I’m Ping. For more than a decade I was a trauma therapist for engineers, tech leaders, people managers, entrepreneurs and others like them, and now I coach. Most people come to me with one specific thing they want to handle better, like speaking up in front of the board or a keynote they can’t stop dreading, and we spend our sessions on that.
I work one‑on‑one and online with people anywhere. I’m based in Toronto.
Usually something small went badly years ago, like a teacher laughing at your answer or a boss cutting you off in front of the team. Your body remembers it, and part of you got stuck there. Now, whenever the stakes go up, your body reacts as if it’s happening again, often before you’ve had a chance to think.
A few nerves help you focus. Past a certain point you go blank in the moment, or spend days over‑preparing for it. You have the skills. That old reaction makes them harder to reach when it counts.
In our sessions I combine tools from EMDR, techniques from psychotherapy and a structured coaching framework, and use them on the situation you’re dreading. Then we practise it out loud, and you try it for real.
Can EMDR help with performance anxiety?Most people know EMDR as a way to process painful memories. The protocol was built in three parts, covering the past, the present and the future, and in coaching the future part leads.
Therapy usually begins with the hardest thing that ever happened to you. Since the early 1990s, people using EMDR for performance have started with the moment in front of you instead, like next month’s board presentation, and let the past come in only if it’s feeding it. When it does, it’s often something small, like a meeting that went badly years ago.
EMDR can’t give you a skill you don’t have. If you’ve never run a board meeting, the answer is preparation and practice, and we plan for that. If you’ve done it well before and still freeze when it counts, that’s a reaction, and that’s what these tools are for.
Before anything hard, we build up what you already have, like a time you handled pressure well or a person whose voice steadies you. We go gently here, with just a few slow passes, because eye movements can soften good memories as well as hard ones.
Dread usually arrives as a picture, a short film of you going blank or being caught out. Holding a feared picture in mind while moving your eyes made it less vivid and less upsetting in lab studies, probably because both compete for the same working memory. We measure as we go, how upsetting the moment feels from 0 to 10 and how true a new belief feels from 1 to 7, so you can see whether it’s moving.
We run the real moment forward, start to finish, hard question included, often with me playing the person you’re dreading. EMDR ends the work on a moment by checking your body: if you picture it and something still tightens, we aren’t done. Then you do it for real, and we start the next session by looking at what held.
Either way, we pick one thing, like a presentation coming up or a conversation with your boss, and take it through those steps until it gets easier.
Regular sessions, online.
We start with whatever matters most to you right now, and when that gets easier, we move on to the next thing. It suits you if there’s more than one thing you’d like to change, or you’d like support while things are shifting.
One long session before a big day.
One long session on one thing, booked a few weeks before you go on stage, present to the board or walk into a final‑round interview.
I spent years as a trauma therapist for people in tech and other demanding fields. Coaching usually works on what you think and plan. With my clinical training, I can also work with what happens in your body when the moment arrives, which is where capable people most often get stuck.
The first call is free, and you only pay once we’ve both decided to go ahead. Many employers cover coaching from a professional development budget, and I can provide an invoice for that.
Tell me a little about what’s in the way. I’ll write back within two business days with a time for a free 15‑minute video call.
We’ll talk about what’s going on and whether this is the right fit. If it isn’t, I’ll say so, and try to point you somewhere better.
— Ping