Coaching 1:1

Softening barriers to courage, clarity, authenticity, and action

We create conditions for you to soften inner obstacles, free up your energy, and learn to craft work, relationships, and experiences that are meaningful to you.

To be human is to long for things to change—we almost always have a sense that something about work, life, our relationships, or ourselves could be better. Maybe…

  • We could gain more confidence in speaking or leading.

  • We could make room for our dreams rather than just our obligations.

  • We could be less preoccupied with the opinions of other people.

  • We could finally drop habits that no longer serve us.

  • We could live a truly intentional life–one that’s creative, healthy, connected, brave, and alive.

Whatever your in-most longings are, they’ll keep knocking…nudging you on the inside until they have your attention. This is what our 1:1 coaching journeys aim to support.

Testimonials

  • You helped me face and name the internal programming and conditioning that wasn’t serving me anymore.

    Your guidance was pivotal during a time when I was ready to reinvent and recraft my professional life. You helped me face and name the internal programming and conditioning that wasn’t serving me anymore. Today, I have agency over my life. I have the courage to make difficult decisions based on my true values. And I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

    —Heera Kang, Program Manager & Writer

  • One of the most transformational sessions I have ever had

    Working with Liya is truly amazing. My first session with her was one of the most transformational sessions I have ever had. And, she continues to amaze me.

    —Caroline Lee-Smith, Psychotherapist

  • DSD left me feeling empowered to find where I'm stuck and unstick myself.

    Before the DSD process, I was filled with anxiety around showing up as an expert in the field of visual literacy. Sunni worked with me to meet the roots of that anxiety, really understand it, and finally release it. I know now that I can lead my own internal system with greater ease and productivity. DSD left me feeling empowered to find where I'm stuck and unstick myself.

    —Dr. Susan Daniels, Professor of Educational Psychology and Co-Founder, Summit Center

  • Working with Liya has empowered me to pursue my dreams

    I can’t thank you enough, Liya. Your program helped me transition to owning my own business and creating a life that has allowed me to be a present and loving mother. This unique style of strategic and soulful approach helped me deepen my self-discovery process and gain insights that helped me make bold moves in a way that builds on what I have and works with my unique situation. I'm grateful that I am now living a dream I once thought impossible.

    —Stefanie Hodinh, Founder & Owner, She Does Your Books

  • Deep Self Design changed the way I work.

    Together, Sunni and I identified an invisibly operating Cheerleader part of me that was clouding my ability to see problems impacting my business. I was astonished at how quickly we went deep to identify and work with this dominating part and release it from a very old story around how I had to show up. Now I know how to recruit that part when I need it but not let it run the whole show. A huge, lasting win that happened surprisingly quickly.

    —Denise Honaker, Founder and Owner, Sips and Skills

  • I was able to access deep insight that I had previously been unaware of

    Liya holds a compassionate space for deep awareness of self. I was able to access deep insight that I had previously been unaware of, and discovered a sense of equilibrium in my body and mind - a profound and gentle self-love that I had never experienced to this magnitude before. Truly transformative work.

    —Elyse Scott, Somatic Therapist

  • I felt a solid shift in my relationship to my internal world

    One session applying DSD with Sunni left me grounded, more heart-centered and leading with my bigger Self. I felt a solid shift in my relationship to my internal world with no apparent downside.

    —Brian Hannah, Co-Owner, Muscle Activation of San Francisco

  • DSD taught me a powerhouse technique for zapping internal obstacles

    I’ve always been interested in self-development and I’m pretty skilled in this area, but DSD taught me a powerhouse technique for zapping internal obstacles. If more people lived this method, the world would be a much more evolved place.

    —Paige Davis, Author and Founder, Soul Sparks

  • The DSD process taught me how to acknowledge those emotions with patience and compassion

    As a business consultant and interim CFO, my biggest challenge was turning toward emotional content in myself that was affecting my ability to be present with employees who were struggling. The DSD process taught me how to acknowledge those emotions with patience and compassion and bring them into my work so I could be a more holistic leader and ultimately deliver the results both I and my clients need.

    —Danyelle De Jong, Founder and Strategy Consultant, Idea Illuminations

  • [Liya's] ability to work with me at a deeper soul level is unlike anyone I’ve ever worked with

    During my career transition, I did a lot of research and worked hard to land a new role, but I still felt stuck. Working with Liya, I always left our sessions gaining a new perspective, with a clear strategy, and a set of action items that moved me closer to my goals. I’d go back out there energized, too. Her combination of professional experience, strategic thinking, action-oriented coaching, and ability to work with me at a deeper soul level is unlike anyone I’ve ever worked with. I highly recommend her programs!

    —Tami Chen, Product Manager, edX

  • [DSD] helped me unlock what I’m really capable of

    When I was struggling to make the leap from founder/CEO who simply runs my company to a boss who owns my power, I worked with Sunni through her Deep Self Design coaching program. It was incredibly moving and powerful. It stripped away layers of stories I was telling myself about my business and my worth and helped me unlock what I’m really capable of.

    —Jennie Nash, founder and CEO of Author Accelerator

  • Now I have clarity to move forward to what the universe and I can create together.

    I kind of knew Liya before entering in to my exploration process, but what I did not know was that how deep, soulful and insightful journey I was taken into. Liya has simple, but elegant ways to guide my own inner thought process. As a result of our shared journey, now I have clarity to move forward to what the universe and I can create together.

    —Mikko Pekka Hanski, Investor & Board Member

Coaching 1:1 at CDSD

When you want to improve anything in your life, there’s only one place to look: inside you.

— Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len

At CDSD, most of our resources are focused on teaching a method of D.I.Y. Inner Work. But sometimes, the fog and friction of our inner landscape make it tough to resource ourselves. Our 1:1 coaching is designed to support you in these moments. We collaborate with you to establish an intrapsychic scaffold from which you can deepen your own capacity, skills, and confidence to:

  • Work with fears, doubts, and uncertainty that arise during a major career transition

  • Break free from old patterns, unexamined scripts, intergenerational and collective conditioning that limits your potential

  • Reconnect to your core inner guidance to gain clarity when facing a major challenge at work or home

  • Learn in-the-moment self-attunement to help you relate to others authentically and confidently 

  • Soften internal obstacles as you work toward offering your unique gifts to the world

  • Resolve inner tension or polarities to make important decisions with personal power and self-validation

  • Develop practices to support a path to authenticity and fulfillment

If these possibilities speak to you, book a session today.

How Coaching 1:1 Works

We provide compassionate, non-judgmental, expert guidance that links experiential learning to tangible results. Our goal is to assist you in overcoming persistent, current challenges while staying true to CDSD’s mission of offering tools for Inner Work that will empower YOU to manage your own well-being, taking meaningful action when you need it. In service to that mission, we practice a form of principled internal ethics which minimize and deter dependence on our presence over time.

Because of this orientation, we allow you to book sessions as you go or work with us to co-create an issue-specific, goal-oriented, time-bound program to meet your needs.

Our ultimate aim is to facilitate self-liberation by helping you connect to your own inner guidance, a profound intrapersonal resource untouched by wounding and trauma that we refer to as ‘Deep Self.’

1:1 coaching sessions are 60-90 minutes and are held via Zoom.

Depending on your inquiry or challenge, a private session may involve:

  • Facilitating your journey into the Inner World using our Deep Self Design method and multi-sensory tools

  • Teaching you an Inner Work practice that accelerates and enhances what you’re already doing

  • Consultation or advisory on how to approach a specific challenge

Currently, our cofounder Liya James has limited spots for 1:1 coaching sessions. Click the button below and follow the prompts to book one.

What You Can Reasonably Expect From Coaching

Begin a priceless journey of self-discovery, self-authorship, and ultimately self-empowerment.

While our Inner Work methods have a wide array of applications and every journey is unique, if you work our programs, transformations you can realistically anticipate (as reported by past participants!) include:

  • Greater confidence in being with emotional discomfort and learning self-regulation and self-stewardship

  • A reclamation of inner peace, creative courage, and quiet confidence

  • The dissolution of internal obstacles that block personal expression, decision-making, creativity, and leadership

  • An arrival at your own definition of success rather than worrying about what others think or expect of you

  • Feeling skilled and confident in your ability to approach situations authentically even if there’s a power imbalance or relational disturbance 

  • Moving unabashedly toward your vision of a life worth living

  • A strengthened sense of personal leadership rooted in core values

  • An embodied, experiential competence to do your own Inner Work in any moment

  • A newfound ability to sustain equanimity and centeredness in the presence of conflict or emotional turbulence

  • Greater skill in experimenting and co-creating with life to accelerate your process of becoming

  • Feeling more capable of meeting life’s uncertainties and challenges with a sense of agency and personal power

  • The joy of sensing and living into your deeper function and unique gifts

Who We Serve

Our work is for individuals ready and willing to step into their greatest potential and do the often challenging work of awakening and growing. You may be a heart-centered leader, a socially-conscious entrepreneur, a committed change-maker, a creative problem solver, an inner world explorer, or a seeker answering the call to a deeper function, determined to polish and offer your unique gifts. 

When practiced sincerely, our DSD method can enrich every facet of your life, and we are exceptionally skillful with people in transition, aiming to unstick, change course, expand what’s possible, and release old fears.

Our students learn to shine their corner of the world, and the fruits of this practice become evident in how they imagine, create, love, and live.

Readiness Check

Our offerings root best with collaborators in a state of Readiness. What Readiness means is:

  • You are sincere in your longing to grow up and wake up, willing to face uncertainty in order to learn.

  • You are receptive to exploring your inner world and becoming more self-aware.

  • You are willing to cultivate self-compassion, even radical self-compassion, as well as benevolent self-regard.

  • You are committed to doing the work of emotional honesty because you believe in its value.

  • You have a genuine interest in being accountable and self-responsible even when circumstances are tough.

  • You are willing to experience temporary emotional discomfort to gain the gifts of self-knowledge and healing.

  • You are committed to doing work that can sometimes be turbulent and challenging and, therefore, extremely rewarding.

  • You will show up for your own process of maturation and liberation. You may falter, but you will not give up on or abandon yourself.

Questions We’re Often Asked

  • While DSD is therapeutic, instructive, evidence-based, and scholarly, we are not classic coaches, therapists, clinicians, or academics. We are authors, helpers, inner scientists, multi-sensory facilitators, interdisciplinary educators and co-creators. We are experienced psychonauts, benevolent catalytic agents, compassionate autodidacts, fluent collaborators, and dedicated pragmatists. In short, we are Deep Self Designers–a category unto itself.

    In the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha advised students not to accept teachings simply because they’re passed down through tradition, taught by a revered teacher, or even when they are imbued with logic. Instead, he encouraged them to experiment with teachings, litmus-testing through direct, individual experience. He advised students to embrace a teaching only if they found it beneficial and conducive to well-being.

    This is very much the spirit of our offering. In our facilitative role of Deep Self Designers, we do not claim to have special knowledge. We do not profess to have rarefied insights, exclusive access to sacred realms, or illuminated qualities that you yourself do not have. We wear no symbolic or performative garments to indicate credibility, and we do not claim to have “answers” for what you should do with your life. We believe that you have them. We are facilitators. As such, we create conditions for your own wisdom and compassion to be cultivated and to emerge. We focus on equipping you with the knowledge and tools you need to be self-reliant. We delight in your awakenings, your ah-ha’s, your inner knowing. These will lead you in the most important ways, and it is unnecessary for us to take credit for that.

  • There’s an unseen producer of your lived experience called the Inner World. All humans have an Inner World, though many of us don’t know it intimately.

    This world is your personal, internal tide of thoughts, emotions, sensations, perceptions, beliefs, and stories about reality. It occurs largely outside of your awareness yet directly impacts your choices, behaviors, and decision-making, defining your felt sense of well-being and directing your energy and potential.

    The outer world includes things like life circumstances, other people’s behaviors, economic conditions, etc. At CDSD, we help people learn how to work with their Inner World so they can learn to work with the materials in the outer world with a sense of power, responsibility, and possibility. By approaching life this way, we can co-create with life’s instructions to meet our soul’s longing.

  • Doing Inner Work means working with your Inner World with compassion and benevolence. At CDSD, we help people develop the ability to do their Inner Work by accessing the Deep Self (your inner guiding intelligence that is full of compassion, curiosity, and courage) so you can meet the parts of you that feel shame, guilt, sadness, anger and work with the automatic script that has been running your life in the background. You learn to slow down your automatic reactions and default narratives so you can move into a powerful place of directing that movie you call life.

  • Deep Self Design® (DSD) is a creative life practice created by Sunni Brown (Sun Kagami), an acclaimed author, a world-renowned expert in creativity and visualization, and a Zen chaplain in-formation. Sun has been applying and refining this method since 2007 in close collaboration with clinicians, self-development experts, mental health professionals, and respected spiritual teachers. The DSD method weaves five evidence-based practices—Visual Thinking, Gamefulness, Self-Compassion, Silence, and Internal Family Systems—into a finely-tuned method of behavioral redesign that can profoundly change anyone’s life for the better. Learn more about DSD here.

Not ready for coaching but want to learn more about how to do your own Inner Work?

Still Got Questions?

Still got questions about 1:1 coaching programs or our other offerings, set up a free exploratory call to see which one is right for you.