Welcome and About
Hey there! I'm Whitney Rini (she/they)! I am a social support based life coach. If you need me, you can contact me at whrini@gmail.com (my professional emails all still deadname me!)
(I used to have a fancy website, but it was cost prohibitive and honestly challenged my ability to be genuine and direct, so this is my simple and authentic website).
(Also, you will see my deadname plastered around my resources for now as I go through the name change process. Please don't call me that! But yes we are the same person.)
Social Support Life Coaching is a method I've developed based on what helped me the most in my darkest periods of life. My work method with clients is simple - each meeting, we talk, then the client commits to doing 1 type of outreach for more social support in their life.
This could be telling a family member what's going on, hiring a cleaning service to help with the house, booking a therapist, going to an outing with friends. It doesn't really matter what it is - we just measure social support networks as an indicator of wellbeing.
Community over Capitalism
If you want to know more about how well social support building works in advance, and get to know me better, you can get a copy of my book! It's called HELP! I'm Overwhelmed! and it's really good! It clearly explains why building community is a surefire way to improve your life. If you need a free copy due to financial circumstances just let me know and I can get you the PDF.
I'm trans, and definitely love to talk about queer challenges and relate. Note that my book was written before my transition!
The short version of why my methods work is this: school and work isolate us from our bodies and make us addicted to "productive" work, or force us to use numbing/dissociative behaviors just to cope with the unrealistic expectations of the world. When we open up to others and honestly accept these challenges, we counteract this addiction/dissociation, and begin to glow and naturally handle life more effectively!
I will teach you how to live within capitalism, but to find yourself and create your own safe bubble of supporters so that you can grow and learn. I do this with a few core exercises.
1) Myers Briggs Typing. The first thing you will do with me is take the survey at https://www.16personalities.com/ to see your Myers Briggs Type. This isn't the be all end all of your personality, but it will get you talking about what you are naturally good at! (Something modern society often doesn't want you to use - it just wants you to work).
2) Distraction Blocking and Task Planning. Tech companies want you addicted to their technology. Social media, email, shopping websites, etc. I am an expert in setting up lifestyle so that these technologies are not as available. I'll show you how to toggle your phone to black and white (if you want; I keep mine in color a lot!), how to view and acknowledge your daily screen time, and how to set a calendar blocked for focused tasks. For advanced steps, I can teach you how to use a software (clickup) that tracks all of your to-dos so that you don't have to. I'm very experienced in executive function and planning in a variety of life areas: grocery shopping and meal planning especially. Without food it's hard to function.
3) Financial Automation. I'm not excited to live in a capitalistic work-crazy world, but I have to. I will show you a simple software (rocketmoney) that tracks all your spending, helps you remove subscriptions, and gives you a simple picture of the money you have.
Remember, our goal with this "self-improvement" isn't to become Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos - it's to prevent them from controlling us. We automate the capitalistic parts of life like productivity and finances so that we can live and connect more fully instead of being consumed.
In summary, when we work together, you pay an amount (sliding scale shown below), we meet for one hour over Zoom, we talk about the topics above, then you commit to at least 1 social-support building activity.
If you don't complete that activity before our next meeting, we don't meet and I won't accept your payment.
This is important to me because life coaching has a fraught history of being an exploitative process with very high rates, rah rah pep talk, and then no actual results. I have been burned by this. Me choosing not to meet isn't a rejection of you - it's an acknowledgement that I only know how to coach the way that works for me, and that social support building is the only thing that I know works. I don't want to lead you on if you aren't doing the social support activities.
And remember, that "activity" may be as simple as "send a one line text to a friend that I'm struggling." I won't be asking you to do anything crazy.
Also, if it's not working out, I literally wrote a whole book about how to find support resources - I'm happy to send you a lot of great referrals to help you find the care you need. It doesn't have to be me!
Payment and Scheduling
My service is a 1 hour Zoom meeting, scheduled and paid for in advance.
I accept payment on a sliding scale based on need, similar to the scale shown here.
My standard rate: $100/hr
If you identify as privileged and want to contribute to others' coaching: $125/hr
Middle rate: $50/hr
Free slots could be available upon request. No shame in reaching out for a custom price. No shame in taking a discount. I'm also working on building a group program that will have access to more free and discounted slots, since 1:1 time is hard to find (I exist within capitalism too, sadly!).
My boundaries are that I offer only one session at a time, with each subsequent session being scheduled if we continue to both work together and if the support action is taken before the next session. I cannot guarantee availability for any length of time or for multiple sessions, as I'm still healing myself and often need most of my day to do my own recovery work.
If you want to talk more email whrini@gmail.com or text me at 859-314-3828.