I coached 4 clients today, and when I hung up the phone with my last client, I shouted “I love what I do!” several times. I love it that I have more energy at the end of the work day than when I started. I love that I have the gift of this form called “coaching” that lets me effortlessly draw from a lifetime of personal, relationship, business, and spiritual wisdom.
Years ago when I had an energy healing practice, I couldn’t see more than 2 or 3 clients a day. I frequently needed to clear my energy field of the client’s “stuff”. I couldn’t imagine seeing 4 healing clients a day. Perhaps it was because I didn’t ground myself fully before each session; perhaps it was because I was working up-close with negative energies, entities, funky astral beings, and so on; or perhaps it was that the meetings were all in-person and not on the phone. For whatever reason, coaching fits me a lot better than straight healing work.
Not that coaching isn’t healing in its own way, and not that I don’t use my healing skills in my coaching sessions. In fact, it might be illuminating to examine the skills of a healer that would translate nicely to the coaching environment.
Intuition
Intuition is one of the greatest skills that the healer can bring to the coaching relationship. Among other things, intuition includes a) hearing what the client isn’t saying, and b) an openness to receiving psychic impressions from the client (e.g., pictures, words, bodily sensations). In my healing days, I was often slow to reveal my intuitions, preferring to let the client’s process evolve before adding my input. Sometimes I would wait until after the session, and occasionally I sensed it was best to keep my impressions to myself. As a coach, however, “blurting” intuitions as soon as they appear is a practice that seems universally encouraged. I actually prefer this way of working with intuition; it meshes well with my spontaneous, improvisational coaching style.
Client-driven
As a healer, it’s beneficial to remember that the client is responsible for healing themselves, and that you’re aiding them in that process. Same goes for coaching. At the Coaches Training Institute, the mantra is that the client is “naturally creative, resourceful, and whole.” When you can trust that your clients are fully responsible for their lives and that they’re doing their best to grow and change, it makes your coaching job a lot easier!
Transparency
When both healers and coaches let go of their ego and agenda and let the Divine do the work, then the relationship with the client becomes an exquisite dance. As a healer or a coach, there is nothing that compares to being used by Source to serve the well-being of another. The goal, then, is to have this happen as often as possible. And the question to ask, as either healer or coach, is “What needs to happen for me to become as transparent as possible?”
Unconditional Love
One of the important pieces that I learned in my healing practice was that loving people exactly where they were was one of the greatest gifts that I could give them. Sure, it was great that I could help heal their past lives, or remove psychic sludge from their bellies, but at the deepest level, healing is about seeing someone’s essence, loving that, and allowing that loving be reflected to them. A great coach does the same. I currently have two coaches, and both of them see me this way so clearly that it’s a little overwhelming at times. But I’m learning, slowly but surely, to see myself as they see me.
