Are You Coachable?

Not every person is right for life coaching. If you don't believe that you can learn and grow from life coaching than you won't and you are wasting your money.

Also it is important to choose the right coach when you are thinking about life coaching, but just as important is determining if you are truly coachable. If not, you will also be wasting your money. You must believe that the process can help you and you must be willing to commit the time and effort to the process.

You need to be able to learn how to look inside yourself and be honest with yourself and your coach. Don't try to take over as the coach and coach yourself. It won't work. You obviously felt the need to hire the coach at some point for some reason. Let them do what you hired them for. They have the experience, the outside perspective and the tools to help you and that is why you hired them. Work with the coach instead of against and the coaching could change your life forever.

For example, Betty called me and wanted to work on relationships. She had a boyfriend who didn't seem to feel about her the way she felt about him. As we began our coaching relationship, I tried to find out about her past relationships to help her see her patterns. But all she wanted me to do was tell her how to get her boyfriend to like her more. That's not coaching. If she had wanted to look at herself, the ways she might be getting  in her own way or the ways she didn't value herself enough and stayed in a relationship like she was in, we could have made some coaching progress. As it was, she was not coachable.

It is said that coaches need to be coachable also. My understanding of that is that I need to keep my ego out of the mix, support my client's point of view and be open to when I have it all wrong. That's being coachable.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Would a Spiritual Life Coach Be What You Are Looking for?

Spiritual Journey - Me?

There are life coaches that can help you with every aspect of your life including your spiritual life.

• Do you find yourself spending your whole life waiting for everything to be settled in your lives before you can be happy?
• Do you think with more money you will be happy? More money or more time or when the kids grow up or when you retire?
• Do you think things just happen and they often "happen" to you?

By putting off your happiness this way, what you are doing is wasting your time in hopes of some future happiness. A spiritual life coach can help you stop putting off your happiness waiting for some big life-changing event to happen and help you learn to live in the present moment – which, by the way, is all you really have. A spiritual life coach can help you see meaning in the happenings in your life today.

True happiness comes when you accept yourself and your life the way that it currently is. A spiritual life coach can help you learn to do this so that you can move forward and learn to live in the moment. (It almost sounds like an oxymoron – " move forward and learn to live in the moment". But no, it is just one of the wonderful paradoxes of life.)

When you begin to accept this as a way of life, you can plan goals for your future to make the changes that you would like to that will bring you more happiness and fulfillment but get every drop of joy available in the present moment. What do you have to be grateful for now, this very moment?

A spiritual life coach can begin to help you organize your life and offer questions that will lead you in the direction that you would truly like your life to head in. Once you accept yourself and figure out what you want to change in your life to make you happy now, you can stop waiting for something that may never happen until you choose for it to. A spiritual life coach may just be the answer for you and your sense of fulfillment and happiness.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Relationship Advice Series

Why do we always fight when...?

One of the things I love to help transform in a client's life, is the way of their intimate relationship. The relationship advice  I give is based on  my experience. My own path wound through a 19-year first relationship which produced much pain and 4 kids, a short 1 1/2 year relationship which taught me what I didn't know about what a relationship could be but wasn't and, 30 years ago, the one that has it all.

My husband and I have an amazing intimate  relationship - amazing if it was the only one we ever had but most amazing because it is a 3rd marriage for us both. "The Martian",  aka  my  husband, promises to comment on my entries on this topic. We're calling him Martian because he's a high school teacher and doesn't want his students to find him on the internet.

I haven't fully figured it out but almost every time there's a weekend or a vacation, the first thing that happens is - we have a fight - small and dumb - but a fight nonetheless. Somebody wrote a song that says something like, "why do we always fight when I ....... something? "

 Relationship advice:  Maybe we feel safe enough to bring our frazzled energy picked up from the rest of our lives to each other to dump out so we can refill it with the love that we share the rest of the time. It's like removing the sediment of life so pure, fresh love has room to flow.

I always thought we'd get over it but we've been together for 30 years and we did  it not long ago at the beginning of a weekend. But we always work through it and find our way more easily and more easily to our everyday love and respect.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Why Do I Need a Life Coach?

Life Coach Can Help You
Find Your Way

Most people find a time in their life where they may feel that they have lost their direction or everything that they thought that they wanted, is turning out to be not at all what they really do want. Is that happening to you? It is difficult in today’s hustle and bustle world to remain passionate about your life, especially when you find that you are so busy working and taking care of responsibilities that you have no time left at the end of the day for yourself and what makes you happy? After awhile you may begin to wonder why you even bother getting up in the morning.

Life coaching can be a powerful way to jump start your passion again and explore what it is in life that excites you. The answers are hiding inside you and a life coach can be your guide to finding those answers. A life coach will provide you with a support system to assist you in finding and effectively achieving what you want. He or she will help you start to hold your awareness of your commitments to yourself even in non-coaching times - the rest of your life.

They can help you create new goals and design the life you really want, help you find ways to clear any obstacles in your way, help you break through any destructive thinking you may be in the middle of and hold you accountable for your actions.

Life coaching works because sometimes we need an objective view of our life and what we want out of it and how to get there. Many times we tend to resist change and a life coach will hold you accountable to step outside of your comfort zone and face the change that you ultimately desire.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

What Do You Need for Life Coach Training?

Life Coach Training Happens Best While Being Coached

Life coaching is designed to help clients determine and achieve goals and improve their self view in order to make them happen.

Life coaching has developed from executive coaching, sports coaching and leadership training and uses techniques from counseling, sociology, psychology and mentoring. Life coaching is not targeted at psychological illness, and coaches are not therapists. Instead coaching focuses on effecting change in a client's current and future behavior and life.

According to a survey of coaching clients, "sounding board" and "motivator" were the top roles selected for a coach. The survey said that top three issues clients seek help on are time management, career, and business. Those are areas I may work with someone on but only as they impact their lives in the realm of their view of themselves.

So if you want to be a life coach, I believe you first need to have the experience of being coached. There are many training schools available and more seem to be popping up every day. Formal training may be what you want or maybe just working with a good coach yourself will give you what you need to help people achieve their goals.

When I work with clients who have a lot of life experience and have a way of positively influencing almost everyone they interact with, I suggest the possibility that they might not need formal training at all. I did attend a top coaching school, The Coaches Training Institute, but I didn't get that much out of the training. That is not to say that their training isn't good. It is. That is to say that it probably wasn't such a good fit for me. I learned much more about being a good coach by working with a good coach for 2 1/2 years.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching  

The Old Cinderella Story and Your Self Esteem

Life Coach and Your Self Esteem

The Old Cinderella Story

You know the story. Wealthy, loving, widowed dad meets gold-digging woman. Dad marries women and brings her and her two less than lovely daughters to live in manor. Dad dies and leaves less than loving step-mother in charge of all three daughters. Step-mother is jealous of natural daughter's inner and outer beauty and treats her like a servant. One day the prince plans a ball that he wants all young women in the kingdom to attend and at which he will choose a princess. Step-mother will not provide clothes for the natural daughter and locks her in the house the night of the ball.

Along comes Cinderella's Fairy God Mother and with her Magic Wand, provides Cindy with a beautiful dress, glass slippers and turns a pumpkin into a pumpkin coach. You certainly know the rest.

The Real Scoop

Imagine this story as a metaphor for change and self esteem.  Growing up as she did – criticized, belittled, unloved – Cinderella wore her old raggedy self and felt unworthy of fulfilling her real purpose here on Earth (OK. OK. It is a bit pre-feminism to think her real purpose is to marry the Prince. But play along.)

Along comes her Fairy God Mother, waves her Magic Wand and outfits her in the accouterments of real self esteem - enough to make her beauty recognizable to her real purpose.

That Fairy Godmother just waved her magic wand. You can create magic  with a life coach but you will have to do some work. If you are willing, the results will be the same as Cinderella's. You will be transformed!

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

The Beginning of Taking Responsibility

I've been dealing with food addiction for over 40 years. It used to be  so tied in with my low self esteem and poor self image that it could only allow me to look some version of me being perfect to  even be OK. When that was true, all I wanted to do was think I looked OK and then everything would be fine. And since I never could really look OK, the distraction of the addiction served my crazy purpose - to feel badly about myself.

Now I have quite good self esteem and self image. My self questioning and self judgment about how I look or what I think and do is very rare. That is not to say I think everything I do is perfect. It is to say that everything I do is just OK with me. I trust that I have a lot to offer and I trust that I will not always do what is popular or what works. So what? Before, all I needed to do was be perfect. Now all I need to do is be myself.

I've been maintaining around a 40-50 pound weight loss for several years. I got rid of all clothes that I can trick myself into thinking I haven't gain with; the slightly bigger ones that would then allow weight gain to surprise me. That was an old subconscious trick of mine. Now my clothes keep fitting and I'm bored with them. Isn't that lovely?

Now all my clothes fit; my scale is correct and now I have to self coach. I have to self talk. I have to provide the support for myself that I provide my clients; the support that ultimately they will have to offer themselves. I have to find the part of me that loves myself enough to get over it - whatever it might be in the moment.

I'm like the man in Beautiful Mind who just decided that he would live with the delusions that his mental illness gave him and not medicate himself with the less-than-satisfactory drugs he was prescribed. I accept that sometimes this food addiction will walk along with me. I just need to acknowledge it, not resist it, and act in my best interests - not its. Ultimately we all coach ourselves - even the life coaches.

You University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Life Coaching Fees - What Do They Say About the Coach?

Life coaching is becoming more popular, but most people still think they can't afford it. 10 years ago when there weren't many life coaches, life coaching fees were outrageous. Today, more people have gotten into personal development and self improvement, and many have gone on to become life coaches. Fees have decreased but some still think it pricey. An hour-long session can cost from $40 to more than $500. Many coaches require a three-month or longer commitment to start and you're likely to talk with them once a week, in person or by phone.

A few words about my fees and commitment. I've decided awhile back not to put fees on my site. It's so easy for your mind to think, "I can't afford that". Often it isn't about that. What it's really about is not being sure YOU are worth it - not whether life coaching is worth it. Anything that will move you forward and give you new tools to live a more effective life is worth it. But I now think part of why I didn't put my fees on my site was because I was scared someone wouldn't call. Now I know if it's meant to be, they will call and we will work out the fee part if it comes to that. S

Then there's commitment. I now require this commitment of new clients: they continue coaching until we both agree that they got what they came for which for me says they will be coaching with me for 8 months minimum because that is all I require and that is how long it takes to graduate from YOU University.

The way to find out if someone really has experience and is suitable to coach you is to take advantage of the usually offered sample session, look at their website and/or have an extensive conversation with them to determine not only their fit with you but their background in dealing with what you want to deal with.

As in most things in life, cheaper is most often not better. As a matter of fact, since life coaches are particularly interested in their own growth journey, it is often a sign of someone who has some self esteem issues themselves if the price is too low.

Because of my background and my ability to read energy and often emotional content like an emotional detective over the phone I was most recently able to decide not to use a very nice woman to help me with website design and branding. Here were my 4 red flags:

1. Her price was very low (although I liked some of her sample designs).


2. She has a full time job and only does this work part time.


3. When I called her very enthusiastically, she didn't pick up on my "buying" signs.


4. She was too understanding and nice. It didn't feel authentic.

And here's what I have to say about each one - my "take", so to speak:

1. I like a bargain like anyone else but she was too willing to give her talent away.


2. Anyone thriving in their branding business, would be making enough money to do what they loved all day. Branding is about how to market yourself - and she hadn't really figured out how to market herself, so how could she help me?


3. Because of my "jump before I think" way of doing things sometimes, if she had really been tuned into me, she probably would have had me as a client right then and there because I hadn't thought through #1 and #2.


4. She never really coached me which a strong coach would do even on the first call.

So can a new life coach get a start? Sure. They just have to have enough self esteem to be able to say, "I'm new at life coaching which is why I'm offering my services at a low rate but I have talent and I'll be able to help you in the following ways......."

So if you speak to a coach whose fees are low, now you know what you want to know about them.YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

What Is Your Path?

Beyond Life Coaching

We all have self-selected the School of Life, i.e. I want to come into human form and want to advance my soul's path by doing such and such in order to learn such and such which will bring me closer and closer to my Perfect Universe/Self.

One of the reasons I wanted to come into human form this time around was to learn to totally trust myself/the Universe.  This is what I call life coaching and beyond. It is what my own individual path is. There are many ways a person can "setup" this soul-growing challenge.

For example:

• One could be a  person like Mother Theresa and live the kind of life she lived.
  

• Or one could be born really ugly or disabled and learn how to totally trust  and love oneself even in the face of rejection or derision.


• Or one could have really low self esteem because they chose a mother who would criticize them regularly and often.

I chose #3!

One of the ways I've been doing it in this life's journey is by being the kind of person who can only really meet people if they feel magnetized to me. If I put myself forward in most any way, it seems to push most people away rather than pull them closer.

The way this shows up in business, which for me is about having clients who want to become coaches and creating written products and sometimes giving workshops, is to never have marketing or selling myself work. People don't react well when I do it.

So my journey is having me BE the magnet. In order to be the magnet, I have to totally be myself and love what and who that self is. What a journey it has been so far!

So what do you consider life coaching and beyond? I'm thinking that if you are considering becoming a coach or are a coach and wonder why you don't have the clients you want, you might think of determining what is the most soul-related, authentic mode of having people find you that would work for your uniqueness ?

What is your path?

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Did you know that feeling gratitude connects us?

Gratitude Connects Us

Did you know that feeling gratitude connects us? I live in Los Angeles. In 1994, we had a 6.7 magnitude  earthquake centered in Northridge. I remember waking up to my bed being lifted and shaken was one of the scariest experiences of my life.  It was as if a giant had picked me up and dropped me again. I feel scared now as I write this as I still live and love Los Angeles.

After quickly dressing and getting out of the apartment, checking in with neighbors and notifying children of our safety, my husband and I decided to take a long walk around the area to see what damage had occurred.

We were amazed to find everyone we walked by smiling and exchanging greetings and warm words with us.

This was L.A. No one ever looks at you as you walk by (unless you’re a beautiful young person.) No one ever smiles. Only  street people asking for a handout ever talk to you.

But the gift we received was connecting to these L.A. strangers’ humanity. Under their fear and apprehension, everyone we met felt as we did – grateful to be alive and wanting to connect. Before this earthshaking event I always thought of Los Angeles as a pretty unfriendly place.

Now when I see  people I don’t know no matter where I am, I remind myself who’s really inside the strangers I see. We don’t have to wait until earthquakes and 9/11 tragedies to have gratitude towards our loving, smiling neighbors.

And don't wait for the next death or illness in your own family to tell and show the people in your family that you love them and are grateful they are in your life.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Married and Sex

Senior Sex Drive

You've probably read or heard stories like I have about how much sex seniors have - in retirement homes, in movies. Anyway, somewhere I picked up the idea that my senior sex drive would be strong because I love and am attracted to my husband. And that's me. And he's a man. Need I say more?

Well, it just ain't happening that way. When we were first together I think we stretched the "all you think about is sex" part of our relationship to about 5 years whereas the old adage is "put a bean in a jar for every time you have sex in the first year of marriage and then it'll take the rest of your life after that to empty it if you take one bean out for each time you have sex". (I just noticed how exactly opposite these two tall tales are.)

The way it is happening is, over the past 2 or 3 years, we don't have a lot of sex. First it was upsetting to talk about with a bit of blame, guilt and responsibility floating around for each of us but, as is our way, we don't let things like that stay problematic. We keep dealing with them until we're satisfied that we are on the same page about it. We are on the same page about it. We are both in consternation and desire to have it be different.

So yesterday we were having a conversation about it - a thing we do often on the weekend - and I think I realized something about it. I need you to imagine a line drawing here. Imagine a line across the lower part of the page and imagine that that is the level at which I lived. It basically represents at what level of happiness and fulfillment I lived in my life - particularly the intimate relationship part. Now along comes the Martian and that level sharply rises. Now one could think that the level of not too much sex represents the level at which I live but that isn't true. If you've read this blog or know me, you know I live at a very high level of fulfillment and happiness. So I'm thinking that that big jump that I made when the Martian came into my life which was out-pictured by the intensity of my sexual experience is now the level at which I live.

So maybe I'd have to have another gigantic spike in energy to give to sex but our lives are so full of other things and our love isn't new. It's deep but we are used to it.

I think at the point we currently are, people who don't have really fulfilling relationships or lives, probably put all their energy somewhere else. Often with another person. Neither of us is about to do that.

So we'll keep talking and having sex when we do in the loving way that we do.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Thoughts on: "To err is human to forgive is divine"

Here’s a statistic that will grab your attention: “1 in 4 girls are sexually assaulted before the age of 18. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1999)”

That is a horrible thing to read and because sexual abuse is so prevalent, it is absolutely necessary to focus on it.

Here’s another one: “In a study of 1,000 women 15 years of age or older, 36% had experienced emotional abuse while growing up; 43% had experienced some form of abuse as children or adolescents; 39% reported experiencing emotional abuse in a relationship in the past five years (Women's College Hospital, 1995⁸).”

Why start an article about forgiving with statistics on victims of sexual or emotional abuse? Forgive the perpetrator? How can one actually do that? And why bother? It doesn’t make practical sense. Or does it?

I’ll tell you why I think it makes sense and I speak from personal experience and have watched many people reach the same conclusions as I have. Nothing else works to free us of the emotional and spiritual effects of that kind of abuse as forgiving the person who did it. But first let’s be perfectly clear on what I am defining forgiveness as.

Forgiveness is “giving love as before”. That does not mean in any way that any abuse is acceptable. NEVER. But great spiritual teachers have been trying to get us to see this concept for eons. Whenever we stay in anger, hurt, sadness, shame, guilt, pain about those horrendous experiences and keep holding the perpetrator as hateful, it keeps us as victims and it keeps us nailed to the person as if by emotional leg irons.

I experienced both kinds of abuse for many years in my life. And for many years I lived my life as a victim lives their life – everything happened to me. It’s a kind of soul sickness. The effects are many and varied. Amongst them are:

• Low self esteem
• Poor self image
• Body issues
• Addiction issues
• Low performance issues in school and work
• Poor relationships
• Poor parenting
• Depression
• A general inability to cope

Lucky for me when the pain got big enough, I left the bad marriage and I found some places to heal and learn and grow. What I learned  was it felt much better to forgive then not to forgive. It felt much better to learn how to rid myself of the old pain then to hold onto it. Believe me. It takes work but the results in my life are phenomenal.

• I feel good about myself.
• I think I’m quite cute.
• I love my body and care for it because I really get it is the only one I have.
• My eating addiction is peaceful.
• I cannot belief my prolific talent in writing and coaching.
• My relationships are spectacular.
• I feel a little down occasionally but never depressed and I have learned so many tools to help with the down times.
• I cope so well, I amaze myself.

So I think the that forgiving grave error is the work of the soul but the benefits are right here on Earth where we live. Does it let the person responsible for your abuse off the hook? Only so far as your energetic connection to them. They have their load to carry but you are free.

You University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching