Moving mountains so families can talk

Stephanie Dawson-Cosser is a coach/facilitator/mediator. She tells Margaret Harris that no career can take the place of close personal relationships

Tell me about what you do.

As a relationship coach, I support individuals, couples and family members to enable them to communicate their deepest needs to each other.

Speaking difficult truths and telling someone you love "You hurt me" is difficult and, by not talking about it, a silent mountain grows in our minds so we stop talking to each other. When we stop talking honestly with each other ... we live under the same roof but we do not connect, husband to wife, parent to child.

My work involves enabling relationships to connect and flow again.

I facilitate groups and individuals to find their voice and give them the skills they need to find constructive ways to communicate their needs, truths and skills in the home and workplace, which enables them to contribute fully to their personal and professional and community relationships.

As a divorce and family mediator, I am trained to help couples to part ways amicably, with the best interests of their children at the centre of all the decisions they make.

Mediation around the issues of the ongoing parenting/child relationship is required by law for the parenting plan that forms part of the divorce agreement. Mediation enables the couple to part company in a respectful, amicable manner by mutual agreement.

What are the most common issues you deal with?

For each client there is an individual catalytic moment or experience that makes them reach out for help.

Some of the opening lines to me on the phone are:

• My husband needs to improve his relationship with our son;

• Either the mother-in-law goes or I do;

• My daughter doesn't want to go and stay with her dad;

• I feel stuck with my life; and

• I don't know if I can do this marriage thing.

Each person has reached their own crossroads and know they have to make a decision, but they are in the frozen part of fight, flight or freeze - our response to shock or trauma - or stuck due to limiting assumptions where they feel unworthy.

Everyone seems stressed at the moment, as money and time are tight and the pressure on us as employees, parents, spouses and children is huge. What advice would you give to help people manage their lives better?

• We all have the same 24 hours in a day, so prioritise and use each hour wisely;

• No career replaces relationships - so make time to nurture your key relationships;

• Your truth (what you experience, feel and think) matters. So speak into your world so that you can be seen, heard and understood and, as a result, make a difference; and

• Budget for what you really need in life and let the rest happen - this is called work-life balance.

What did you want to be when you were a child?

A nurse. But as I reflect back I particularly wanted to work with babies.

Later, as I had to make peace with unhappy experiences of boarding school where I felt I was "abandoned" and survived experiences of bullying, I resolved I wanted to make sure children would feel "seen, heard and understood".

What was your first job, and what did you learn from it?

My first job as a Norland nanny (from Norland College in the UK) taught me that the understanding of the role of the nanny/childminder is key to family life when parents have careers that take them away from home.

After a number of nanny positions, my most meaningful position was as a senior house mother in the UK to care for children who had been removed from their family home for a variety of emotional and social reasons.

This was the beginning of my real journey into understanding the importance of those primary relationships in the family, and how important it is to support parents as they manage the vast range of responsibilities of raising children, building a career and nurturing a primary emotional relationship.