Blog - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

In Celebration of the Feminine…

Last weekend I attended a two-day Intensive with Steve Chandler in Arizona. For those of you who don’t know, in some coaching circles Steve Chandler is referred to as “The Godfather of Coaching”. He has been a coach for forty years and brings a wealth of experience and wisdom to the work. Given his advanced age – he is 81 – I wanted to utilize the opportunity to be in the room with Steve, knowing that I might never get this opportunity again.

I’ve been coached by Steve before, and even had the opportunity to interview him last October, and yet, this time was different. I was coming to the conversation, not as a wide-eyed beginner coach, excited to meet her hero, but as a professional coach who is also established in her work, and also brings wisdom and experience to the table.

What struck me over the course of the two days was the absence of the feminine voice in the room. And I’m being deliberate and intentional with my choice of words here. What I’m longing to see more of in the coaching industry, is the emergence of the feminine voice… […]

Certainty vs. Clarity

Posted on April 27, 2026By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Commitment / Connection / Courage / Decision-Making / Dreaming / Emotional Agility / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Gratitude / Grief / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Planning / Purpose / Thriving / TransformationLeave a comment

Do you believe you need certainty before you can take action? Today, I want to distinguish between certainty and clarity. The one is impossible to obtain, and the other is essential if you are truly going to thrive and stay committed to your most important goals. […]

You don’t need to deserve to thrive to choose to thrive…

Posted on April 14, 2026By ChantalPosted in Commitment / Courage / Fear / Future Self / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Story Matters / Thinking / Thriving / Transformation

In a recent article I posed the question: What do you believe you deserve? Today I want to explore this question: What if there is a reason why you don’t question whether other people deserve to thrive?

You see, our innate being is one of wellbeing and of thriving. We are meant to grow, learn, expand, flourish, thrive… It’s built into our DNA. If you consider how much a baby grows and learns in their first year of life, and how much can change in the first five years of life, you have witnessed the wonder of our innate ability to grow and thrive.

What’s even more amazing, is how adaptable we are, and how our nervous systems will adapt to the environment we find ourselves in. We will cultivate behaviours that will help us survive in any environment, and over time, those behaviours become our habits and our patterns.

Anything that is learnt, can be unlearnt… […]

Do you find it hard to be who you are…?

Posted on April 13, 2026By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Courage / Fear / Happiness / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Perspective / Purpose / Story Matters / Thriving / Transformation

“It is easier to try to be better than you are, than to be who you are.” – This quote by Marian Woodman struck me. So often we treat ourselves like self-improvement projects, thinking that if we could only be better than we are, then everything would be the way we want it to be. If we could achieve that elusive level of perfection, then we would finally be happy, and have all the love, joy, and abundance we are craving…

At least, I know this was true for me. I started working with my coach, with the hope that it would help me figure out what was wrong with me, and that I could then fix myself. My coach was unwilling to participate in that experiment, and she kept treating me as if there was nothing wrong with me. I was baffled.

And now, seven years later, I get it. None of us are broken. We are simply disconnected from our true nature. We have allowed for so much conditioning to settle into our minds, hearts, and even bodies, that we have completely forgotten who we are… […]

What do you believe you deserve?

Posted on April 6, 2026By ChantalPosted in Commitment / Compassion / Connection / Courage / Dreaming / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Self-care / Story Matters / Thinking / Thriving1 Comment

In 2024 I led a private coaching group called Living As If You Matter. At the completion of this group, I gave each of the participants a small silver journal. I invited them to treat the journal as a Dreams and Desires Journal and to write down 100 dreams, desires, longings, or wants in it. I also promised each of the participants a complimentary conversation if they wrote down their dreams and desires, and then reached out to me to let me know that they had completed their list.

The other day I invited a client to guess how many women reached out to me after receiving their dreams and desire journals. My client said, “Well I would hope all of them reached out.” I asked her why, and she said that she would have a hard time coming up with a list of 100, and that she hoped someone else had the courage to come up with a list of 100…

My client captured the essence of what I have heard over and over again during the past seven months in conversations with women about thriving. People are struggling to let themselves thrive. Why? It’s very simple really, they don’t believe that they deserve to… […]

What is driving your desire for more?

Posted on March 25, 2026By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Courage / Future Self / Goals / Gratitude / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Passion / Perfection Detox / Purpose / Thinking / Thriving

In my most recent article I talked about the drive to do more, and I questioned the desire for abundance. This may have left the impression with you that I’m saying that wanting more is bad. And that is not what I’m saying at all.

Over the past three years, I have discovered that there are two kinds of desire for more… […]

What is the opposite of scarcity?

Posted on March 25, 2026By ChantalPosted in Courage / Failure / Fear / Gratitude / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perfection Detox / Purpose / Resilience / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving

In a conversation with a client who is in the exploration of her own thriving, she mentioned how, in her incessant drive for more, she often mistakes momentum for meaning. And this is a symptom of living in a manic world driven by a scarcity mindset… Robert Holden calls this our destination addiction.

When we believe that there is not enough, that we are not enough, or that we will not have enough, we also inevitably believe that more is better, and we start to think that the whole point of life is to keep chasing more until we arrive at the ever-elusive destination where we finally “have it all”.

Lynne Twist reasons this is how we keep the scarcity mindset alive. We have been conditioned to focus on what we lack, not on what we already have. When we pay attention to what we lack, we inevitably believe that more is always better, and we act as if there is simply no other way to be in the world. This is just how it is. What we don’t see, is how we then trap ourselves on a hamster wheel that we can never escape… […]

What to do when you feel overwhelmed – Take 10…

Posted on March 23, 2026By ChantalPosted in Compassion / Connection / Courage / Emotional Agility / Failure / Fear / Future Self / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perfection Detox / Purpose / Resilience / Self-care / Slow down / Thriving

I’m not someone who tends to write about the steps you need to take to overcome something, or fix something, and today I want to talk about something Alison Armstrong shared that landed and resonated deeply. And it’s directly connected to our willingness to let ourselves grow, stretch, and ultimately thrive… So, I hope you will indulge me in sharing with you what you could do if you are currently feeling overwhelmed. […]

What’s the relationships you have with your body?

Posted on March 21, 2026By ChantalPosted in Compassion / Courage / Gratitude / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Love / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perfection Detox / Perspective / Rejection / Self-care / Thinking / Thriving / Transformation1 Comment

This past weekend I spent time in a workshop with Michael Neill. It was a conversation about health, and it got me thinking about the relationship we have with our bodies. And so today, I want to invite you to consider: what is your current relationship with your body? […]

Do you feel like you are behind in life?

Posted on March 19, 2026By ChantalPosted in Failure / Fear / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving / Time management / Transformation

At the start of the new school year in September, my daughter’s music teacher handed her a recorder. One of the skills she is mastering this year in Grade 4, is learning to play the recorder. She loves music and loves learning.

Since September she has practiced every single day. And every time she masters a new song, she receives a new colour belt. The goal, I’m told, is to first get her first black belt, then reach three gold belts, which will unlock the ultimate prize – a rainbow-coloured belt. She is obsessed with rainbows, so of course a rainbow-coloured belt is the ultimate coveted item right now. I’ll be honest, there have been days where I have had to remind myself that the noise is part of the journey, and that she can’t improve her skill without practice.

Then one day it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard her play in a while. A curious question as to why I haven’t heard her play, resulted in tears. “All my friends have moved on to black belts, and I’m still stuck at purple. I’m so far behind…”

And there it was. The cry I’ve heard so many times from friends, loved ones, and especially from clients – they fear that they are behind in some way. This is not a new phenomenon, and my daughter certainly isn’t the only one experiencing the feeling of being behind in life. In fact, it saddens me that she is already feeling behind at such a young age… […]