Last month I began a course to become a transformational life coach. Without even knowing, I have been preparing for this for over 7 years. I have researched almost all there is to research about stress management, at first in an attempt to gain more inner peace and balance in my life and then metamorphosing into a passion to cultivate greater wellness in my life and in the lives of others. Through my readings and reflections, I have discovered that stress is quite possibly the number one joy killer in society today. But then again it isn't about stress being bad and joy being good, it goes much deeper than that. It's about releasing the need to control everything and leaning into life and trusting that everything is here to serve us. It's just not always easy to see how sometimes.
Through my adventures in researching everything I could get my hands on about wellness and managing stress, I have slowly gained insight into my own inner struggles and inner strengths, and through that insight, I've gained awareness of my own inner workings, which is the key to transforming anything. Without the ability to see from a little distance with some clarity how I tick, I can't begin to even imagine what steps I could start taking to feel more at peace.
Now after seven years, I'm beginning to grow some fruit from my research and put what I've learned in real action through coaching. I think starting to write regularly on my blog a year and a half ago and naming that I'm a creative wellness & stress management blogger/consultant/coach in training on sites like LinkedIn represented big steps in my journey to put my passion for researching wellness into action and into real baby steps to greater over wellness for myself and to following my dream of making my own schedule and helping motivate and empower others to find their wellness as well.
As I practice different coaching techniques with wonderful and willing guinea pig friends of mine--thank you so much for your support!--I am also practicing the techniques with myself, as I see myself through the mirror of coaching. And I am beginning to acknowledge the little and big steps I've been taking towards living my dreams. It's also building my confidence to hear feedback from others and learn how others really see me--as a capable and compassionate coach. Recognizing the huge disparity in how classmates and friends see me with how I sometimes see myself has been very eye-opening. And as I continue to build my self-compassion muscles, I strive to see myself more and more through the eyes of a loving friend.
Learning about coaching is also like a permission slip to ask myself the big, hairy questions that are normally ignored or brushed under the rug because they're just too big or that we don't feel capable of achieving due to their enormous size. Coaching is asking those big and powerful questions, and through asking others and seeing their positive responses as a result, I feel more compelled to keep asking myself big questions too and write and reflect and talk about them more. Through sharing we can really gain creative momentum and through that we receive support and encouragement which builds up our confidence and believability. Because what we believe is possible can be directly reflected in how and what we experience in life.
So I leave you with one of those big, hairy questions written by Emma-Louise Elsey:
If you were to FULLY live your life, what is the first change you would start to make?
