Hi, I'm Gisele
I’m a Mum to Joel and Ruby-Rose and wife to Clayton. I live on the Northern Beaches of Sydney and am so
grateful to live here for the lifestyle and the awesome local community. I could never live away from the ocean.
Being a coach was never in the plan.
I was very happily working in a human resources directorship role, a career of 13 years, and then crisis hit. In
1999 my first son Joshua passed away at 11 days old and then a very dysfunctional marriage ended.
There’s a saying that you need to be ‘shaken to awaken’. Well, I certainly know that to be true! Crisis cracked me
open. Looking for answers, I learnt to meditate, became an avid reader of personal development books and a few
years later attended my first deep dive personal transformation program. Here I learnt how to step out of victimhood
and blame and into the paradigm of cause and effect. I was free.
A few months into the program, I heard Joshua say to me in meditation
‘You’re here to ignite peoples’ spirits and
hearts. That’s what you did for me and 11 days was all I needed. And now I do the same for you.’
You can imagine
the mess that I was hearing that! Those words said everything, yet from a practical point of view I had no idea what
they meant.
Some time went on and I knew I needed to leave my human resources role and surrender into an exploration of
what those words meant. Six months later having meditated on those words everyday, the vision was clear. I
yearned to bring the freedom that I experienced to others. And thus my coaching career began in 2004
I’m living the plan I didn’t make.
And I continue to live more plans that I didn’t make.
Thankfully the plan we didn’t make is not always catalysed by crisis.
It can also be catalysed by joy and intuitive pulls. Having said yes to intuitive pulls time and time again, there are
moments where I’ve felt anxious and uncertain. I’ve had my own ‘how could I?’ or ‘it’s not my place to’ or ‘how
audacious’ going on, and, I have come to learn that those intuitive pulls never, ever disappoint.
When I first started coaching never in my wildest dreams would I ever have thought that I would have the privilege
of only working with people I absolutely love, and in ways that feel natural and joyful. Never did I even consider that
authenticity and intuition would be all I’d need to be in service to the highest outcomes for clients, beyond their
expectations. Never did I ever see as a possibility that I’d be running retreats in Kenya, China, Vietnam, Phuket, Bali, Croatia!
Coaching has been a wildly delicious ride, not always easy, but always far beyond what I ever expected back in
2004. Thus is the generosity of the plan I didn’t make, a miracle in itself!
From so much overwhelm when I lost Joshua to the experience of so much unexpected overflow, I would continue
to do what I do even if I won the lotto.
I hope that my children will choose lives that give them as much joy, if not more.
When I came into contact again with Gisele last year, it was as a result of me seeing a Facebook post she had put up that just struck a cord with me. The premise of that post was aimed at people who knew they were here to do something special in the world, that they had a role to play in making change, but they didn’t think they were enough in some way or they were lost. I commented on it to the effect of, ‘I feel like you have written this about me’ and from there we reconnected....
I look at life through a different set of eyes now. I am finally at peace with myself and excited again about the future. My relationships have transformed 180 degrees. I am in awe of her wisdom, her bravery, her vision of what is possible and most of all, how she held me so gently along the way. I have also gained a lifelong friend, one who has quite simply changed my life. I hope that others can experience what I have with Gisele, and that they don’t wait for as long as I did.
Suz De Jong
Author