I'm not sure if everyone knew this about me or not, but I am a certified holistic life coach and have been fully trained in the many styles that are available to life coaches for their clients to pursue deeper meaning or richness in their lives, to find their purpose, and to live life more in accordance with their truest desires.
Of course, I have always made it a point to never ask someone to do something unless I am willing to do it myself, and I have a great difficulty with commitment to difficult or emotionally challenging tasks, even if they are necessary for me to complete, so I am struggling with that, in hopes of making some transformations in my own life for the better, as a part of my spiritual evolution in the aftermath of the life-shattering film event.
One of the most interesting part of this certification training was reading about the stories of other people who have been life coached, or even just had brief encounters with a life coaching experience that changed their life for the better.
"With my dear friend Barbara Morse, I began a family history project called "Tell Us Your Story," fifteen years ago. In one afternoon, we developed a list of twenty-five questions that we felt really got a the crux of people's life passages, and turned these questions into family history workshops, a school curriculum, and community festival events. We realized that these questions crossed generational, cultural, and gender boundaries, and reached the heart of everybody's life story. Anybody anywhere can answere these questions - questions like 'How did your life change after you had a baby?' 'How did your life change after someone close to you died?' 'What did someone teach you that made a difference?' And our favorite question, which is 'What family secret did you learn that changed your view of yourself or someone in your family?'
"I used this question once when I was at the hom of my friend Michael. There were two other visitors - two very shy guys from North Dakota - waiting for Michael to come home. They sat on the couch patiently and politely for hours without talking to me or each other. Finally I went over and said, 'Hey, have either of you learned a family secret that changed your view of yourself or someone in your family?' They both said yes, and we immediately had a wonderful conversation of extremely intimate information. One of the guys, Darren, told how his father had killed someone in a fight as a young man and had become very inward and fearful of his emotions after that event. Darren had just learned this, and it answered a lifetime of questions for him - he had modeled himself after his shy, withdrawn father without knowing the story behind his father's personality."
This leads to one of the exercises that some life coaches feel their clients will benefit from: the daily focus experience. For people keeping an actual diary with pen-writing, it can be a marvel. And indeed, I recommend this to my clients as one of their first priorities. Dream interpretation, daily intuitions, heart-wisdoms, and daily mental focusing can all be practiced through my sectioned journal.
Subjects of InterestJot down each day for thirty days:
- Anything that you overhear, read, think about, see, or are told about that catches your attention more than usual.
- Things that excite, delight, encourage, intrigue, or uplift you.
- A brief description of someone whom you admire. Why do you admire him or her?
- Any need you see in your environment that is not being addressed.
Summarize any pattern you see in your notes. Underline the sentence or words that give you a feeling of excitement or arouse strong interest.
I've done this before a few times, but so far have failed to see any pattern or connections from day to day. Maybe I just have ADD or something similar, but to be honest I can find few things making connections in my life in a meaningful way. Or, actually I take that back, I can find few things making connections in my life in a practical way. The connections that occur are often mystical or hyper-intuitive in their experience, and as much as I would like to, I can find no career-line which pays people to have mystical experiences.
So here goes: