Linda King

(She / Her)

Hello! My name is Linda and I live in Essex with my husband and our adorably
mischievous whippet/lab cross, Dora.
I’m a qualified life-coach, specialising in working with neurodivergent people,
primarily ADHD.

Although I haven’t sought a diagnosis, I believe I have dyspraxia
(developmental co-ordination disorder – DCD) and I have many traits of ADHD,
(neurodivergent conditions rarely ‘travel alone’). These have affected my life in
ways I often didn’t notice or understand at the time. I have been learning to
embrace my differences and ‘quirks’, over the past few years, and I love
working with others to help them along their personal journey. I listen with
curiosity and help people to find the way forward that works for them, and to
thrive as the person they are.
I now coach full-time, but until recently I worked as a Teaching Assistant in a
primary school and combined the two jobs. I loved my work at the school,
which included working with children struggling emotionally and educationally,
and in fact I loved it so much that I stayed for 22 years! In that time, I worked
closely with children experiencing stress and anxiety and was passionate about
holding a safe, non-judgemental space for them to talk and grow. It was in my
school role that I became interested in neurodiversity (many children were
undiagnosed) and sought out as much information as possible to make
learning and school more accessible to neurodivergent children. I was lucky
enough to work in a school where many of the other staff were open to
sharing my discoveries and making changes of their own to enable children
experiencing difficulties to access the teaching and everything else on offer in
school.
I valued the connection I was able to forge with parents in my school job and I
understand the pressures and huge feelings that come along with parenting.
We are all human and can only use the tools available to us at any time. The
great thing is that we can add to our tools and keep moving in a forward,
positive direction.

My own two fabulous children are now fully grown and have left home, but
being a parent to a boy and a girl has been a wonderful, often challenging,
learning experience.
In my ‘coaching toolkit’, as well as coaching skills, I have NLP (Neuro-Linguistic
Programming - a gentle way of changing thoughts and behaviours which can
reduce anxiety and improve wellbeing) - and I have recently trained in EFT
(Emotional Freedom Technique) which is, again, a gentle and effective tool for
reducing anxiety and overwhelm and increasing wellbeing. I also have a TQUK
Level 2 qualification in understanding autism and a Diploma in ADHD from the
Open College.

In February 2024 I decided to go for accreditation with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. The purpose of the process is to demonstrate that I meet their professional criteria and observe the global code of ethics in my practise. I am very happy to say that after weeks of gathering evidence, which was a wonderful process and made me really think about what I do and why, I achieved accreditation in June and am now an EMCC Accredited Coach at Senior Practitioner Level.

I am excited to be working with NOW’s as I feel our values align and that we
are a great match in what we want to offer to children, young people and
adults. I truly love my work and feel privileged to have the opportunity to
support and connect with others through coaching. There is always a way
forward – sometimes we just need a hand to steady us to get us started.