Bringing your best self to life
So life can bring it’s best to you.
Jehaan Hirji
Jehaan Hirji, BSc
Jehaan trained as a transformational coach in 2018 with Animas Centre for Coaching. Before this, she worked in a comprehensive school for over a decade, teaching Mathematics, Psychology and working as a Head of House. These experiences, along with the passion she brings to raising her family all inform how she shows up in the coaching space.
My Story is still being written.
It’s not a tragedy, though of course there has been pain along the way.
A comedy, though there is a healthy dose of laughter throughout.
A romance, though there is lots of love both given and received.
My aim is to make it as boring and adventurous as possible, because
Contentment is underrated, so it ambition.
But that space in the middle?
That’s where the magic happens.
Jehaan Hirji
Jehaan - mother, teacher, transformational coach
Jehaan achieved her Psychology BSc at Royal Holloway University of London as she has always been interested in human behaviour and interaction. During her degree she also worked in the music industry as a singer and while she only achieved minor successes in this field she values the lessons she learnt in these formative years of her life, juggling studying, working part time to help fund her escapades and her studio work & performances.
In 2008 Jehaan qualified as a teacher and spent the next decade working as a Secondary Mathematics Teacher at a comprehensive school in South London (though she also taught Psychology among other subjects). The focus of her teaching career, however, was firmly rooted in pastoral care, with the wellbeing of children and staff at the forefront of her practise.
Following the birth of her first child, Jehaan reignited her journey of self-development and self-discovery which resulted in her training for her diploma in transformational coaching at Animas Centre for Coaching.
Why do I coach?
Life for me is about relationships. When I think about what drives me forward and motivates, what is important to me, my family are number one. The family who share my DNA but also the family who I have chosen to walk my path with me; the friends who may not be blood relatives but whose impact on my life is significant nonetheless.
With siblings a decade older than me and a father who passed away weeks after my twelfth birthday, my family life was not the conventional picture painted by TV sitcoms and it took me years of mourning that fake ideal to realise what a comfortable and blessed life I did have. I had told myself a story about not truly fitting in, being a burden and needing to be perfect so that no one ever noticed or needed to worry about me (needless to say, I was not successful in my pursuit of perfection!). Every time something happened to support this world view I would file it away and discard the countless other memories that told me otherwise.
By the time I understood that this was a life script which I had never offered anyone the chance to refute, the damage was done. My self worth was diminished and I had no idea what I really wanted in life, whether it was which place to order take out from on a Friday night or what I wanted to achieve in my life. I had simply lost touch with the inner voice that afforded me any opinion of my own. Yet from the outside I was confident with my tough exterior shielding me and keeping me measured and controlled in every instance.
I was so out of touch with my needs and so focused on everyone else’s needs and expectations of me that I didn’t know who I was.
It was easy for a while, to just ignore it and carry on. Our society has become very adept at offering us distractions at every turn. Dependencies grew on food, on TV, on a demanding and busy work life, anything that could fill the silence and distract me from what I didn’t even know I was feeling.
And then my son was born.
Suddenly I was tired.
Vulnerable.
There was so much time and yet I was so busy I was unable to fill it with my old distractions.
Everything in my life shifted all at once, and in trying to stabilise again, I realised I didn’t want to. I had known all along deep down that something wasn’t right and this was my opportunity to fix it. So I became stronger. I built myself up in any way I knew how so that I could be vulnerable enough to ask the questions of myself but strong enough to hear the answers.
So began my journey of self rediscovery. Now I am on a mission to support others through their own shadows to find their light.
Would you like some help to find yours?