We had the good fortune of connecting with Christopher Daniels and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Christopher, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Ever since I was young, I wanted to change the world. Growing up as a queer, neurodivergent person in an emotionally unstable and chaotic household, I often felt lonely, isolated, disconnected. The pain and behavioral patterns I learned early on, in order to survive, stayed with me for most of my adult life and had devastating effects on my myself and my relationships. I numbed myself, through drugs and food, to avoid the shame I carried and overwhelming pain I felt most days. I walked around angry, confused, and depressed but chose to stifle those feelings, slap on a smile, and set up an autoresponse of “I’m fine” to any who would inquire. After a series of selfish and destructive choices, I imploded my entire life over night. As I began to slowly rebuild my relationships, businesses, and sense of self, I was driven to understand what happened and how I could do things differently.
The surgeon general recently stated that, in the United States, we are facing a widespread epidemic of loneliness. People are experiencing burnout and disillusionment at alarming rates, feel imprisoned by their own ingrained patterns and behaviors, and feel hopeless. I currently operate two businesses: Your Life Worker and Your Life Coworker. Your Life Worker is my general life coaching and integrative change worker business. Through solo sessions, group coaching, and educational classes I inform my clients about a myriad of topics including core wounding, neurodivergence, nonviolent communication, stress management, and attachment styles. I provide an overstuffed toolbox of strategies and accessible practices that they can use to create a felt sense of safety within themselves and their life. This helps us regulate their nervous systems and make different choices. I help people break patterns and instill new ones. I listen to people, accept them where they are at, and love them through whatever their experience. My goal is teach people how to coach themselves, that no matter where they are and what is going on, that they have power and choice to actualize the change they want in their life.
Your Life Coworker focuses on working with organizations and businesses to increase the emotional intelligence of their staff. My goal is to change how we do business; to address toxic culture and business practices and offer evolutionary approaches on how we relate to one another and our customers. High emotional intelligence is recognized as one of the key predictors of success, personally and professionally. With the rise of remote workplaces, cultivating rapport amongst staff members, establishing work/life balance, and understanding how to draw boundaries and advocate needs are exceptionally important. I teach members of staff, leadership included, how to build trust, be accountable, take initiative, and remain curious. I have been able to work with the University of Nevada-Reno and Good Luck Macbeth Theatre Company, teaching restorative/transformative justice practices to their casts and educating them on stress management and self care. I have gotten to give presentations to the National Dental Association and National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges on trauma response cycles and how to break patterns of behaviors. Being able to work with nonprofits and businesses whose mission is to provide direct services that impact the world is an honor and blessing.
With both of my businesses, my hope is to create a greater understanding of our feeling body, connecting to our emotions – and the wisdom they possess, and live in wholeness with compassion for ourselves and for others.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I think my queer, neurodivergent self ensured that my path would be anything but straight and literal.
For a long time, I thought I was behind on this whole adulting and life thing. I have had several careers before landing on this one. I was an educator for Planned Parenthood, ran a community theater, facilitated art programs (K-6) in the school system, taught yoga, lived as a performance artist/drag queen, and was a community organizer. I thought there was something wrong with me because I was constantly bouncing around; that I was failing “life” because I didn’t commit fully to one path. What I learned is that each iteration of my professional career was preparing me for the next. I am grateful for the variety, for in that variety I developed an insane amount of skills that I use everyday in my coaching my business. As a certified yoga instructor, I bring mindfulness and breathing techniques into sessions. I bring my previous experience as a community organizer into sessions by talking about restorative/transformative justice practices and acknowledge systemic injustices and their impact on individual and collective trauma. I encourage play and artistic expression as a way to regulate the nervous system and process pain. I teach about various rituals and spiritual practices that my clients can integrate into a daily practice. My coaching practice is expansive. As a life coach, I am not bound by a single ideology or method. I am continually deepening my knowledge and understanding and always bringing new tools and strategies to the table.
I bring the fullness of my identity as a big, flamboyant, queer, drag queen, neurodivergent, theatre kid into my business. I have done educational workshops in drag and written & performed entire one-person performances about mental health. I bring my full self to every session. I believe laughter is exceptionally powerful and try to infuse, where appropriate, humor into the session. My AuDHD means that I can recall very specific details from every session without having take notes in the moment, meaning I can be fully present with each of my clients, and like one of those detective cork boards with the red string, I can tie various details and moments together to reveal patterns and paint a picture for my clients. I know that having been judged and shamed for who I am, I actively create a container in which I love and accept people where they are at without need for them to change; that container allows my clients to feel compassion, at ease, and that they are not being judged.
One of the biggest challenges that I faced was learning how to navigate my AuDHD while running a business. This meant becoming intimately aware of the nuances of my diagnosis and what my body needs everyday. I had to learn to become self-referencing. I learned to stop always seeking answers outside of myself or impulsively buying the latest, greatest planner/app/book/course that is going to solve all my productivity/life problems. I try something on, discern how I feel as I do, and then take it or leave it based upon my experience. I establish and follow (to the best of my ability) a daily practice so I can show up as my best self. I structure my day to optimize my energy levels; taking clients at certain times of the day, doing admin work at other times, ect. I understand my motivational needs and format tasks and chores so that they are interesting or challenging. It also means dismantling ingrained capitalistic dogma around work and productivity and viewing my limitations without shame or judgment. I take naps when I need to, schedule palette cleaners during the day to regulate my nervous and give my brain a break, and prioritize movement throughout my day. Everyday, I unpack what it means to be an entrepreneur, coach, and business-owner.
Whenever I sit down with clients, I reiterate that I have made so many mistakes in my life. Though the context of our stories are different, I have made similar choices, had similar feelings. I am far from perfect and perfection is not even the goal we are striving for. My vulnerability and admission of past mistakes often normalizes the feelings and experiences my clients are having. My past also gives me credibility; every tool and technique that I present to clients are ones that I utilize to this day. I believe in my clients; I believe that change is possible for them and that they are capable of the change that they want.
At the moment, coaching is an unregulated industry. I am a professionally certified coach & integrative change worker and member of the International Association of Counselors and Therapists. As part of that certification, I do continuing education every year and am a member of the Ethical Coaching Collective meaning that there are ethical rules that I am embody and follow as part of my practice. I feel that that is exceptionally important; that there are values and ethical codes of conduct that you operate by that inform your business practices and decisions.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Reno is fabulous. I never thought that Reno would be home; just a stepping stone to somewhere else. 15 years later, I continue to find things about this city that I love.
Monday:
We would head down to Midtown to walk around and do some shopping. We would then go to Mexcal for lunch and have some of the best tacos in the city. I have a weekly Monday night dinner with friends where my friend Joseph Garton – who has the mantle of the Gay Martha Stewart – prepares an exceptional homemade dinner for us.
Tuesday:
Depending on the weather, we would go up to Tahoe for the day. Best to go during the week because parking is insane on the weekend. We would walk the new walking loop they recently constructed to get iconic views of the Lake and end up at the beach. I love doing cold plunges in Lake Tahoe; the water is absolutely magical and transformative. So I would probably encourage my friend do that, even though it is freezing.
Wednesday:
To start off, we would have a cute cafe moment by going to Star Village and having one of their incredible lattes. One of the interesting things that Reno has is all-you-can-eat sushi. So I feel like we would have to experience that while they were here. In the afternoon, we would head to the Glass Die for an afternoon/evening of board games. The bar has walls of board games for patrons to choose from. I am obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons, so I might convince them to do a one-shot adventure with some friends.
Thursday:
In the morning we would head to my favorite independent bookstores, Sundance Bookstore and grab reading material (see Saturday). From there it is a short walk to the Discovery Museum and the Museum of Art. Then we get dressed up a little bit and head to the steakhouse at Western Village for dinner. The food is amazing and we can get our picture taken. If we felt so inclined, we could even gamble a little bit (I mean when in Reno). At night we would head to the Emerson Bar. If it was the first Thursday of the month they have drag bingo, which is a great time.
Friday:
It’s an early morning, we go to the Studio (a yoga studio) for my friend Andrea Moore’s warm yoga flow. Then we would of course reward ourselves for getting up early doing yoga by going to one of my favorite bakeries, Perenn Bakery. They have a Vanilla Creme Brulee Kouign Amann that is insane. That evening we would go and take in a theatre show at one of my local favorites either Good Luck Macbeth, Bruka, or Reno Little Theatre.
Saturday:
Head down to the local farmers market for some local, homemade goodies and then a trip to Idlewild Park for a nice picnic reading books outside. From there, I would take them to go visit the Daylovers, my oldest and dearest friends, so they could meet and hang out with my godchildren, Azzy and Shoo. I would then take them to one of my favorite restaurants for dinner, Bangkok Cuisine. And knowing me, I would probably make my friend go to another theatre show.
Sunday:
It is Yoga Church at Temple Yoga to start our day. I would love to take them to an escape room. Deadline escape is my favorite. It is spooky and the puzzles/story are always incredible. Finally, for dinner we would head to Great Full Gardens, a restaurant that sports fine organic ingredients. Usually we see the owners Gino and Juli there, who are good friends.
The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have been blessed with so many mentors and teachers who have been instrumental to my success. Jen Donovan, one of my greatest mentors and best friends. Thank you for fostering my love of yoga and also challenging me to face my destructive habits and help me usher in new ones. You are pure magic and you remind me everyday that magic is real. Jacquelyn Baldwin, you were my first coach and truly set me on my path. Thank you for loving me when I was incapable of loving myself. Thank you Denise Sheehan for creating a container to help me alchemize truly one of the darkest moments of my life. To my godchildren (Azzy Rey, Shoo, Edison, and Emery), I didn’t fully understand what unconditional was or meant until you all come into my life. The Daylovers, thank you for providing me a family and helping me understand what it means to live and love within community. Thank you to Simone Seol and Melissa Tiers for being my teachers. Your instruction and coaching has made me the coach that I am today. Thank you for solving a long unanswered question on how to change a pattern/behavior that literally changed my whole existence. Thank you for continuing to show me how to re-define the institution of coaching and how to practice with integrity.
Thank you to Good Luck Macbeth, the theater I called home for so long, that gave me permission to play, have fun, and express myself. Thank you to my former improv troupe, The Utility Players, who taught me how to “yes,and” life and what it means to stay present in the moment.
Website: https://www.yourlifeworker.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christopher.william.daniels/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-daniels-99452497/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.daniels.3914/
Other: https://www.yourlifecoworker.com
Image Credits
Final photo of me in the caftan (Melissa Vargas)
Photo of me in drag on stage (Amanda McHenry)