What do life coaches do? Why do people need life coaches and why is it critical that you work with a life coach, or possibly a life coach AND a therapist (or even a life coach who is also a therapist) instead of implementing the tools and teachings on your own if you are neuro-divergent, have a condition or mental health disorder, or are prone to triggering symptoms of your condition?
I can use myself as an example, and I have seen similar responses from individuals and other coaches who do not have bipolar disorder or conditions affecting their decision making abilities when unmedicated.
Let's start with 2015 me. I had a big, beautiful perfect life and no one - I mean not a soul would let me forget it. When I was depressed, which was all the time, everyone loved to remind me.
"But look at your beautiful children! You have a husband that supports you. You have a big, beautiful house. You have everything you could ever need."
And I did. Privilege. Comfort. I lacked for nothing on the outside of my body.
I was deeply grateful for all of it. My depression, or the stigma of depression, came from two things: the sad face half of bipolar disorder, depicted in every stupid image you find - do a Google Search.
The second was my thinking. I didn't know about this part until I understood causal coaching and what that was. But did you know....your thoughts create your emotions? I'll get into that in a minute...
Being a human, being a human with bipolar disorder, and just being a human with an actual reaction to real life, the way it worked was, on the same day I would have deep gratitude and love for my beautiful life, I…
Couldn’t get out of bed
Said “yes” so I could show up for everyone else
Quit my dreams multiple times to start businesses for other people and help them with theirs
Burned myself out
Neglected my health
Neglected my own wants and needs
Put my dreams and ambitions to the side
Thought it was because everyone around me was demanding or needed me
Was ultra busy and never sat still when I wasn't in bed
Kept changing my environment to feel better
Never felt better
even though I...
Had done years of therapy
Was medicated for bipolar disorder and stable
I believed there was something deeply wrong with me and that God was testing me, had messed up with me, or was punishing me for some really dumb things I had done like 18 years before, even though I had repented like 1000 times.
See, I had been conditioned and socialized to believe... a lot of things about myself as a woman in the world. I had never dared to question any of those beliefs, and I had certainly never dared to question the teachings that I had been told came directly from God's mouth. So whatever I heard from every. other. human. being. around. me. became my truth. I had no truth of my own. I was a blind believer, socialized, conditioned, and faithfully floating my way through the world, wondering why I felt so terrible all the time if I was following God's exact words!
That exact question plus my deepening depression and decreasing will to live is what got me looking; searching for answers. Why do I feel so bad? How can I feel...better?
2015 I found and binged a life coaching podcast. It taught me some actual science. Science about my brain! Science about why I couldn't just magically change, even though I had been trying for decades through prayer, medication, willpower, grit, grind.
Lord knows I had bought every course, blueprint, and download that had ever flashed before my eyes.
This Life Coach was different from all the course creators or downloads, though. She actually taught me everything! Everything I felt was missing - all the answers I had been looking for .
I discovered how our brains are designed to keep us safe, and so they just keep doing what they're comfortable with - what they're used to doing. How we're created to desire and have urges for things we have already created habits for. It explained so much. I understood that my thoughts weren't ME. I was a watcher of my thoughts. I could control and change them. They never even really came from me, and I could re-decide what I want them to be!
Even the way I think about my condition. My circumstances. The things that have happened to me. I don't even have to think about those things the same way if I don't want to. I get to choose and decide not only how I think about them, but how I FEEL!
WHAT!
I understood it all.
Why I never felt happy
Why I needed to keep changing my environment
How to take control of my emotions
2017-2018 This new understanding meant I could decide how to think and make decisions in my own life. I felt in control of my thinking for the first time ever. I didn't realize how much power I had. I didn't actually have a Life Coach. I had a podcast. It wasn't until 2022 that I would recognize the significance of that difference. My trauma had made me fiercely independent and I believed this was all I needed. I could do it all on my own.
I practiced the methods of the Life Coaching modality from the podcast on my own
I began to be somewhat stronger mentally, but physically got very sick
I ended up going off of my bipolar meds because I thought I was cured
I went into the worst manic episode of my life
I made decisions in that manic episode that hurt me and many of my loved ones deeply - not from a place of being in control of my thoughts, emotions or actions
I now know it was because I had set big goals and made decisions that triggered a manic episode, which happened again later, and I caught it
I also made decisions I had wanted to make for a very long time from a place of owning my own authority - something I had never done - without planning or doing it with intention, but knowing that I was in charge of my own life for the first time. It was a very haphazard, dangerous way to gain control of my life after over 40 years of running on default, subconscious conditioned thinking and the default emotions those thoughts created.
2019-2020
I got divorced after over 20 years, entered a new serious relationship, made moves and decisions in my business that were financially just stupid, trusted people with my finances and livelihood that had nothing to do with me or my business, ended that relationship, moved to another city.
I went back on my medication
met my current husband
bought a house, and moved again.
For a time I had peace and calm. I created that.
It didn’t last.
Outside of me - the circumstances of life, the conditions of my brain and body cause me to have Sentences running through my mind. Many of my Circumstances and Conditions are ones that I don’t enjoy or want
The Sentences I have about my unwanted circumstances and conditions create Emotions - a lot of emotions that I also don’t want to feel. I try to resist them, numb them, or shove them down.
I also spin and spin in the thoughts I have, sit in a lot of inaction, feeling paralyzed, and tend to overthink, over-explain, and overwork when I feel emotions I don’t like.
I end up creating results I don’t like, and the cycle starts over. I think, feel, do more of what I don’t like and then I feel depressed and discouraged about all of it.
None of it is on purpose.
In 2021, I hired my first coach. She is a financial coach. I wanted my first real Life Coaching experience to help me understand and get a handle on how to manage money. I never had to before. I had a small budget with my businesses, but I had managed it poorly. I knew I had a money mindset that needed coaching. I believe that foundation was one of the greatest choices I could have made. It wasn't an emotional coaching decision, and most coaching is about emotions - it was very functional and actionable, and I still use the principles and discipline to this day. It tells me that I permanently changed my brain immediately through coaching. It is proof that coaching works. I don't use any of the systems my coach gave me, but the practice of budgeting, of knowing ahead of time what is happening with my bank account, of inherently being in control of my finances - that has shifted for me in a way I can't describe. I was afraid of my bank account and debt before. Now I have control over it.
In 2022, I decided that I would Certify as a Life Coach School coach - with the coach who changed my life. I knew the impact of Life Coaching. I had seen it in my life over the last 7 years (slow learner my gosh).
What I know and what I learned is that I need a coach. I self-coach myself on all of my thinking every day. It helps tremendously as long as i am medicated and stable. I knew I wanted to become a coach, too. The shift I experienced in the 6 months of certification is not something I can put into words, although it doesn't compare to the shift I've experienced in the 6 months since I certified.
So why does a Certified Coach need a Coach?
There is a handful of coaches that I work with who coach me regularly and they do several things that I simply can’t. (I coach them, too)
They have a lens that can zooom way out and way in from a different perspective to tell me what is really happening after I tell them what I THINK is happening.
They can get me to where I can make a decision faster, with more speed, greater impact and much more awareness with intention and outside of my subconscious default thinking.
They help me to see why I’m thinking something, where it came from, and question if it’s even my own belief or if I want to re-decide it.
They open windows and doors that my brain can't open from the inside.
That is the benefit of having a coach.
Beyond that. Beyond Coaching each other is Creating.
Without Coaching, Creating seems to come to a wall.
Whether you are an artist or creator of solutions or formulas; a coder or a stylist.
We are creators created by the Creator to create.
After I certified as a Life Coach, I saw a massive gap in my industry that needed to be filled. I saw that there is a need for more. More accessibility. More spirituality. More energetic access. More neuro-diversity. More equity. A deeper access into our brains and electromagnetic energy that are ultimately how we get answers, and when we are static, or out of flow, block them.
With me as your coach, you will not only be able to crawl out of bed again. You will begin to feel better. You will find that you have access to your own authority and a self-confidence that transcends ability.
You will access your electromagnetic power. Your full capacity to attract what you decide before you can even see it.
You will access you ability to decide how to feel, to expand your emotions, to feel the full spectrum of emotions with elation and to drop the resistance.
You will not put yourself in harm's way, because the risk of that is a physical or emotional response that are actually dangerous to your health.
Your safety comes first. Your life is more important than a goal or a milestone.
I don't care about being an example of something to anyone.
I care about YOU. I want to help you. I know you are suffering and I know that what I have created - the gap I have filled that was gaping wide when I was left alone with symptoms, responses and triggers from an event so hyped up to make millions of dollars for my coach with no thought of what it would do to someone like me...I know that what I created from that experience is how you will create your own answers; your own blueprints; your own courses and downloads and decide when to turn your creative fountain on and off because only you should ever have the authority to make decisions about your life, your goals, and what your thoughts are. Your Life IS your coaching certification. With me as your guide; as your Life Coach, I will show you how you can control it so you will never have to suffer the way I did without support.
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