Don’t Hire a Life Coach You Can’t Afford; Instead, Do This
Don’t dig your hole deeper by hiring an unscrupulous “life-coach” who is in it only for the business and not to see you through the transformation that you are looking for.
“Borrow money from friends, y’all”, she said, “put it on a credit card, but hire a coach that will help you get your life together, like me”, she said… today… on a live facebook video. I was in disbelief.
I posted something along the lines of, (I can’t see it anymore because she deleted it): “Not a good idea to put it on a credit card. Meditate, connect with your inner Self through honest effort, for free”.
It was the least I could do; too bad she deleted it, even though I was not surprised.
The life and business coaching business has become NOT unlike a religious thing, in tactics, (the pressure, even the guilt games!), in their super abundance and in the hyperbolic pitches of what they WILL deliver, if you just…. (pay through the nose).
Some of these coaches, like the one I heard today encourage potential prey to “get into debt” to hire her, (it almost makes me nauseated), are absolutely incompetent to coach anybody or anything. They exhibit no signs of self-mastery or even high ethics, let alone the kind of presence, wisdom and humility necessary to help another human being.
And other coaches are under tremendous pressure to make money because they themselves have hired very expensive coaches. There are a multitude of self-proclaimed coaches under this predicament. It has become a pyramid of sorts and it is not sustainable.
In the meantime, people ARE desperate; our times are difficult and challenging in new ways and we are not trained for them, or disciplined and wise to navigate our circumstances, and we want a way out; the easiest, quickest and cheapest, — as the Dalai Lama said was a frequent request, which was the cheapest, quickest and easiest way to enlightenment, which is, of course, funny and illustrative of how we humans are.
I myself, (sheepishly confess), that besides having bachelors and masters degrees in Psychology, — a discipline that I love and respect, I also am trained to be a life coach with a respectable “institution” from whom I have learned many things I value, but the model of business presented is not palatable for me. I don’t have fuzzy feelings about capitalism and the monster of seven heads that it has turned into, and I don’t admire people who want to amass enormous wealth “just because”.
Just because what? It is the same kind of illness that they purportedly want to help clients escape… just slightly different. I think there is an element of hypocrisy in that. One fellow life coach is not shy to constantly present herself as a “wealthy coach”, and her photos are of the most glamorous kind. All things that appeal to the part of us that conflicts with our deepest truth, the one that we should be spending time, energy, honest effort in exploring and discovering more and more, as long as we live.
What a contradiction and how confusing these messages can be to people who are honestly wanting to emerge from the shadows. It makes me so sad to think of so many who fall in the wrong hands and they walk away disillusioned, not unlike someone who sought truth in any religion and eventually was lucky to realize they wouldn’t find it there, because it can only be found in our own hearts.
I am not discounting that having someone to witness our evolution, someone who has evolved her/himself, is of great value; but the odds of finding someone who is great like that, and then being able to afford them are pretty high.
We are better off to glean what is available for free and discern with our own sense what is true and what is not and separate the good and the useless and then follow the advice that resonates with your sense of what is true and wholesome.
I have not started seeking a client base because I don’t know how to distinguish myself from “the others” as a legitimate and caring coach, with ONE single exception: I know one coach whom I completely respect and admire and would follow her “model-less model” any day. Maybe that’s what I am doing :-). (She too is extremely expensive, but unlike the others, I know that she delivers and that she is 100% authentic and transparent).
So what to do given the state of things? Here is my advice:
- Breathe. Right now; breathe deeply, at least one time, but 3 or 7 if you can.
- Watch your mind. Say: “Now I am going to watch my mind for a minute or two and see what is going on there”.
- Do not, do not, do not judge the content of your mind. Smile instead if you must have a reaction.
- Speak with your mind. Say to it things like:
“Oh wow, look at all the thoughts you generate”
“Let’s try to slow you down a bit, you don’t have to work so hard”
“I now know that these thoughts are not me, and that many aren’t true, isn’t that great?”
“I appreciate your concern about me and my future, but for a while we are going to try and focus on this moment only”
“Thank you for your help; I appreciate you”.
5. As much as you are able, gently stop the movement of the mind and get inside that wonderful gap of no thing — of delicious emptiness, and wonderful spaciousness.
6. Notice what flows in through that small gap you have made. What you see in this space is what is true for you. Do not censor any of that whatsoever; it is sacred for you.
(Comment on this article if you wish about what you experienced in this simple but powerful exercise, or on my facebook page where I make book recommendations).
7. Do write down your thoughts, or record them on audio, or film yourself on your phone or your computer. I recommend the latter most. It is very powerful to speak to yourself as you are looking back at your image. Things that would not flow in any other way do come out and it shows you more of what is inside yourself, needing to be expressed.
At this point you may be excited about what is happening and may sense the need to have someone to talk about it. Be wise about who you share these things with and withhold your treasure from anyone who will not understand. This is where having a tribe helps, and I am grateful for mine, but it should not cost $10,000 to have a facebook group of like-minded people!
8. Do get your hands on a handful of outstanding books that you will read that have the potential within their pages, no, YOU have the potential within yourself, the books will only point you to the places within yourself where the power is locked up. I will offer my very selected list of precious materials to which I am eternally indebted. (But the impulse to evolve has been mine, and yours will be yours, not the books’). You will cross paths with the materials that you are ready for, and MAY YOU BE BRAVE AND WILLING!
9. Lastly: think about “death”; begin to move in the direction of embracing your mortality and being friendly with it. This article I wrote on this topic may help. Embracing the other side of our birth is an undeniable part of living more fully; it is part of the same coin, inevitably one piece. We cannot thrive whilst we are clinging to a hopeless (and ridiculous) notion of never dying. Dying is not against us, but for us.
This business of evolving into a fuller measure of our true selves is like opening formerly hidden doors that lead to large gates, that in turn lead to big expansions; it is most exciting.
I will compile my list of fundamental books and share it with you on my facebook page. Each book I recommend will include a summary of what it did for me and what I would expect it will do for you.
To read excellent books is fundamental in your search for yourself. No one matters in this production of yours more than yourself.
We learn to know ourselves from people who have learned to know themselves already, not from business people whose intent is to teach something they may not be doing themselves.
The blind leading the blind will both fall in the pit, even if it’s not exactly the same one.
If you enjoyed this article, please clap on it as many times as you are willing, up to 50 times, and like my facebook page where I will post the list of books since currently I don’t have an email list service. Thank you!
Copyrighted material 2018
