This Is Exactly Why I Chose Not To Get A Life Coach Certification

Life Coach Certification Or NOT

I'm involved in a life coaching forum and was perusing the entries one day and found an online conversation fraught with frustrations and stress. The stress and frustration had to do with a coach's inability to share their  wisdom, knowledge and experience with the client. They had their own life coach certification. One of the posts was something like this,

" … unfortunately, as (a certain brand) coach we are not supposed to impart our wisdom. We are supposed to draw it out of client. I bite my tongue because I want to share some of what has been talked about here, but I am in life coach certification right now and my supervisor reminds me that I am supposed to be wisdomless and bring it out of the client because they are naturally creative, resourceful and whole."

This is exactly why I haven't gone through a formal life coach certification program.

I believe my clients are naturally creative, resourceful and whole also. They're wise enough to seek support when they are going through challenges, change and transition. It seems to me it is almost unkind and callous to withhold these thoughts from a client.

So as a result, my style of coaching includes mentoring in addition to coaching (asking powerful questions) which means besides helping the client plumb the depths of their own intuition, knowledge, inner guidance and wisdom, I often advise, counsel, guide and/or teach.

I continuously remind the client that they will know and that I am not them nor in them so I could be completely wrong but I have found that they come to rely and respect what I offer them since I too have often walked in their shoes and continue to walk my own path of transformation daily.

Having lived 70 years and consciously pursued a personal and spiritual growth path and being an acute observer of the human condition – mine and others – I feel it is my responsibility and joy to share that with those who ask. The counsel that I give can not be found through life coach certification but through life itself.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so comment below and (uh oh this is 2) please follow this blog over there on the right. I'd love to get to know you.

A Life Coach Attempts the Definition of Psychology

Study of Soul or Mind?

FreeDictionary.com defines psychology as "the science that deals with mental processes and behaviors." The actual definition as derived from the Latin terms that make up the word mean "the study of the soul or mind".

I believe the term psychology has changed over the years and has often become very different from the study of the soul or the mind.

Life coaching is not very different from psychology in that psychology focuses on the self and making changes within yourself and life coaching helps you make changes in your life situations to make your self happier and more fulfilled. Many life coaches also focus on inner change to bring about outer change - including me.

There need be no competition between someone in psychology and someone in life coaching. Often the two work hand in hand to assist people with finding what they truly want in life and a means to get it. It seems to me also that we are all drawn to different ways of growth - none being better or worse. Just different.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so comment below and (uh oh this is 2) please follow this blog over there on the right. I'd love to get to know you.

The only One Who Knows It All is not making house calls today.

Accepting Life on Life's Terms - or Not

I go to meetings in rooms where one of the watchword phrases is about "accepting life on life's terms". Sounds good and very spiritual - and often it is but sometimes it's not.

Nineteen years ago I was told that I had early stages of breast cancer. I was unwilling to accept what was and is commonly used for treatment - chemotherapy and radiation. When I look back I see it was a bold step since that is what "everyone" did and what all the doctors recommended and on top of that, it is what my mother died of at age 57. I was 51 and chose a different way. I chose a metabolic diet, supplements and detoxification. I am well and have none of the aftereffects of the harsh treatments prescribed regularly.

Well, last week I was told I have spinal stenosis which is a narrowing of the spinal column caused by osteoarthritis whose emotional component stems from abuse in childhood. The prognosis could well be bladder and bowel malfunction and a wheelchair.

It certainly sent me into a tizzy. I have weird leg pain and other sensations, knee stuff, a foot that goes to sleep, sore hips and I'm 70. Should I just accept life on life's terms? If I did that the way others do, I'd be at doctors' offices, getting MRI's, etc. Well, that is not my way.

So I'm doing acupuncture and have researched what my diet and supplements should look like, going to learn tai chi and if that doesn't work I shall continue accepting life on my terms until the day I die and have accept death on its terms.

I really want one person that I could find that knows it all but that person doesn't exist - no matter how extensive their education. They know what they know and it is up to me to cull out the best of it, the parts that make sense to me both intellectually and intuitively. The only One Who Knows It All is not making house calls today.

Being Mindful of Wednesdays

Allow your natural rhythms. Honor the seasons of nature and the rhythms of your life.

Being present to the life that presses upon us does not mean simply being alert and full of consciousness. Surrendering to a daydream or a memory may be a way of being engaged with the present. Drifting into reverie might bring us to the full immediacy of the moment, which may be properly focused on invisible things. Turned inward, we might be completely present , and conversely, being wide awake to life might be a distraction and, to the soul, a kind of sleep.    Thomas Moore

What he's talking about is a creative process – even the creative stuff you don’t like.  You might be in a relationship that doesn’t work and you are at the point where it seems that nothing can change. You might feel powerless to change or you can’t stand it any more and can’t see a way out.

These are the Wednesdays of life.

It’s flat; it’s up against a wall.  But it is part of the creative process of life.

It seemed like that in my first marriage. It also seemed like that while writing a book for the first time.

There are many ways to look at these Wednesdays of life—from the perspective of trying to get to the weekend—which is where I really come alive, have fun, relax.

Endure the week for the big payoff—From that perspective Wednesdays energy is that of impasse, de-energized, depression, static, inertia, stuck, blocks and up against the wall.

I’ve discovered that the creative processes of life itself are full of Wednesdays and that the weekend could be a metaphor for the big payoff—the book, the project, the life passage, etc.

From this perspective Wednesdays have become a synonym for “just before the breakthrough”—

It’s often that after a flurry of creative process', lots of creative juice and productivity a period of malaise, discontent and sometimes even apparent chaos precedes breakthrough. THIS IS GOOD!

It typically comes about midway in a project - hence the name - Wednesday.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so comment below and (uh oh this is 2) please follow this blog over there on the right. I'd love to get to know you.

What's the real scoop about Thanksgiving being about an attitude of gratitude?

I have a suspicion that Thanksgiving which has the obvious celebration of gratitude - the Pilgrims gratitude to the Native Americans for their help in surviving in this harsh land - has - I truly believe - a deeper, more spiritual mean and reason for being.

I've noticed over the years the apparent spiritual brilliance sneaking through things like the Constitution. Were the Founding Fathers so smart or were they inspired to create a country that has achieved so much enlightened behavior. Certainly we have had our times of great adversity - to whit the last 8 years - but I feel that too is all in the plan. It does seem to be we humans grow - adversity causes jumps in consciousness both individually and group consciously also.

So, Thanksgiving. Imagine a holiday that celebrates gratitude. What other purpose could it have? Could it be how the "spirits" let us know that gratitude is important. Gratitude is so important it is likely the next to healthiest emotion we can have. Pure love is the healthiest but gratitude takes a very close second because proper use of it uncovers the love that's always there. It has the ability to plug you in to the love you forgot momentarily. And why do we want to have those feelings so much besides the fact that they feel so good?

Because that is how we create ourselves to be positive attractors. How make use of Law of Attraction on purpose - not by default. Law of Attraction works whether we know it, like it, work with it - or not. It is a Universal Law like gravity. If you consciously create a certain emotional vibration, you can consciously attract into your life experience and material stuff that match it. Like attracts like.

So I'm thinking that Thanksgiving is a reminder each year to get back on track with gratitude if you want to create the life of your dreams.