About
I’m on a quest to increase our capacity for discomfort.
In my 20+ years experience working for high-powered leaders, leading my own businesses, and being the coach, consultant and psychotherapist to in-demand leaders…
Here’s what I’ve learned for sure:
I call this work Unburdened Leadership.
Leadership is emotional work.
Real life in a body and a business is messy and vulnerable.
And trauma is universal, ordinary, and responsible for so many of our status-quo leadership struggles.
Meanwhile, our role requires us to brave the uncertain, take responsibility for others, and
I combine research-backed psychological principles, leadership expertise, and future-focused business coaching to help you carry the burdens of being a human-leading fellow-humans.
Whether you’re:
Unburdened Leadership is for you.
A thought-leader building a platform
A CEO vying for change
A consultant developing your body of work
A business owner with sky-high standards
A helping professional raising your profile
An enterprising creative getting more visible
An expert on non-profit impact
A principled educator making waves or a mix of all of the above:
Because the world needs you to do more than keep up.
And business leaders, independent workers, educators and helping professionals all have an important role to play.
We can lead ourselves and others to be productive and innovative, without pushing anyone to burnout.
We can create workplaces where everyone can feel heard and cared for, so we can make hard decisions and avoid doing harm.
We can do leadership differently, and take actions that make a difference now while redefining business for future generations.
Change is needed.
I’m Rebecca Ching, LMFT.
I’m a leadership developer, psychotherapist, ICF-certified coach, entrepreneur, writer,
speaker and podcast host.
I work with changemaking leaders who want to do more than just keep up – without compromising what matters most.
- Create a work environment where everyone can feel empowered, respected, cared for and recognized (including you) – even when tensions are high.
- Be able to enjoy your accomplishments while managing significant responsibility as an in-demand human in a high-stakes world.
- Feel like you’ve got this. Your commitments are more than doable. You have enough time, energy and confidence for everything that aligns with your values.*
*HINT: This means unlearning a lot of what we are taught about productivity and success.
I believe in and choose:
Curiosity over Certainty
Dignity over Dehumanization
Discomfort as data over Demonizing emotions
Connection + Consent over Control + Power Over
Kindness over Nice
Permission instead of Power-Over
Systemic Perspective over Individualistic Lens
Resourced over Reactive
Slow + Steady over Urgency + Efficiency
Enough over Exhaustion
Boundaries over Barriers
Leadership Values + Practices
On your team. And in your community.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom
that leaders should power-over and power-through:
Learning to power-with your “resistance,” engage uncomfortable emotions, and understand how life experiences affect humans – makes you a more effective leader.
Inner work increases your capacity to use your time wisely, take risks, make unpopular decisions, set and maintain life-changing boundaries, perform without perfection, and become more deeply connected to the people around you.
The Unburdened Leadership Framework is grounded in:
- My work among the world’s top power-brokers. I’ve worked for a Senator in Washington DC, as an advertising executive in NYC, and for an international youth organization in Europe – which showed me no one is immune to difficult life experiences.
- My practice as a system theory thinker and my passion for social change, which helps us look at where you can break with culture expectations without sacrificing your bottom line.
- 10+ years as an entrepreneur successfully running my own therapy practice, Potentia Family Therapy, Inc, and more recently branching out into my coaching and consulting business.
- 20+ years of clinical experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), where I counseled folks through difficult life experiences within the context of their relationships and systems theory.
- My history as a certified Internal Family Systems Therapist, developed by Richard Schwartz, PhD an evidence-based approach for trusting your true Self, so you can steer your life with clarity and confidence.
- My decade-plus experience as a certified facilitator and consultant in the methodologies of Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, including Shame Resilience Theory and Daring Way™ – frameworks that help you develop uniquely human skills for more effective leadership.
- My own quest to balance my ambitions to make an impact with being a good partner to my husband and a mother to my son and neurodivergent daughter.
Why I combine psychotherapeutic principles + coaching specifically for high-performing, high-commitment leaders:
Powerful, strong, capable leaders and business owners came into my office face down, burdened with exhaustion, frustration and self-doubt.
Underneath it all was a deep shame for not having figured it out.
Why couldn’t they seem to keep up appearances, or simply pray, think and manifest their way out of pain or recurring struggles?
They feared they were broken. They heard if they weren’t getting the promised results, they weren’t really committed.
And yet they were doing everything they could according to Power-Over Personal Development – the leadership philosophy dominating bookshelves and seminar stages.
In this one-size-fits-all thought work, there was no regard for their unique nervous system.
No acknowledgement of how family of origin, difficult life experiences and systemic oppression can have echoes that impact us in the present.
No space or skills to identify and process the emotions vying for attention in their bodies…
Several years ago, I noticed a pattern in my clinical work.
Power-Over Personal Development
has got it wrong.
“Negative” emotions are not a sign of weakness.
They are simply evidence that you are a brave, caring person who is all in with their life and work.
Doing all the gratitude journals, affirmations, and perfect morning routines does not ensure you won’t experience hard times, heavy feelings, embarrassing mistakes, conflicts of interest, and all the other messy things that come up and add friction to reaching your goals.
And you do not have to crush it, have a miraculous morning, or 10x your results to get where you want to go.
AKA Power-Over difficult experiences.
You need to treat yourself and those you work with like real human beings with realistic needs.
AKA Power-WITH.
Powering-with your emotions is how you feel less drained. Bring focus and motivation back to what matters. And feel more connected to the people around you.
It can be your superpower through the inevitable pushback and conflict of doing your change-making work.
Curious about working together?
Let’s meet and find out if we’re a fit.
keep me in your inbox
Each week, I send out Unburdened Leadership Insights to help you:
free insights ↓
- Release the stifling expectations that keep strong leaders stuck
- Make healthy space for emotions while maintaining momentum
- Develop skills to lead without losing yourself or your values
