ways to be kind to yourself, 10 ways to do this. But what's really interesting is and I have a little toolkit and in there is 35 ways to be kind with yourself and those are helpful, but that isn't actually the problem that we're dealing with.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

The problem with self kindness is not what to do. It's doing it. I t's trusting yourself, but it's respecting and honoring yourself and your needs enough to actually do it. And that's the crucial thing with self-kindness. People, they agree with it intellectually, but when it comes down to it, they are not really respecting themselves and their needs enough to go and do it. And that's the big hiccup. It's not how to do or how do I do it or what should I do, because that's the easy part, right, figuring out what to do. Like we all know, if we pause and ask ourselves what we need to do, we know. The challenge is getting ourselves to actually go and do it. And that's the crux of it.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, I challenge all of our readers to take a moment to pause, ask, choose and take some time to act on it. And it's right we said this already earlier that fourth step is usually the challenge. You know I'll do it later. Well, and like you say, they can be big or small asking of what you want and need right now. So I don't think I've ever had an article on kindness before in 23 years of publishing choice magazine.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Well, that's interesting.

Garry Schleifer:

Thank you.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh, you're welcome. I think these are the times we need kindness.

Garry Schleifer:

Big time, big time. I would like to know what would you like our audience to do as a result of this article in this conversation?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Right. Well, other than bring self-kindness into into your coaching and to think about how that could help your clients be more authentic and achieve their goals faster, with more life balance and all of those things we've been discussing, I think it still starts with us. So I would love coaches to write out like actually write down three situations where you would like to be kinder to yourself and one action for each that you might do the next time the situation comes up. Oh, and make sure your action is easily doable, but it has to be enticing enough that you would be excited to do it. So there's the challenge. So three situations where you'd like to be kinder to yourself, one action for each and make it an easy to do, but it has to be a little bit enticing, exciting.

Garry Schleifer:

Be kind to yourself and the choice of what it is that you're going to do.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh yeah, that's absolutely right.

Garry Schleifer:

Have fun

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I love fun. Fun is one of my values.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Why not have fun?

Garry Schleifer:

Well, I can tell you right now that one of mine that I will write down is around freedom. Where am I not finding it and what is going on there? So how can I be more kind to myself about the exercise of it, the not getting it versus the getting it? And you're right, I think the biggest word I'm getting out of this for kindness is breathe. Like that is truly.

Garry Schleifer:

I say that, um, lovingly because I've been reading a book Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It. And there's a breathing exercise about I love me, I love me. Like breathe in for four or five or seven seconds saying I love me, I love me, and then exhale and then do that about seven times.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

I love it.

Garry Schleifer:

It makes a big difference on the reprogramming of your mind, slows you down and we all know the benefits of meditative and breathing and stuff like that. So you're causing a movement with this. How can people join your movement?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Well, it's early days, Garry. I'll be honest, it's early days, but I would love for you to sign up for my newsletter.

Garry Schleifer:

I knew you had something to do.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Yeah, I've been doing a newsletter for five years. Started it during COVID, yeah, so I'd love you to join my newsletter. And at the moment, if you join my newsletter, is it all right to mention my gift?

Garry Schleifer:

It is. Please let us know.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Yeah, oh, yes. So I have a how to Be Kind to Yourself Toolkit and this will be going away later next year because I'm going to develop a course around it. It's a really juicy gift. It's a lot. It is a How to Be Kind to Yourself workbook and it gets into everything we've talked about today, but it also has three little handouts that go with it. The 35 ways to be kind to yourself. There's a PACT worksheet and there's also a little fun stress signals handout that goes with it. So it's quite the toolkit and it'll give you a lot of detail and a lot of ideas for working with clients.

Garry Schleifer:

Awesome. I'm sorry, where can we find this gift?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

On my newsletter, so FierceKindness. com/ newsletter.

Garry Schleifer:

And there you go and sign up and then you get access to that gift. That's wonderful. Is that also the best way to reach you?

Emma-Louise Elsey:

So if you have specific questions, you could email me. So that would be Emma Louise@ fiercekindness. com and you could also connect with me on LinkedIn. I don't think there's another Emma- Louise Elsey. So if you look for Emma- Louise Elsey on LinkedIn and connect with me on there. I'm not on that often but I'm planning to be on LinkedIn a little bit more.

Garry Schleifer:

Be kind to yourself about that. That sounded very shitty.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

I'm just if I'm not super responsive when you connect with me and give me a few days.

Garry Schleifer:

Yeah, I'm the same way, so I'm jokingly. I'm right beside you. I'm like you may hear from me on Linkedin, but you know what text and email is better. Oh my gosh, Emma-L ouise, you know, as always, thank you so much, and thank you especially for writing this article and for this Beyond the Page episode. Please don't be a one-hit wonder. I know you've written for us before, but this is your first podcast with us. So think about some of our upcoming issues and, please, I think there's one in your future.

Garry Schleifer:

Well, I'll tell you about it later.

Emma-Louise Elsey:

Okay, all right, exciting.

Garry Schleifer:

All right, that's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app, the one that probably got you here. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine, you can subscribe for free if you're watching, by scanning the QR code in the top right-hand corner or by going to choice-online. com and clicking the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.