Question 1

How do sessions actually work?

Accepted Answer

We meet online over video, wherever you are in the world - most clients join from India, the UK, the US and the Gulf. Sessions run 60 minutes, usually every fortnight so there is room to live what we uncover. We begin with a free 15-minute exploratory call to feel whether we are the right fit; from there we agree a rhythm together. You do not need to arrive prepared or polished - you only need to arrive.

Question 2

Is what I share confidential?

Accepted Answer

Completely. Everything you bring stays between us. Nothing is recorded, nothing is shared, and no identifying detail is ever used in writing, teaching or on this website. Coaching is a non-judgemental space held with loving-kindness - maitri. The only rare exception is where there is a serious risk to your safety or someone else’s, which I would always talk through with you first.

Question 3

What does the Maitri Method journey look like?

Accepted Answer

Six unhurried stages, each with an underlying movement: Meet (Presence), Attend (Awareness), Inquire (Understanding), Tend (Compassion), Respond (Choice), Interconnect (Connection). We begin by simply arriving, then gently attend to what is here, inquire beneath the surface, tend to what we find with kindness, practise responding from clarity, and let the change settle into how you live and relate. The stages are a shape, not a schedule; we move at your pace and often circle back.

Question 4

How long does a journey usually take?

Accepted Answer

Most people work with me over three to six months. Real change is slower and quieter than we would like - it needs repetition, rest and lived experience between sessions. Some come for a single focused question; others stay longer as life reshapes itself.

Question 5

Is this coaching or therapy?

Accepted Answer

This is coaching. We work with the present and what you are moving towards, drawing on mindfulness, somatic practice and Nonviolent Communication. Therapy works differently, with the past and with clinical need. If what you are carrying would be better held by a therapist, I will say so gently and help you find the right support.

Question 6

What does “Maitri” actually mean?

Accepted Answer

Maitri is a Pali and Sanskrit word usually translated as loving-kindness, or friendliness towards oneself. It is the practice of meeting your own experience - including the parts you would rather not look at - with warmth instead of judgement. It is the ground the whole method rests on, because nothing in us changes while it is being criticised. In practice, maitri looks like curiosity in place of self-blame: instead of “why am I like this?”, we ask “what is this part of me trying to protect?”

Question 7

What is Nonviolent Communication (NVC)?

Accepted Answer

Nonviolent Communication is a framework developed by the American psychologist Dr Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960s. It works from a simple premise: everything we do is an attempt to meet a universal human need - safety, respect, belonging, autonomy, rest, meaning - and conflict happens when we confuse the need with the strategy we are using to meet it. NVC has four steps. Observation: describing what actually happened, without evaluation or story (“you did not reply for three days” rather than “you never care”). Feeling: naming the emotion honestly - hurt, anxious, relieved - rather than a disguised accusation. Need: identifying the deeper need underneath the feeling. Request: asking for something specific, doable and open to a no. In coaching we use it in two directions - outward, to change how you speak with a partner, parent, child or colleague, and inward, as self-empathy, to soften the harsh internal voice that runs most of us.

Question 8

What do you mean by mindfulness?

Accepted Answer

Mindfulness is the trained ability to notice what is happening while it is happening, without immediately reacting to it. It is not emptying the mind, not relaxation, and not spiritual performance - it is attention, practised. Its value in coaching is the pause: the small gap between a trigger and your response. In that gap, choice becomes possible. Practically, it may be a few minutes of breath awareness, a body scan, or simply catching yourself mid-spiral during an ordinary Tuesday. Over weeks it changes your relationship to thought - you begin to see thoughts as weather passing through, rather than instructions you must obey.

Question 9

What is somatic practice, and why the body?

Accepted Answer

Somatic simply means “of the body”. Somatic practice is working with sensation, breath, posture and the nervous system as sources of information, rather than treating insight as something that happens only in the head. Most of us can explain our patterns perfectly and still repeat them, because the pattern is held in the body - the tightened jaw before you say yes to something you do not want, the held breath in a difficult conversation. In sessions this might look like slowing down and asking where you feel something, letting an emotion complete rather than be managed, or practising a grounded posture before a hard conversation. Nothing is forced, nothing invasive; you stay in charge of how far we go.

Question 10

What do you mean by “holding space”?

Accepted Answer

Holding space means being fully present with you without trying to fix, advise, rush or reassure you out of what you are feeling. It is an active discipline, not passivity: I stay steady so that you can go somewhere you might not go alone. Practically it means fewer answers and better questions, silence where silence is useful, and no agenda of my own about who you should become.

Question 11

Is this coaching spiritual or religious?

Accepted Answer

The roots of mindfulness and maitri are contemplative, and I draw on that lineage with respect, but the work is entirely secular and grounded in everyday life - work, relationships, parenting, decisions. There is no belief system to adopt. If your own faith or practice matters to you, it is welcome in the room; if it does not, nothing here will require it.

Question 12

What is expected of me between sessions?

Accepted Answer

Small, gentle practice: a few minutes of stillness, a journal prompt, or simply noticing something you had not noticed before. Nothing heavy, nothing graded. The work lives in the days between sessions more than in the hour itself.

the Maitri Method

Meet

Attend

Inquire

Tend

Respond

Interconnect

A confidential, non-judgemental and compassionate space.

Before we begin

In a session

Between sessions

What you might be wondering.

Start with a conversation.

Meet

Attend

Inquire

Tend

Respond

Interconnect

A confidential, non-judgemental and compassionate space.

Before we begin

In a session

Between sessions

What you might be wondering.

01How do sessions actually work?

02Is what I share confidential?

03What does the Maitri Method journey look like?

04How long does a journey usually take?

05Is this coaching or therapy?

06What does “Maitri” actually mean?

07What is Nonviolent Communication (NVC)?

08What do you mean by mindfulness?

09What is somatic practice, and why the body?

10What do you mean by “holding space”?

11Is this coaching spiritual or religious?

12What is expected of me between sessions?

Start with a conversation.