What is Life Coaching
Posted on March 03, 2015 by G Christopher Wright, One of Thousands of Spirituality Coaches on Noomii.
There is nothing magic about life coaching. Coaching merely surfaces what is already present, polishes what is desirable and diminishes what isn't.
I have spoken to many people about life coaching and find that no two people agree on what it is. I have heard everything from “a bunch of people in tights dancing around and saying positive things to each other,” to “life coaching presumes that there is something wrong with you and that you need to change.” As far as Jonah Life Coaching is concerned, both of these descriptions are wrong for different reasons, yet both of them also touch on some truth about life coaching.
Life Coaching incorporates “positive thinking” to the extent that it excludes “negative thinking.” No one in their right mind would suggest that thinking positively about moving a mountain would accomplish the move. Positive thinking is meant to address the stream of negative thinking that runs daily through the minds and hearts of most people. If we have the choice of thinking either, “I can do this, I feel as though I have already accomplished it,” and “I can’t do this, I feel like I won’t be able to accomplish it,” then why would we choose the latter? Furthermore, positive thinking remains only a superficial rivulet tricking over the surface of a delta of ‘shoulds’, ‘have-tos’, ‘I cants’, and various other thoughts if it doesn’t evolve into a deep and abiding habit. “Thinking” is not an option, why not think with intentionality.
Life Coaching does not move one from lack to abundance, at least good life coaching doesn’t follow that paradigm. Jonah Life Coaching seeks first and foremost to identify and celebrate the abundance of life. We want to develop the habit of gratitude towards the fullness that we are, and it is only from this fullness that we move toward fullness. The Isa Upanishad speaks of moving from “fullness to fullness.” This is the proper understanding of the work of a life coach.
Of course, this is not to deny that there are many in the world who feel the pangs of hunger or oppression. “Fullness to fullness” is addressing a much deeper level of existence. To understand that one is already full and can be no “fuller” one must grasp the unspeakable beauty and truth of human life. Life is invaluable and to live is to be wrapped in the folds of profound mystery and inestimable joy … we need only stop for a moment to appreciate the almost unbearable ecstasy of being alive.
