About Barbara
Barbara loves her work. Collaborating with clients to find or create work that is engaging and fulfilling gives her great satisfaction and a deep sense of purpose.
Her clients range broadly from executives and attorneys to artists and entrepreneurs. Their circumstances also vary and may include: professionals who, after decades in a particular career, want to explore an alternative for their second half of life, women interested in meaningful work after raising children, and boomers who want to make a contribution through part time work or community service.
Barbara’s work encompasses the significant aspects of the career change process: gaining clarity and identifying a direction in significant life transitions, understanding what strategies truly work in today’s job market, customizing an effective résumé and cover letter, negotiating an employment offer or severance package, or submitting a resignation.
While she works with adults of all ages in career transitions, Barbara has developed a particular specialty in the second half of life stage that includes career and work transitions, evaluating graduate school or advanced training, defining life in retirement, and the quest for meaning through work or service.
In her individual career counseling and outplacement consulting, Barbara brings years of professional training and education in the field of career development with a focus on empowerment, intuition development, alignment of work with life stage priorities, and spirituality and meaning. Teachers and concepts of particular significance to her work include: Erik Erikson’s Stages of Development, Carl Jung’s ideas on Midlife, Gail Straub and David Gershon’s Empowerment Model, Gene Gendlin and Robert Lee’s Focusing Techniques, and poet David Whyte’s work on being authentic.
Barbara holds a Master’s Degree in Counseling from the University of New Hampshire, and the following certifications and professional designations: Master Career Counselor (National Career Development Association’s highest designation) National Board Certified Counselor, Certified administrator of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Certified Focusing Trainer, Certified Third Age Coach and trained labyrinth facilitator through Veriditas.
Well established in a successful private practice a stone’s throw from Portland, Maine harbor, Barbara provides career counseling to individuals, business owners and leaders in the public and private sectors as well as outplacement consulting tailored to employers who provide transition services to employees at any level. She is an inspiring public speaker offering engaging and interactive keynotes and presentations. For nine years, Barbara offered women’s retreats for renewal in the south of France.
She is excited to offer for the second time, with colleague Susanna Liller, a 6-day women’s retreat in France: Beauty, Heart & Spirit: A Woman’s Transformational Journey–Paris, Chartres & Giverny Gardens, May 28 to June 3, 2012. Registrations are now being accepted for this extraordinary small group experience.
The Beginnings of Heart at Work
It was on her return from a sabbatical in France with her husband and daughter that Barbara decided to open her career counseling practice, Heart at Work. While the concept boldly came to her one winter’s day in 1988, it was not until the spring that the name became clear, while on her way to visit a friend in Minnesota. Upon reading an article on overwork titled “Heart at Work” in the airline’s magazine, she knew she had found the name of her new venture. Heart at Work captures what her clients seek: authenticity through work that aligns with their whole selves and what they value.
Opening her own business was not something Barbara had planned before she left for France. However, it quickly emerged as a compelling decision as soon as she returned to her work in the Career Services Office at Bowdoin College. In her re-entry, she discovered first hand what she now tells her clients: it is when we change the context of our lives in a significant way that we often discover a new direction. The change that catalyzes a new direction need not be as dramatic as moving to a foreign country, but may be as simple as an experience that shifts a daily routine for a period of time. The unfamiliar causes us to rely on different resources within ourselves, like our intuition. Slowly but surely, we begin to notice what is unfolding and we begin to look at our lives in new ways. As we escape from routine thinking and familiar ways of behaving, new patterns emerge. It is from this new perspective that ideas and possibilities for the future take shape, allowing us to move from a confused or stuck place to a more focused one.
People generally decide to work with Barbara because a trusted person referred them or because they resonate with her philosophy and holistic approach to career counseling and life transitions.
Contact Barbara today for a free brief phone consult to assess whether the time is right for you to schedule a session. (207) 775-6400 or email barb@barbarababkirk.com
