David Barrett Coaching

05/22/2026

Probably the best article I've read this year. It explores how our experience of and responses to power imbalances in childhood shape our entire adult existence. It ties this to parenting and to the narrative of original sin, then articulates what healing means--not an overcoming or escape of that experience, but a reinterpretation and re-learning of the possibilities of relationship in a space where power imbalances are not violent or coercive.

It's a lengthy read, but well worth it. (Or you can listen, if that works better).

This is what I most appreciate about coaching--the creation and exploration of a shared space where we can be both big and small, whether through movement, through other practices, or simply talking and relating to each other. Learning to change our size and shape without losing our structure and integrity is a vital skill in which we never achieve perfection.

"If adults relate to their children predominantly through the lens of their own unresolved childhoods, the child’s task is impossibly complex: they must grow a self beneath the weight of someone else’s fantasy. Inevitably, a child who is repeatedly treated as overwhelming starts to feel that way, even if some part of them instinctively resists. Or a child who is responded to as innately disobedient begins to feel that they are, in fact, difficult. And a child who is confronted with fear, contempt or moral scrupulousness learns to feel that there is danger in their own impulses, even long before they can describe them.

Because children rely entirely upon adults for survival, they usually cannot allow themselves to see that important adults are distorted or defensive. They simply assume that adults are correct. This is a primitive emotional safeguard. The emotional logic here is this: if my caregiver is wrong, I am unsafe; but if I am wrong about myself, I can be fixed, forgiven and even loved. In this context, the child pursues the only workable option: turning the adult’s projection inward.

We should not conceive of this inward turn as passive; it is creative and adaptive. Over time, the child actively constructs an internal image of themselves that is largely based on the reactions of important adults, and then organises their behaviour, expectations and emotional life around that image. If the caregiver experiences neediness as an irritation, the child will tend to suppress need. If the adult casts curiosity as threat, the child will often minimise their exploratory drive. If the adult feels that dependence is suffocating, the child will find ways to hide their longing. These accommodations feel like safety to the child, and safety feels like love, even when moments of protest or defiance break through."

"By the time we reach adulthood, the internalised asymmetries of childhood no longer feel like adaptations. They are our personalities. What started as a creative adjustment to the adult’s projections becomes ways of relating, an irresistible pull toward repeating certain patterns of love, authority, closeness and self-regulation. The child who found ways to circumvent criticism now strives for perfection. And the child who felt like too much now keeps their needs small. The child who felt responsible for other’s feelings is now exquisitely attuned to every feeling around them.

Some escape the feeling of smallness by compensating and developing (or projecting) authority and achievement. For them, power becomes a bulwark against the vulnerability of dependence. Others go in the opposite direction, moving toward submission and finding a strange relief in giving up agency before it can be taken away from them. For still others, the pattern oscillates: a wish to be held closely is followed by a fear of being overpowered, with moments of assertiveness trailed by guilt or self-reproach."

"Original sin could be seen as a doctrine about smallness, about our fundamental inadequacy before something that is larger than we can imagine. A child brought up in this tradition received more than just an adult’s projection about their deficiency; they also received a metaphysical verdict. The inner badness that Young-Bruehl and Phillips cast as a residue of relationship is here a fact of creation. This adds a quality of inescapability. You can, in principle, disappoint a parent and later repair the damage. But you cannot revise what God has determined about the nature of children. In a sense, the whipping and the sermon are continuous: both inform the child that their impulses are corrupt and that the adult’s correction flows from love. Emotionally, this is awfully hard to metabolise, because the aggressor is not just an important person but an entire moral order."

Nobody quite recovers from being a child: the asymmetry of power between parents and children always leaves a trace

02/18/2026

Very interesting research. How we think about our capacity to meet challenges matters immensely to healing.

"Future research plans to explore if this “strength-based” approach could apply to other stigmatized groups, Bauer said. The researchers suggest that individuals who have survived trauma or who live with chronic physical illnesses might also benefit from reframing their struggles as evidence of their resilience. Recognizing the hidden strength in these experiences could offer a scalable, low-cost way to support mental well-being and personal growth across a variety of populations."

Changing how people view their past depression can improve their future success. A series of experiments shows that recognizing the strength required to battle mental illness enhances self-efficacy and tangible progress toward personal goals.

12/08/2025

Limited Time Offer: Holiday Check-In (via Zoom)

The holidays can be a difficult time for many reasons—grief, family drama, isolation, winter blues, anxiety, etc. Not everyone understands that. Take some time to prepare yourself. In this special 90min call, we will build practical strategies you can use this holiday season.

From Dec 1 through Jan 3, book a 90-min session for only $100CAD (regular $150).

Use the link below to schedule a Check-In. I will confirm with an invoice.

https://cal.com/davidbarrettcoaching/christmas-check-in

If none of the times work, please PM me. I could open up an evening.

Christmas Check-In

11/10/2025

"She did what she had always done." Most people imagine that they will somehow rise to the occasion when they face crisis. The reality is that when we are under stress, we fall back on the behaviours we have practiced. This is character. As a song I love asks,
"Who will you be when you're afraid
And everything changes?
Will you see a stranger?
Feel proud or betrayed?"

This is the space I coach in--preparing people to handle change with confidence and integrity. It's not magic, but it can be learned through practice. If you want to change how you show up, book a free consultation today.

davidbarrettcoaching.com

At 32,000 feet, the engine exploded. The cabin filled with smoke. A window shattered. A passenger was dying. And Captain Tammie Jo Shults spoke like she was asking for coffee.

“Southwest 1380, we’re single engine,” she told air traffic control, her voice calm and steady. “We have part of the aircraft missing, so we’re going to need to slow down a bit.”

Part of the aircraft missing.

Metal shrapnel from the left engine had ripped through the fuselage, breaking a window and sucking passenger Jennifer Riordan halfway out of the plane. Fellow passengers pulled her back in, but she was critically injured. Oxygen masks dropped. The aircraft began shaking so violently that passengers thought it would tear apart. People screamed. Others cried quietly, texting their families goodbye.

And in the cockpit, Tammie Jo Shults did what she had spent her entire life training to do. She flew the plane.

Before that day, before she became the calm voice that saved 148 lives, she had already spent decades proving people wrong.

Born in 1961 in New Mexico, raised on a ranch in Texas, Tammie Jo fell in love with flying at age 12 after watching planes perform at an air show. She turned to her father and said, “I want to do that.” He smiled and said, “Then you will.” But the world had other ideas.

In the 1970s, women were told they could not be fighter pilots. The U.S. Navy rejected her application not because she lacked skill or intelligence but because she was female. They told her that women could not fly combat aircraft. She applied again and again. Finally, she was accepted to the Navy’s Aviation Officer Candidate School, but only as an instructor pilot. She could teach men to fly jets, but she could not fly them in combat.

Tammie Jo accepted anyway. She taught, trained, and mastered every aircraft she could. When the rules finally changed in 1993 and women were allowed to fly fighter jets, she was ready. She became one of the first women to fly the F/A-18 Hornet, a supersonic fighter capable of both combat and attack missions.

She didn’t just fly the jet. She mastered it. She became an instructor in “Out of Control Flight,” teaching other pilots how to recover aircraft when everything goes wrong. She also served as an aggressor pilot, simulating enemy attacks for training exercises. In short, she trained the best pilots in the world to stay calm in chaos.

After more than a decade in the Navy, Tammie Jo joined Southwest Airlines. She flew commercial routes for over twenty years, quietly piloting flights across the country. Passengers had no idea that the woman in the cockpit had once trained Top Gun pilots.

Then came April 17, 2018.

Southwest Flight 1380 took off from LaGuardia Airport, bound for Dallas. Twenty minutes into the flight, the left engine exploded. A fan blade had fractured from metal fatigue. Shrapnel tore through the engine, the wing, and the cabin. One piece hit a window, creating a hole the size of a basketball. The cabin depressurised instantly.

Jennifer Riordan, sitting near the broken window, was pulled toward the opening. Passengers fought the suction, pulling her back inside. They performed CPR as the plane dropped thousands of feet. Oxygen masks deployed. The aircraft vibrated so violently that pilots struggled to read their instruments.

Inside the cockpit, alarms blared. Warning lights flashed. Systems failed one after another.

Tammie Jo took control. She declared an emergency and requested an immediate diversion to Philadelphia International Airport. The aircraft was crippled, flying on one engine, and yawing violently to the left. She fought the controls with precision, keeping the plane stable despite the uneven thrust.

Her voice over the radio never wavered. “Could you have medical meet us there on the runway as well?” she asked air traffic control. Not panic. Not fear. Just professionalism.

In the cabin, passengers prayed, texted loved ones, and cried. They thought the plane was falling apart. But in the cockpit, every movement of the controls was deliberate. Every second was calculated. Tammie Jo was balancing the forces of a dying aircraft with the calm of a surgeon.

Twenty minutes later, the runway came into view. She guided the damaged Boeing 737 down, lined up perfectly with the centreline, and touched down smoothly at 11:27 a.m. The plane rolled to a stop. Fire trucks and ambulances surrounded it instantly.

Inside, passengers burst into tears of relief. They had survived what most experts later said was an almost unsurvivable situation.

Jennifer Riordan tragically did not make it, but everyone else did.

When recordings of the cockpit audio were released, the world was stunned by Tammie Jo’s composure. Aviation experts called it one of the finest displays of airmanship under pressure in modern history. Many pilots admitted that few could have handled it so well.

Tammie Jo didn’t call herself a hero. In interviews, she gave credit to her co-pilot, the flight attendants, and the passengers who helped. She simply said, “Any pilot would have done the same.” But that wasn’t true. Most pilots never face an engine explosion, a decompression, and a near-structural failure all at once. And fewer still remain calm enough to land safely.

When asked later if she had been afraid, she said, “There wasn’t time to be scared. There was only time to fly.”

That sentence says everything about who she is.

Her entire career had prepared her for that moment. Every rejection, every obstacle, every training drill in the Navy had sharpened her skill and her focus. When everything failed, she didn’t panic. She performed.

After the incident, she returned to flying. No fanfare, no celebrity status. She simply went back to work. Because for Tammie Jo Shults, flying wasn’t about fame. It was about responsibility.

She once said, “Flying is a privilege, not a right. You respect that privilege every time you take off.”

That day, she honoured that belief by saving 148 lives.

Her story reminds us that calmness is power. That true leadership isn’t loud or dramatic—it’s composed, steady, and decisive when everything is falling apart.

Tammie Jo Shults proved that heroism isn’t about bravado. It’s about preparation meeting crisis. It’s about skill over fear. It’s about doing your job when the world is burning around you.

The sky was breaking apart, but she refused to let the plane fall.

She did what she had always done. She flew.

10/13/2025

This is a powerful presentation about the small ways courage shows up in our everyday lives and relationships.

I would build on this to say there is a simple way in which complex and developmental trauma is the result of a lack of courage--on the part of our communities and primary relationships. It can be hard to show up when you don't know what to do, and you don't get to feel powerful and in control. This can be downright paralyzing for some people. So, unfortunately, people often don't show up when we really need them too and that makes it hard to trust that the people we encounter possess the character and courage we desperately need.

This is what we need from the people around us--a willingness to show up in the face of uncertainty and weakness (ie, love). (Note: This is not the same as showing up for someone who demands control).

What interests me in my study, teaching and practice is this: building the kinds of habits and practices that prepare us to show up with love in these situations. This is where character lies--not in fantasies of saving the day (even as we miss the moments of need right in front of us), but in consistently showing up for the small things, the uncomfortable things, the things that actually matter even when they aren't easy. Continual practice is how you learn to move and act even when you aren't powerful and in control, when things are deeply uncertain.

This is what I do. I coach people to navigate uncertainty with skill, courage, and creativity. Check me out at davidbarrettcoaching.com.

Family life often requires extraordinary bravery, from navigating the daily challenges to surviving the unexpected crises. Author and podcaster Kelly Corrigan offers profound wisdom (and seven key words) to help you focus in on what matters most.

09/29/2025

https://psyche.co/turning-points/china-made-me-ashamed-of-my-body-cuba-taught-me-to-love-it

A beautiful reflection on coming to terms with your body and your self through movement.

"Inside my teacher’s studio, a full-length mirror hung in the hall like a portal. She met me in a white lace dress that clung to her backside. Her long hair was pulled up into dreads, black-rimmed glasses framing her face. She was older – maybe in her 40s – and luminous. On her feet, she wore simple flat sandals, nothing remarkable, yet she moved with a rhythm so natural, so precise. Her confidence in her body defied every standard I’d grown up with."

In China, I was used to treating my body like a problem. In Cuba, everyone seemed at home in theirs

06/26/2025

When you are feeling overwhelmed or paralyzed or like life is futile, it can be difficult to figure out what needs to change. Research on boredom offers a useful framework for finding a way forward.

The MAC (meaning-and-attentional-components) model of boredom argues that boredom is the result of a mismatch between resources and demands, and/or a lack of meaning. When we are overstimulated or understimulated and/or find our lives or activities meaningless, we struggle. Thus, challenges in these areas correlate strongly with addictive behaviours and burnout. This struggle can be amplified because of a third element--a lack of a sense of agency--especially for trauma survivors who have had their sense of agency distorted or crippled.

Loss of agency is at the center of all experiences of trauma. However, as we are able to recover that sense of agency, we are able to seek and create meaning, cultivate and build resources, and adjust demands. If a person lacks a belief in their own agency (which I will address in a later post), they will struggle to adapt to these challenges, and seemingly small concerns can quickly spiral into crisis.

Conversely, as a person learns to seek and create meaning, cultivate and build resources, and adjust demands, they will build confidence in their own agency. Importantly, this doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Claiming even a small piece of agency provides momentum and confidence for building more.

The MAC model offers a useful framework for finding space for agency:

1) Building resources - this includes taking stock of the personal, social, material or other resources available, as well as building capacity through things like education, lifestyle changes and relationship skills.

2) Adjusting demands - this can include setting private challenges to keep yourself engaged, practicing boundary-setting to manage demands, exploring and evaluating opportunities for change, and learning how to navigate discomfort.

3) Seeking and creating meaning - this includes seeking clarity about our personal values (as opposed to imposed values) and how they inform our daily living, and learning to both create and make use of culture--stories, music, art, practices, etc--to express ourselves, imagine possibilities and navigate uncertainty.

This is what my coaching focuses on--finding small ways to cultivate agency in the midst of uncertainty and crisis. These are skills I have spent my life cultivating and practicing in diverse contexts.

davidbarrettcoaching.com

06/04/2025

"[Y]our brain, which does much more than avoid threats, eat and mate, also lives in a complex social world with abundant ambiguities to deal with. That’s a recipe for stress. And what is stress? It’s just your brain anticipating the need to expend energy and preparing accordingly. Spending energy isn’t limited to avoiding threats, either. It also covers exercising, getting out of bed in the morning and reading this article. Additionally, it’s the cost of learning in uncertainty because your brain spends energy to hone its predictions to be more effective in similar situations in the future. There’s also a sustained metabolic cost if you don’t learn and instead remain in never-ending soup of uncertainty."

This is a great article.

I've been interested in the relationships between stress, uncertainty and learning for quite a while. This begins to clarify some of the connections.

Stress is a part of life. It can sometimes be overwhelming. However, much of that overwhelm is tied to two things:

One is lack of physiological resources--sleep, nutrition, water, exercise, social connection. These can be cultivated to increase our capacity to deal with stress.

Two is a lack of skills and/or tools. This can be general or context-specific. General skills include our ability to calm ourselves and moderate stress, our awareness of our environment, our curiosity, and our willingness to take risks. Context-specific skills are specific to the task at hand--surviving in the wilderness, speaking in front of people, self-defense, or cooking a meal. General skills are part of any learning experience, and provide support for growing context-specific skills.

As someone who grew up with an immense amount of uncertainty, these things were critical to my survival. My coaching focuses on cultivating physiological resources and building general skills so you are better prepared to face the uncertainty of life. (I call this "learning to play well.")
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What skills or resources have been most useful for facing uncertainty in your own life?

The brain’s primary job is to reduce uncertainty in an ever changing world

05/28/2025

Thanks to everyone who followed this page. I'm still dialing in my ideas and plan to be creating more content soon. In the meantime, please feel free to share this with anyone who might be interested.

I want this to be a resource space for building healthy practices to navigate change and uncertainty with compassion and confidence.

05/26/2025

I had the privilege of watching a traditional Japanese tea ceremony this weekend. I was struck by the way it slows time down. It only took about 20 minutes, but it felt like hours.

I suspect that is the point--when you can sit for a few minutes and focus on just doing one thing in meticulous, precise detail, it changes your relationship to time. Part of the rush of contemporary life is that we can never do just *one* thing--our phones, our computers, our work, our whatever seem to crowd in and we are overwhelmed by our inability to attend to them all at once.

Perhaps change is this simple: slow down and do one thing at a time, taking the time to do it well--even if (or maybe especially if) it is something trivial.