As a WU Best Help featured member, I offer reduced rates on my one-on-one coaching.

Trauma-Informed Coach | Pressure Patterns™

I'm Kamini Wood. I've been coaching for over a decade, and the people who find me tend to have a lot in common. They're capable. They're the ones everyone leans on. They hold it together at work, at home, in every room they walk into. And they're tired in a way that rest doesn't fix.

I know that version of life from the inside. I was the people-pleasing perfectionist who could handle anything, as long as no one asked how I was actually doing. What I eventually understood is that none of that was a personality. It was a survival pattern. Something I built early to stay safe, still running the show long after the danger was gone.

That's the work I do now. It's not a skills gap. It's a survival pattern.

Does any of this sound familiar?

• You say "no worries" when there are worries.
• You push harder, talk faster, win the argument and somehow lose the room.
• You go quiet when the stakes go up. You shrink. You make yourself easy.
• You're so useful to everyone that your own life has gotten small, and you can't remember when that happened.
• You've accomplished a lot and it still doesn't feel like enough.
• You freeze, fold, or over-explain in the conversations that matter most.
• You're coming out of a relationship with someone who made you doubt your own read on reality, and you don't fully trust yourself yet.
• People call you strong. You know it's more complicated than that.

What's actually going on

I call these Pressure Patterns™. There are four I see most: the Pleaser, the Overrider, the Disappearer, and the Shutdown. Most of us run more than one, and they show up hardest under pressure, which is exactly when you'd most like to show up as yourself.

Here's the part most coaching gets wrong. You don't get rid of these patterns by trying harder. And calming down isn't the same as changing the pattern. The pattern that protected you then is the one running your meetings now, and it doesn't care how many breathing exercises you've done.

What works is learning to catch it in the moment. Notice it. Name what it's protecting. Then choose something different. Notice, name, choose. It sounds simple. It takes practice, and it changes everything downstream: in how you live, love and lead.

Underneath all of it is the question I keep coming back to with every client: who did you become to survive, and who are you underneath that?

How it works

We work together one-on-one over a stretch of time long enough for real change to take hold. A few sessions can give you insight. Insight isn't the goal. Living differently is, and that takes repetition in real situations with someone in your corner. We'll decide together what length makes sense for you.

You might be thinking you should be able to handle this yourself. You've handled everything else. That thought is the pattern talking. Being the person who never needs help is one of the most common survival adaptations there is, and it's also the one that keeps you stuck the longest.

My approach

I'm trauma-informed, which means I care about what your nervous system learned, not just what your mind believes. I trained in applied positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, I'm a Certified People Coach in Vanessa Van Edwards' PEOPLE Framework, and I'm a certified Motivational Maps facilitator, along with other credentials you can find on my site. I also facilitate trauma-informed leadership work for organizations.

None of that matters as much as this: you will not be judged here. I'm not going to hand you a script or a mindset hack. I'm going to help you see yourself clearly, maybe for the first time, and then trust you to choose.

I wrote OM: Life's Gentle Reminders. I'm a mother of five. I grew up in Connecticut and now work from North Carolina with clients all over the world.

Ways to work with me

1:1 coaching (online or in person)
Speaking
Workshops and group programs
Podcast interviews

Stand where your feet are. Stay present. Come home to yourself.

Book a time to talk with me.