How I Became A Life Coach

How I Became a Life Coach

My Life Coaching Background

I was first introduced to Life Coaching in 2007 through PSI Seminars in Phoenix, Arizona. (Personal Success Institute) A friend introduced me to this company because she had some positive experiences with them and thought I might benefit from their teachings. She knew I wasn’t satisfied with where I was in my life. I was anxious and depressed and was doing work that made me feel worse. I was a Massage Therapist and healer in my heart, and had taken a detour into doing Real Estate. I actually met her at a Real Estate education seminar.

I trusted her and enrolled in their Basic seminar and never looked back. I learned how my thinking can shift my reality. This was big for me because up until that point, I had endured a lifetime of abuse and neglect from people who were supposed to love and take care of me.  My thoughts were consumed with past events. I was experiencing deep emotional pain and anxiety about the future. I was unhappy in my marriage and felt stuck. I wasn’t as healthy as I wanted to be either and felt bad about the way I looked.

I learned why I did the things I was doing and why I felt the way I did. I recognized unhealthy thoughts and patterns that were embedded in my subconscious and learned ways to redirect my thoughts and actions in healthier ways. This was my introduction into working with the subconscious mind to create change. 

Prior to discovering these concepts, I had laid a foundation of healing through attending a massage and holistic health college. Through the process of learning to help others, I naturally had to work on healing myself. It’s an ongoing journey. As I look back on those days, I’m so grateful that I learned these skills and had the opportunity to work on myself.

After attending seminars and retreats through PSI, I participated on one of their leadership teams, and had my first personal Life Coach. It was an intensive program and I can tell you from real life experience how effective it is to have support from somebody who is invested in your well being. I experienced tremendous growth and movement in my life because of her presence. This was just the beginning.

A Turning Point in My Personal Life and Career

After completing the leadership program, the facilitator invited me to be a coach for their next team. This was an opportunity to be a coach and be coached by my mentors.

At that time in my life I was going through some incredible challenges. It was in the midst of immersing myself in this personal growth world, that I suddenly found myself getting divorced for the second time in my life. I had not been single since I was sixteen and overnight I became a single Mom and sole provider for my children. (I didn’t know at the time that this was actually the best thing to happen to us.) I was devastated and felt like a complete failure. It’s interesting to look back and know now that I only stayed married because of my limiting thoughts and beliefs about myself and my capabilities, based upon my life experiences and what I was told about myself by others.

I was up against these limiting beliefs and just discovering who I was without somebody influencing my decisions. Up to that point in my life, there had always been somebody telling me what to do or how to be. I didn’t yet understand fully who I was or what I was capable of.

I told him I couldn't possibly help anybody else because my own life was a mess. I had no qualifications to be a coach. I didn’t even know how I was going to be able to support myself and my three children, much less volunteer to be a coach on a leadership team. Emotionally, I was a wreck. 

I never forgot what he said to me next, and those words helped me become the coach I am today. The reason he wanted me on his team was because he saw me moving through a tremendous amount of adversity and did not let it stop me from moving forward in my life and improving myself. He knew that I would not accept any excuses from anyone I would be coaching. 

After thinking about it, I realized this was an opportunity for growth and hands on experience that arrived at the perfect time. I needed to immerse myself in something that would support me in moving forward in my new life. In exchange for my time and commitment to the team, I would basically have a coach who would coach me to be a coach. I jumped in and I am so glad I did! The growth I experienced as a result of coaching and being coached took me beyond what I thought I was capable of. 

Being of service gave me something positive to throw myself into and raised my vibration. As I was helping others, I was also helping myself and my family. I was finally stepping into myself on my own terms.

This experience of coaching was a catalyst to reinventing my life and career. I went to school again, this time to study Yoga. (I used to be told that Yoga was a waste of time and I needed to focus more on working and making money.) 

My Yoga school had a Life Coaching program that I dove into. It was spirit based and taught me some basic skills to develop a coaching business. I also took courses on meditation and learned how to integrate healing modalities, Yoga and Life Coaching into sessions that were of benefit to both the mind and body.

I Created a New Life for Myself

After graduating, my kids were all adults and I moved to Washington State for five years. My family is from Washington and there are many generations of my ancestors buried there. I felt a pull to be in that location for a while.  It helped me to integrate a bit of my past and to understand the dynamics of my immediate family a little better. (There has been a great deal of distance between me and my family for most of my life.)

While there, I opened a Yoga studio and immersed myself into teaching Yoga and developing my skills as a healer and coach. I created classes, workshops, coaching groups, and kept studying. I’m grateful for my time there, yet never felt completely settled or aligned with living there. I missed my children and the desert.

I Learned That I Can Change my Life Again

As much as I loved that Yoga studio, I knew my time there was complete. I learned what I needed to learn. I had reconnected with family members and was able to see my life from a different perspective. It was time to go.

I returned to Arizona and rebuilt my life in Tucson. I began to offer my services online to my students and clients. 

I also worked as an independent contractor with an online coaching company for a few years. It was primarily for corporate employees as one of their benefits. It was validating to introduce holistic healing modalities to this population and see tangible results that helped them in their professional and personal lives. 

Eventually, I felt limited by having to stay within the boundaries of the corporate structure of this platform. As the company grew, it felt less personal and some of my clients were falling through the cracks. It was difficult to reach those individuals because my only connection to them was through the platform. If they stopped working for their employer, they were cut off from the benefits they were receiving and there was no way for them to connect with me. Because the service was paid for by their employers, some people didn’t value my time and would often cancel last minute or no show. I had no way of even knowing if the messages I was sending to them were being received. I also wasn’t being compensated equitably for the service I was providing. I made a decision to open up the time I was giving that company to my own clients. 

This is more aligned with the level of service I provide. When it comes to healing work, there has to be some flexibility within the structure. It is important that there is an open channel for communication, especially with a client that signs up for a recurring time slot. I see it as a professional relationship with an equitable exchange of energy that benefits both sides.

Life Continues to Change and Evolve

I think of my work as an entity with its own life energy that is constantly growing and evolving. As life progresses and changes, there are always new discoveries and challenges that enhance our growth and evolution, and my work is a reflection of that.

I empathize deeply. I have personally been through what feels like lifetimes of adversity and have navigated through it, so I know how it feels. I not only have training in multiple healing modalities, I have real life experience of moving through some really hard things and arriving on the other side a better, more evolved person.  

I know you can too. 

This is why I do the work I do. I care deeply for the well being of our planet and its inhabitants. It is my soul gift and mission as a lightworker to shine a light into the dark places and to be a small part of raising the collective consciousness on planet Earth.