STEPH HOLDEN, ICF ACCREDITED COACH

You know what you want. You're scared of what you'll lose.

Coaching for women who look completely sorted to everyone else and are tired of keeping the story straight. Together we work out why it has stayed a secret for so long, and what you would choose once it stops making your decisions for you.

A relaxed half hour on Zoom to talk through where you are and whether we're a good fit.

HELLO, I'M STEPH

I kept a cover story going for years, so I know what it takes out of you.

I was a senior leader who looked like she had it all together, steering every conversation away from the parts of my life I didn't want anyone to see. Coming out from behind that story is the hardest and best thing I've done. Now I help you do the same, at a pace you choose.

I'm warm and curious, and I ask the kind of questions that keep working on you long after the call ends. There's also more laughing in my sessions than people expect, because this is heavy enough already.

You are not broken, so I'm not here to fix you. Your brain learned the patterns you live in, and it can learn new ones.

IN THEIR WORDS

“She didn't tell me what to do. She asked the questions that brought me round to what I really wanted.”

JH

“I was skeptical, but the sessions have opened up a whole new perspective on my situation. I can't imagine not having coaching now!”

Anonymous

“I'm finally 'out' with my family.”

Amy

WAYS TO WORK WITH ME

1:1 Coaching with Steph

Six private sessions on Zoom, just the two of us. Weekly if you want to keep momentum, or every other week if life is full and you want time to try things out in between.

We start with whatever is taking up the most room in your head right now, at a pace that feels right for you. Together we work out what has kept you holding it in, what you want instead, and the small steps that get you there.

£390 for six sessions. Pay in full, or spread it over two or three monthly payments.

Not sure yet? Book a free call first and we'll work out together whether this is right for you.

FOR THE FULL JOURNEY

Root to Rise

My twelve week one to one programme, built around the ROOTS Method and the five stages of the Joshua tree. Twelve weekly sessions of forty five minutes, with support between calls by voice note or email so you're never left holding something until next week.

You also get the Out of Hiding bundle of prompts, guides and your own Root to Rise journal, plus an audio recording of every session to go back to whenever you need it.

£1,500 for the full programme. Pay in full, over three monthly payments, or choose the fortnightly version across 24 weeks with six monthly payments.

MY STORY

I know hiding because I lived it.

I was raised to be a good girl and I was properly good at it. Doing the right thing, being the one nobody ever had to worry about.

Then I got it badly wrong. I worked at a mental health unit and I had a relationship with somebody who was a patient there. It ended in a criminal conviction and it was in the papers, written up by people who had never met me, in a version I barely recognised.

From the start of that relationship to the day I was convicted was six months. I am forty nine. If my life were a book of twenty chapters, that would not fill one of them. For a long time afterwards I let it be the whole book.

What I could not work out at the time was who I was supposed to be now. Everything I knew about myself said I was the one who did the right thing, and I had just done something that fitted nowhere in that. There was a gap where I used to be and I had nothing to put in it.

So I decided to be better. Not in any considered way. Just harder, and then harder again. If I achieved enough, surely it would cancel the other thing out. That logic carried me into a corporate career and up through it into a senior leadership role, running teams, looking like a woman who had it all worked out.

The whole time I was waiting for it to come apart.

I steered conversations away from anything that came near it. I skipped the nights out where somebody might know somebody. I turned down jobs I wanted in case my past caught up with me. I kept people at the exact distance where they could like me without ever knowing me. That is what a cover story does. It protects you from the one thing and it takes everything around it.

The conviction was six months of my life. The hiding was two decades of it, and I was the one doing the hiding.

I am not ashamed of my life. I made a bad decision, I have thought about it for a very long time, and I am not spending the rest of my years pretending those six months belonged to someone else. They happened and they are mine. They are not the sum of me.

That is why I do this work. Guilt is about something you did, and you can do something with guilt. Shame is a feeling about who you are, which is what makes it stick and what makes it so good at keeping you hidden.

My shame turned out to be useful. It was hard going, and I learned more about myself in it than I did in all the years of doing everything right. I like who I am now and I would not have got here staying quiet in my lane.

Shame is an emotion like any other, and emotions are information. Turn the tables on it and the thing you have been hiding can become the most interesting thing about you.

If you are reading this and comparing

Your way in will be different from mine. It might be money, or a relationship, or something in your family, or something you said once and have never stopped turning over.

Whatever it is, it probably feels enormous to you. That is what shame does. It takes up the whole room.

The entry point makes no difference to any of it. Once you are in shame it feels the same whoever you are. The watching yourself, and the working out which version of you each person gets.

And keeping it in costs you more than the thing itself would. You do not pay that in one go. You pay it in small amounts over a long time, in the conversations you steer away from and the people who never get to know you properly. Twenty years of that comes to far more than you would have paid if it had just been known.

So there is nothing to work out about whether yours counts. It counts.

What would you do with yours?

PRESS

Press and media

Steph Holden is an ICF accredited coach working with women on shame, guilt and the things they have kept hidden. Available for comment, interview and broadcast.

Based in Wigan, available UK wide and online.

Email: hello@joshuatreecoaching.co.uk

Mobile: 07599 526243

Same day response on weekdays, and happy to take short notice radio.

What I can speak on

The difference between guilt and shame, and why that distinction changes how women deal with both.

What it costs a woman to hold a cover story at work for twenty years, and what happens when she stops.

Why capable women in midlife walk away from jobs they are good at.

The good girl pattern, where it starts in childhood and how it shows up at forty five.

Coming out of hiding without blowing up the life you have built.

Shame and neurodiversity in women diagnosed later in life.

Bio

Steph Holden spent years as a senior corporate leader with a cover story, steering conversations away from anything that might expose the thing she was hiding. She now coaches women in the same position. Joshua Tree Coaching launched in October 2025 and was a finalist at the Wigan Business Awards in its first year. Steph works with women over forty on shame, guilt and concealment, using an approach grounded in neuroplasticity rather than positive thinking. She holds a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Leadership and Management, awarded with Distinction, and is accredited by the International Coaching Federation. She speaks and runs workshops across the UK on hiding, shame and what it costs.

Recent appearances

Podcasts: Confessions of an Unapologetic Rebel, Soul Speaks: Lasting Legacy, Real Lives, The Best Self Project.

Speaking: Soul Speaks Live London 2026, Womanifest, Love Reclaimed for Rebuild With Hope, Wigan Wellbeing Festival, The Girls Club, Winter Wellbeing programme. Booked for Mind Circles Talks in 2027.

Recognition: Wigan Business Awards finalist 2026.

Images

High resolution headshots available on request.

SPEAKING

Talks and workshops

I speak about shame, guilt and the cost of hiding, drawing on my own years of holding up a cover story and the work that got me out of it. Your audience will leave with the language for something they have carried on their own and a clear sense of what to do with it.

Talks run from 20 to 60 minutes and workshops from 45 minutes to half a day, in person or online, and I am glad to take panels and audience questions.

Based in Standish, Wigan, and travelling anywhere in the UK.

My talks

The Cover Story. My own story, from being raised to be a good girl through the choice that changed everything and the hiding that came after it.

Guilt and Shame: What Your Brain Does After You Get Something Wrong. Guilt is about something you did and you can act on it, while shame is a feeling about who you are, and the hiding ends up costing more than the thing ever would have.

Coming Out of Hiding. A working session for women carrying something they have told nobody, built on coaching questions and small, specific action.

Shedding the Layers: Coming Home to the Real You. A reflective workshop written for festival and wellbeing audiences.

Forward, Not Fixed. Why trying to fix yourself keeps you stuck, and what works instead.

Where I have spoken

Love Reclaimed, A Night of Second Chances. 400 guests.

The Girls Club Life CIC Women's Celebration, Feast at the Mills, Wigan. 100 guests.

Wigan Wellbeing Festival. 50 guests.

Womanifest, Coming Out of Hiding workshop. 30 guests.

Winter Wellbeing with Nikki Antoniccio. 20 guests.

Coming up

Mind Circles Sip and Learn, 2027 schedule, delivering Guilt and Shame: What Your Brain Does After You Get Something Wrong.

The Best Self Project interview, recording in the new year.

Tell me the date, the audience and roughly how long you have, and I will come back with which of the talks fits and anything I would want to adapt for your group.