Navigating life’s complexities isn’t easy, but Keri Jarvis is no stranger to embracing the messiness of growth, self-discovery, and collective care. A coach, activist, and intersectional feminist, Keri doesn’t just help people “improve” themselves—she helps them see themselves in the full context of their lives, histories, and environments. Rejecting the oversimplified, one-size-fits-all narratives of mainstream personal development, Keri’s approach is rooted in nuance, connection, and systemic awareness.
From diving deep into feminist activism to redefining coaching through a lens of equity and compassion, Keri challenges the idea that we have to “fix” ourselves to thrive. Instead, she invites us to understand how the world has shaped us, how we can reclaim our agency, and how self-growth is inherently interconnected with community care.
In this conversation, we talk about healing in an unjust world, why embracing chaos (even in her own garden) has been a liberating experience, and the power of community in creating real, lasting change. Keri’s work isn’t just about coaching—it’s about reshaping the way we move through life with more curiosity, compassion, and connection.
Embracing Complexity in Life
TBN: Keri, your concept of “coaching ecologies” feels so distinct and thoughtful. What inspired you to develop this approach, and how does it reflect your personal story?
KJ: Thank you! Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly devoted to contextualizing my clients’ experiences to support their sense-making. Mainstream self-development narratives often emerge from neoliberal norms. These ideas that we always have personal responsibility, that we are each able to act autonomously, independently, and rationally, as if we can somehow isolate any particular moment from everything else that influences who we are. When I talk about coaching ecologies, I’m referring to including someone’s personal, historic, social, and systemic contexts.
In terms of my personal story, I’ve been around the GirlBoss block, I’ve lived, laughed, and loved the mainstream approaches and the fragmentation that characterizes them. I started my business in 2013 when I had my first baby, and quickly got caught up in the online business mindset shenanigans of the time- “I can have everything I want if I just follow someone else’s 5 pillar framework / vibrate at the right frequency”. There were tired old ideas that were dressed up as something new because they were newly marketed to a certain group of women, and there were concepts and practices that had been appropriated from indigenous cultures but stripped of all their wider meaning and severed from any regard for these peoples.
Alongside building my business, I was developing a feminist political consciousness, and becoming involved in community care projects. The tension between the two realities was too much to bear. I noticed how I was required to section off inconvenient truths about systemic oppression and trauma in order to participate in this “coaching” culture. (Perhaps important to emphasize that much of what goes on in these spaces is not really coaching).
Since 2019 I’ve been disentangling from that mainstream space and rooting into more equity-centred perspectives of personal development. I don’t even like to use that term! Perhaps interpersonal, or intercontext development, because all development is in relation to something. My approach is inspired by lots of people, maybe most especially Nora Bateson, Donna J. Haraway, Barbara Ehrenreich, Lola Olufemi, and Tatiana Bachkirova.
TBN: You’ve mentioned that chaos gardening and reading fiction are part of your journey. What personal lessons have these seemingly simple activities taught you about life?
KJ: I’ve never thought of myself as a practical or an outdoorsy person, and I’ve often been caught up in the sense that if I can’t do something properly/ perfectly/ impressively then I shouldn’t be doing it at all. (I’m an eldest daughter, ok?) Embracing chaos in our small garden has emancipated me from lots of my protective urges. There’s something really funny about observing myself imagining that I should get to tell the plants what direction to grow in, or to forbid anything from emerging from the ground exactly where it likes. I don’t know how to cultivate a garden that’s tidy or productive or optimised in any way, and I don’t need to. My relationship with my garden is a practice of experimentation, acceptance, and delight.
On the other hand, I’ve always loved reading fiction (except for when my kids were small and I was too tired to concentrate). I believe that imagination is an essential tool for co-creating our shared liveable futures and reading fiction reminds me of the vastness of possibilities available to us. It also encourages (forces) me to sit in curiosity rather than rushing to certainty- another practice that benefits my coaching work and my daily life.
TBN: Life often feels overwhelming. What practices or perspectives help you navigate the chaos and find clarity, Keri?
KJ: Reminding myself that we are not supposed to live like this. There is nothing natural about the conditions of late-stage Capitalism, the pressures it puts on our time, our resources, and our relationships. I remind myself that our overwhelm maintains the status quo because it means we don’t have the capacity to prioritize relations or to see things clearly. This isn’t an instant fix, but it does lead me to confront which of the pressures I’m perceiving might be less urgent or meaningful than I’d imagined.
Intersectionality and Context in Coaching
TBN: Keri, your work integrates intersectional feminism and activism. How do these values shape your coaching practice and help clients confront systemic barriers?
KJ: These things flavor all aspects of my work because they are so central to my worldview. I’ve learned to refuse the fragmentation and severance I referred to earlier- bringing my whole self to all the contexts, even if different parts of me come to the front.
As an anti-poverty community activist, I’m deeply committed to disrupting coaching industry norms that say things like, “People need to feel stretched by the investment to get the most out of it”. I don’t think the industry is ready to reckon with how exclusionary we often are of impoverished people and how much this is in tension with the sorts of things we might throw around regarding people’s inherent worth and potential. There are many wonderful people in my Composting group on The Portal who pay the solidarity rate of £10/ month and not only are they themselves accessing new thinking and behaviors, they make incredibly valuable contributions that everyone benefits from. I’ve sometimes thought about everything that would not have emerged from this group if those people had been excluded, what a great loss it would have been.
My intersectional feminism also informs my consideration of power dynamics in the coaching relationship, and factors like consent, as well as in my marketing. I don’t engage with driving a sense of scarcity or urgency in selling my work because I believe these ways of being to be exploitative.
My endeavors in community activism teach me about people, myself, complexity, endurance, and more… All of this comes through in my work.
TBN: You often speak about the role of context in our behaviors. What steps can someone take to better understand their own psychological and material context?
KJ: A really simple inquiry we can sit with when we notice we are struggling with something is “What else is going on here?”. In some scenarios, this could be enough. At other times we might need more support. I sometimes invite clients to take a sheet of paper and write their name and their scenario in the middle. From here, they are encouraged to write or draw anything and everything that they notice is present in their relationship to this scenario. Whose voices are here, what experiences might be echoing over time, what assumptions are being made? We might ponder- how might someone without their marginalized identities be socialized to experience this? The goal isn’t to ‘correct’ anything, but to interrogate the situation from this new place of awareness, perhaps teasing apart the subjective and objective realities.
Some things might be too activating to navigate on our own, and if there is relevant trauma, it can be useful to seek out an appropriate therapist. I also feel compelled to add that therapy as a modality, just like coaching, is not without bypassing or dismissing systemic issues, and so we all need to be diligent in selecting practitioners to work with.
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Living with Compassion and Connection
TBN: Keri, you emphasize compassion in your approach. How do you bring compassion into your daily life, especially when challenges arise?
KJ: I try to practice making generous assumptions about people. If we really believe that systems of oppression are so pervasive (I do), and if we believe that behaviors emerge from context (I do), then we need to offer one another grace, same goes for ourselves. None of this is to say that we needn’t take any responsibility for ourselves as we move through adulthood, but that alongside that, we collectively bear responsibility for the way we shape one another.
I’d love to include here- I am not someone who has transcended pettiness or meanness, I can be really horrible sometimes. This is especially true if I’m underresourced in some way, and when I notice I don’t have the capacity for compassion, it’s time for a check-in with myself- how have I ended up here and what nourishment do I need?
TBN: What role does community and connection play in how you approach life? Is there a moment when these connections deeply shaped you?
KJ: Well my husband says I really love people for someone who hates people so much… I’m well known amongst my friends for making Irish exits and getting home as early as possible from any and all events. So I don’t want to give the impression that I always find being with people easy or pleasurable. I think imagining that community and connection are tied up with being a people person is a big barrier for many of us.
But there are so many ways for us to build these connections, and one could be practicing more reciprocity in our lives. For example, how might we disrupt the ways in which Capitalism inserts money between us and the people around us? I’ve recently been reading The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer with one of my groups- I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in building bonds with the world around them.
If I had to choose one episode of this, it would be when my friend Petra and I had a childcare swap arrangement for 3 years. Our babies were just 1 when we started. We got a double buggy for £7 on eBay and provided one another free childcare for 3 years. I guess my point here is that building community doesn’t have to mean spending loads of time together- it can be “How can I bring more ease into your life?” (I’m paraphrasing Mia Birdsong there, whose work I would also highly recommend).
TBN: Parenting offers endless growth opportunities. How has being a parent influenced your view of resilience, love, and self-discovery?
KJ: Oh God where to start?! Becoming a mother and reckoning with that role in this society has been the greatest catalyst for development in my whole life. Mothering inside these oppressive systems has pushed me beyond my limits, especially as both my kids hated sleep for years. My children remind me of how malleable we all once were, and how easily we once understood equity and justice. I believe that being in any kind of caregiving relationship can lead us into deeper, more compassionate relationships with ourselves and others, as it simultaneously reveals the limits of the systems we live in.
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Empowering Others Through Coaching
TBN: You often talk about compassion as a key to personal growth. How do you help clients develop self-compassion while navigating the complexities of their lives, Keri?
KJ: “That makes complete sense”. This is possibly my most used phrase in my coaching work, and it’s often to meet clients in moments where they feel embarrassed by or ashamed of the way they think or feel about something. The more complexity we can include, the more easily we can access compassion.
TBN: If you could give one piece of advice to women stepping into their power while facing life’s complexities, what would it be?
KJ: I find this really difficult because of the lack of context, ha! One of my biggest gripes is generalised advice given online with utter confidence despite little to no info about who might read it. So I guess… if anyone tries to tell you with any certainty what’s “holding you back”, you, a multifaceted being with millions of layers of experiences that even you may not be consciously aware of- you don’t have to believe them!
Click here to check all the interviews from our “Empowered Women Empower Women” series.