A Practice Built on Plainness
When Peekwire was researching discernment coaching practices in the US, one site stood out for a simple reason: it laid out its three-month structure and pricing plainly. That site was stillwork, a private practice in discernment and integrity. Rachel, who runs the practice, agreed to answer three questions by email. Her answers focus less on marketing and more on what actually happens when someone sits down to do this work.
When the Usual Advice Doesn't Fit
Asked when someone has come to her for one-to-one coaching and the standard advice about finding a coach did not fit, Rachel pointed to a common belief among people seeking help.
I think nearly everyone seeking help believes their circumstances are uniquely complicated. And they are, in the details. Pain has a way of convincing us that our particular circumstances are the exception and that we can't change because of this one impossible thing, or that we shouldn't have to change at all.
— Rachel, Stillwork
She described her own experience with therapy and coaching, noting that understanding why she was the way she was did not necessarily change how she lived. Hearing advice also failed, she said, because she either did not feel heard or did not recognize herself in the platitudes.
What made the difference, she said, was willingness — a kind of surrender. Not one enormous leap of faith, but small, repeated actions that gradually changed her relationship with herself through her behavior. She quoted a line that describes what she hopes to help people accomplish: "It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances."
We don't always get to change the circumstances. However, here is something extraordinary about reaching a point where, even when life is terribly difficult, you can feel proud of how you participated in it.
— Rachel, Stillwork
What Coaching Pages Leave Out
Rachel was direct about what she sees missing from most coaching websites.
Candidly, I think a lot of coaching websites leave out the coach.
— Rachel, Stillwork
She described seeing highly engineered sales funnels and SEO language, promises of transformation, but very little about the actual person: their values, ethics, perspective, or how they arrived at their understanding of the work. That matters enormously to her.
The other thing that keeps coming up in first conversations, she said, is confusion as a leading cause. She noted that our brains constantly make connections between events, feelings, and experiences to help us make sense of our lives. Sometimes those connections are useful. Sometimes they are completely wrong.
We can build an entire understanding of a situation around an interpretation that feels true but hasn't really been examined honestly.
— Rachel, Stillwork
That is where she likes to begin — not by assuming someone's interpretation is correct, and not by telling them what their intuition means, but by looking at how they arrived there. She connected this to freedom and decision-making, describing freedom as being present enough and knowing yourself well enough to make a decision that is not simply a reaction to fear.
The Order People Get Wrong
Asked what people decide too quickly or in the wrong order when choosing a coach, Rachel pointed to a common mistake: deciding that getting out of a difficult situation means the problem is solved.
When something is falling apart, of course your immediate concern is getting it back together. You need to make the car payments, repair the damage, restore a little goodwill, find your way to solid ground.
— Rachel, Stillwork
But she asked what has actually been resolved. The immediate consequences, certainly — and that is important. But what about the person who got into that situation in the first place? She has written about how easy it is to hustle your way out of a difficult situation, repair the visible damage, and mistake that for transformation.
Sometimes we're so relieved to be out of the hole that we don't recognize we're still holding the shovel.
— Rachel, Stillwork
That, she said, is the order people get wrong. We focus on the circumstances and consider the work complete when they are resolved. But the work should be about the person, not just the problem. If you haven't tended to the person, what makes you think the problem won't return?
Practical Takeaways
For anyone considering one-to-one coaching, Rachel's answers suggest a few things worth sitting with. First, the feeling that your situation is uniquely complicated is nearly universal — and it can become a reason not to change. Second, a coaching page that tells you nothing about the coach's values and ethics is leaving out something that matters. Third, resolving the immediate crisis is not the same as doing the deeper work. As Rachel put it, the work should be about the person, not just the problem.