What Is Spiritual Coaching?

Posted on February 04, 2017 by Catherine Oliphant, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

First let’s look at what coaching is and how that is different from therapy. Then, we’ll look at spiritual coaching.

Coaching is a partnering with a client There are four main areas of philosophy that epitomize coaching, according to Co-Active Coaching by Laura Whitworth, Karen Kimsey-House, Henry Kimsey-House, and Phillip Sandahl. These philosophies are as follows:

1. Clients are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole.

Effective coaches view clients as having all the answers within them. You already have all the insight, you may just need a coach to help you pull it out through powerful questions, homework, practicing, etc.

2. The agenda comes from the client.

An effective coach empowers the client to figure out for her/his self, what they need. For one of the most important things in living an empowered life it for all of us to know ourselves and figure out what we want and need. No one else can no you or understand you like you can.

3. The coach dances in the moment.

In order for a client to have a life changing experience in with a coach, the coach needs to look beyond the words of the story to what is the heart of the story. An effective coach listens with their heart or intuition. Everything a client says is a cue for the coach to follow a tangent or go with the basic need that needs to be met. Intuition is a powerful force, which is multi-dimensional. If a coach is trusting her/his intuition, even though the client may think their insight is off, down the road, the client may come back and say, “I just realized that what you said, three months ago, was exactly what I needed to hear.”

4. Co-active coaching addresses the client’s whole life.

Co-Active coaches see a client as whole. Therefore, a person cannot be a certain way in one area without it affecting other areas of their life. If I make a blueberry pie and add chocolate, you’ll be able to taste the chocolate and the blueberry. It is all connected and interspersed. How we live in one area affects all the other areas of our lives. Effective coaches will ask clients how their work in one area is positively affecting other areas of their lives.

In addition to those components, coaching is focused on the present and future. Where do you want to go? What is stopping you from achieving your goals? Are your goals in alignment with your Highest Self? Do your goals reflect your unlimited potential? Once the client has worked on refining their goals with the coach, the coach will help the client develop self-awareness. This valuable insight will be achieved through the coach asking powerful questions, using her/his intuition, asking the client to keep a journal, reflect and other homework assignments.

Embarking on entering coaching is not something to be taken lightly. The coach is not the one who should be doing most of the work, it is the client. Ultimately, the client is the one who is teaching herself/himself. If a coach says anything that doesn’t fit with the client, it is up to the client to speak up and say that doesn’t work. An effective coach doesn’t take a client disagreeing, personally. An effective coach wants what’s best for the client and focuses on that not on what is best for the coach’s ego.

During coaching sessions, we will focus on where you are now and where you want to go. You will dream as big as you desire and develop goals from these dreams. As your coach, we may talk about what is keeping you stuck, but we won’t focus on mistakes you’ve made. Instead, we will focus on how to get through or around the obstacle. We’ll do this navigating by discovering your successes from the past and present, and uncovering your strengths and skills.

A metaphor for coaching would be like a client and a coach in a canoe, so to speak. The client sits in the back and steers while the coach is in front, following the captain’s pace. If the client is having difficulty seeing the path ahead, the coach can use her/his intuition or perspective to give feedback, such as, “We’re heading in shallow waters.” As a client, looks inside yourself and see if that feedback is correct, you’ll know what you need to do. An effective coach respects whatever decisions the client makes and doesn’t judge. It is the client’s life and the coach is a patient partner in the canoe, knowing that eventually, the client will figure it out and get on a peaceful path, out of the struggle. So, if the client wants to continue going into shallow water, the coach may need to brace herself/himself for a bumpy ride and accept that this is the path, at the moment. However, the coach is responsible to the client for asking powerful questions and giving feedback, but not judgment. Coaching can also be a great experience for someone who is in therapy, but needs more support to work on living their best life.

Therapy

In general, therapy clients focus on painful experiences, from the past. They may focus for years on what happened, their feelings, what that means, analyze it, and try to put it in perspective. When the client feels they have perspective on the situation, therapy usually stops. Often, clients gain perspective from therapy, but don’t know how to navigate a new course with new goals. They may leave therapy, not knowing what goals they have for the future. That is where coaching comes in. Coaching can be a great addition for someone who has worked on themselves in therapy and is ready to take the next step. Although, coaching can be a good fit for someone who has never been to therapy, but wants a more fulfilling life.

Also, my experience from working as a mental health therapist, is that it can have a pathological focus. Primarily, health insurance and Medicaid require diagnosis to continue paying for treatment. These companies justify the treatment based on what type of pathology is present and they judge whether therapy is needed. Some therapists buy into this pathological model and see clients as broken. I had a supervisor who said, “Patients start out as whole, but their core has been eaten into and they aren’t whole anymore.” Although, therapists differ in their philosophies, a client seeing themselves as “not enough” through the eyes of a therapist can cause further pain.

Another difference between these two models is the word, “client”. In the mental health field, typically, clients are viewed as “patients”, as having a sickness. Coaching does not view clients as sick, but sees them as having everything within in them to meet their goals, no matter how much of a struggle it may be, at the moment.

Similarities

While coaching and therapy are different, there are some similarities. They both require the client to stretch themselves. Both modalities require work to look at the pain, in order to grow. Coaches and therapists encourage the client to develop self-awareness and develop a stronger sense of who they are. In addition, most coaches and therapists genuinely care about their clients and want them to lead a life where they feel empowered.

Limits to coaching

The coach cannot do the work for you. Through the work that you do, you will feel empowered. If someone else made your decisions or told you how to do things, you wouldn’t be pulling from your Inner Wisdom. You wouldn’t be living a life of empowerment Take what a coach says seriously, but always run everything through your filters. Ultimately, you are the expert on yourself. No one can know your distinctiveness like you. A coach may suspect that you have a certain unconscious belief, but only you know whether that comment is accurate. You will get out of coaching what you put into it. If you are trying to please others or your coach, it won’t be successful. You’ll know if coaching is successful by how you feel, if you’re honest with yourself.

Being coached may be difficult at times, like navigating through shallow waters. As a client, you may not want to go in a different direction, or you may decide to stay on your present course. Sometimes, when we have to go a different route, it can take a lot of effort, but it can be exciting, if we have a growth mindset. A growth mindset looks beyond the struggle and effort, currently, and focuses on the outcome. An effective coach will be patient with your decisions.

Spiritual coaching

As a spiritual coach my goal is to ask powerful questions to align you with your Higher Self. All clients are magnificent, have unlimited potential, and are multidimensional. I love watching a client discover who they truly are, and I relish every moment of that. Spiritual coaching recognizes that a client is much deeper than what is on the surface such as: their appearance, what they do, their abilities, their thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc. Through a spiritual perspective, I will challenge you to connect with your Higher Self and rely on that wisdom to guide you, as opposed to the thinking mind. I will also challenge you to become conscious through mindfulness of your thoughts and feelings, to get to know yourself on a deeper level.

Spiritual coaching is not about religion or right or wrong. A spiritual coach may not be religious. In other words, the spiritual coach may be relying on their own and their client’s internal Higher Wisdom for guidance, and not doctrines. Likewise, a client may not be
religious or may be religious, but they are allowing themselves to trust their Inner Wisdom to guide them.

Email me at: cloliphant@yahoo.com and we can Zoom, Skype, or have a phone conversation. I am giving a limited time offer of $40/hr. or $20/half hour. I recommend ten sessions. Otherwise, making progress is limited with just one or two sessions. I wish you the best on your path, and hope to hear from you.

Honoring your journey,

Catherine Oliphant, M.Div., M.S.S.W.
Spiritual Life Coach
Facebook: Just Flow Spiritual Life Coaching
cloliphant@yahoo.com