There is a myth in the coaching world that keeps getting rewarded.
If you stay “neutral,” you stay professional.
If you stay “objective,” you stay safe.
If you keep it “positive,” you stay marketable.
But neutrality is not neutral.
Neutrality is a posture.
A performance.
A choice.
And when we refuse to name power, we tend to protect the people who already have it.
The status quo loves a coach who will not name the room
White supremacy culture does not always arrive as a hood or a slur.
More often, she arrives polished.
She arrives as “best practices.”
She arrives as “personal responsibility.”
She arrives as “this is not political.”
She arrives as “I don’t see color.”
She arrives as “keep it professional.”
She arrives as “that is just your mindset.”
She arrives as a demand for comfort.
And one of her favorite hiding places is coaching that insists it is neutral.
Because if coaching is neutral, then we never have to talk about access.
Or disability.
Or race.
Or gender.
Or trauma.
Or class.
Or risk.
Or safety.
Or the ways a nervous system learns to survive what she has lived through.
Neutrality makes all of that disappear.
And when the world disappears, the client becomes the problem.
What “neutral” coaching often sounds like
Sometimes it is overt.
Sometimes it is subtle.
But you can recognize it by its impact.
Neutral coaching says:
If you wanted it badly enough, you would do it.
Neutral coaching says:
Your thoughts create your reality.
Neutral coaching says:
You are choosing your suffering.
Neutral coaching says:
Your feelings are just stories.
Neutral coaching says:
Stop making excuses.
And listen, sometimes the client does need agency.
Sometimes she needs to remember her power.
Sometimes she needs a loving mirror and a clean challenge.
But there is a difference between empowerment and blame.
Empowerment says:
Let us tell the truth about what is happening, and then choose what is possible.
Blame says:
If you cannot do it, it is because you are flawed.
Blame is a spiritualized version of “bootstrap” ideology.
It is white supremacy culture with better lighting.
Neutrality is a luxury
Neutrality is easiest when your life is not routinely politicized.
When your body is not treated as a problem to be managed.
When your safety is not conditional.
When access is not a daily negotiation.
When your nervous system is not carrying the cost of survival.
A coach who insists on neutrality may not mean harm.
But impact is not intent.
If I coach as if every playing field is level, I will inevitably punish the people who are navigating uneven ground.
And I will call that punishment “accountability.”
That is the quiet violence of neutrality.
The hidden cost: clients learn to gaslight themselves
Here is one of the most damaging outcomes of neutral coaching.
A client comes in with a real constraint.
A racist workplace.
A chronic illness.
A nervous system shaped by trauma.
A lack of childcare.
A community that is not safe.
A legal system that is not fair.
A body that is exhausted because she has been carrying too much for too long.
Neutral coaching teaches her to translate reality into personal failure.
She stops trusting her own knowing.
She stops naming what hurts.
She stops honoring what is true.
She learns to perform wellness instead of building it.
She learns to override her body, and then wonders why she is burnt out, disconnected, numb, or rageful.
This is how white supremacy culture reproduces itself.
Not only through laws and institutions, but through internalized narratives that keep people small.
What liberation-focused coaching does differently
Liberation-focused coaching is not about making everything external.
It is not about helplessness.
It is not about outsourcing your life to the state of the world.
It is about telling the truth.
It is coaching that says:
Let us name what is real, including power.
It asks questions like:
What is true about your resources right now?
What is true about your risk?
What is true about your support system?
What is true about your body and her capacity?
What is the cost of “pushing through”?
What would it look like to build this without self abandonment?
Liberation-focused coaching does not pretend the client is a machine.
She treats her as a living being.
She respects the body’s wisdom.
She respects context.
She respects systemic forces, and still invites agency inside reality.
Not fantasy.
Reality.
A simple self-check for coaches
If you want to know whether your coaching is accidentally colluding with white supremacy culture, try these questions.
- Whose comfort am I protecting?
When I avoid naming power, who benefits? - Am I confusing accountability with punishment?
Am I using “challenge” to override someone’s lived constraints? - Am I making the system disappear?
Am I coaching as if context is irrelevant? - Am I treating the body like she is in the way?
Or am I treating her as an oracle of what is sustainable and true? - Am I asking for performance instead of transformation?
Is the goal to look “better,” or to be free?
If any of these land with a sting, good.
That sting is information.
Not shame.
Shame keeps the system intact.
Truth breaks it open.
A simple self check for clients
If you have been coached in ways that made you feel secretly broken, consider this.
Good coaching should not require you to deny your reality.
Good coaching should not make you feel smaller.
Good coaching should not punish you for being human.
Ask:
Do I feel more connected to my own truth after sessions?
Do I feel more resourced, even when things are hard?
Do I feel permission to name what is real?
Do I feel like my body is welcome here?
If the answer is no, you are not “resistant.”
You might be wisely refusing a framework that cannot hold you.
Coaching is not neutral. So choose what you are loyal to.
Every coach is loyal to something.
Some are loyal to comfort.
Some are loyal to capitalism.
Some are loyal to being liked.
Some are loyal to appearing “above it all.”
And some are loyal to truth.
To liberation.
To the body.
To integrity.
Coaching is not neutral.
So choose what you are loyal to.
