There comes a moment.
There comes a moment when the story you’ve been telling about yourself starts to feel a little off. You’ve grown. Your life has shifted. And the sentences you carry about who you are haven’t quite caught up.
Some of those sentences have been with you for years. I’m the practical one. I’m not a natural speaker. That’s just how I am. Some are truly yours. Some may have been handed to you along the way, by family, by culture, by the rooms you grew up in.
Narrative coaching is a space to get curious about all of them, gently and at your own pace, and to find the words that feel true for who you are today and who you are becoming.
Is this for you?
Narrative coaching is for you if…
You feel a new chapter beginning, even if you can’t quite name it yet.
You’d love to understand your own story: the turning points, and the threads that keep showing up.
You want to speak about yourself with the same ease you bring to everything else.
You’re weighing a decision or a fresh start, and want to make it from a place of clarity.
You’d like a thoughtful, unhurried space that is entirely about you.
You suspect there is more of you waiting to be heard. (You’re right.)
In our sessions
What we might do together
Every woman’s path is different, so there’s no fixed order. Here are some of the things you might find in our time together.
Deep listening
I listen for your words, the phrases you return to and the images you reach for, and reflect them back so you can hear yourself clearly.
Stepping stones
You draw the moments that shaped you, the personal and the professional side by side, and we look together at the patterns running underneath.
Your own words to live by
We notice the sentences you live by and wonder how each one arrived. Together, we redefine, we rewrite and we see what feels true.
Serious play
Sometimes we step out of conversation and into play: a role play, a visualisation, a page and a pen. It’s often where the surprises are.
Small, real steps
What you discover becomes small experiments in your week, so the shift lives in your life as well as on the page.
Something to keep
Between sessions I often write things up for you: your words, your themes, a question to carry. Something you can return to.
Working together
Where would you like to begin?
Free · 30 minutes
A first conversation
A relaxed chat about where you are and what you’d love to explore, so we can both feel whether working together is right. No preparation needed.
One to one · online
Narrative coaching sessions
Sessions of about an hour, by video, at a rhythm that suits your life. Some women come for a handful of sessions around a particular moment, others for a longer stretch. We find the shape together.
Sessions are held in English, wherever you are in the world. I’m happy to talk through fees in our first conversation.
About me
Hello, I’m Mary-Brennan.
I’m a narrative coach, a story advisor and a novelist, and I’ve called Prague home for thirty years.
For twenty-five years I sat beside CEOs and senior leaders across Central Europe, helping them find the words for what they wanted to say, before helping them share their stories and strategy more broadly.
I trained in narrative coaching with David Drake, and I’ve walked this path myself. When someone once asked what I did, I said, “I’m a writer,” and my son announced, “No, you’re not!” That little moment led me, in time, to narrative coaching and to finishing my first novel.
Now I create the space for women to do the same: to find their story, and step into it.
Questions
Wondering if this is for you?
I don’t know exactly what I want to work on.
That’s a lovely place to begin. Many women arrive with a feeling more than a goal, and we find the words together.
Is this like therapy?
Narrative coaching looks forward. We work with your stories to help you move toward what you want next. If something would be better supported by a therapist, I’ll always say so.
What’s the difference between Narrative Coaching and Story Advisory?
Narrative Coaching is about finding your story. Story Advisory adds my years as a communications advisor, for women ready to take their voice somewhere more public. Explore Story Advisory