Coach Approach Blog

I didn't finish today's Wordle. What a heartbreak. What a loss.

I just couldn't think of a word that had a 'V' and an 'I'. I was stuck. And by the time I thought of it, the day's Wordle had passed. "Vivid" came to me hours too late and the board was reset. What's more, I lost my 19-day streak. It felt like a public humiliation and failure. (to whom? so weird)

So I began ruminating on all the life lessons that have emerged for me since beginning to play this five-letter-word guessing game some …

It's good to be with you right now. You might want to slow things down a little bit and let this be a time that refreshes you. 

When you think of prayer and meditation as "talking", you might be imagining a connection to the divine, in which you are bringing words and content to the experience. You might be reaching out to God or the universe, often using language, to bring your questions, pleas for help, gratitude, and praise.

When you think of prayer or meditation as "listening", your experi…

Being in control is a key survival skill and a big step to self-leadership. Learning to take charge of how you use your body and mind to be a blessing in the world is important for building a more brave and loving place for us all. 

Being controlling, however, is what happens when people reach beyond their own boundaries and into the lives of others. Many people do this with the belief that they are helping.

Some parents still try to force their grown children to behave in ways that they find …

I just had a wrap-up session with a client, which is a time of great celebration and gratitude for all the learning, change, and growth that's happened during a season of coaching. 

What surprised me the most was when this person especially thanked me for calling her out about "fake tears".

She said that now she can easily recognize when her tears are a helpful movement through real grief or joy, and when they're a sign of believing falsehoods. She even tells her friends, "Oops, those are my f…

I remember being in a session with my spiritual director one sunny afternoon in Nairobi when she asked me to "focus my desires".

I had a visceral reaction, thinking that she must have asked me the wrong question. In the world I had grown up in, desires were evil. They were to be shut down in favor of God's will, which was assumed to be in direct opposition to anything I would want.

What possible good would come from focusing on my own desires?

Imagine that you had a desire for pizza. You can …

If you've been around Awaken long, you've probably heard the word loving-kindness. That's the way we like to be. But how does it relate to compassion - another of our favorite words? 

There's a saying:

"When the sunshine of loving-kindness meets the tears of suffering, the rainbow of compassion appears."

That means that when situations of sorrow happen, and you remain in the kind and caring state that you've built up in your life, it will naturally manifest as compassion.

The more you streng…

I just had the most beautiful, presence-filled conversation with a coaching colleague, Joan Leteipa, who was describing her spiritual journey and how she feels while coaching. 

Visualizing the analogy of a pair of scissors, she brought out a real pair to illustrate each point. 

So much of the time we live in the drama of the “muscle end” of the scissors. That space where the thumb and fingers are set through those two large holes. Working so hard. Endlessly and vigorously moving the muscles an…

Do you ever get confused by the seemingly mixed messages around us? Some people firmly and loudly proclaim, “You are perfect just the way you are!" Others are equally convinced of the opposite, "You can do better! Keep striving to improve.”

For coaches, this is more than a philosophical question. Are we loving people just the way they are, or are we helping them to improve?

Some people assume that self-improvement can only come by believing there’s something inherently wrong or flawed within y…

Coaches are so fun and creative. That's our job - to walk with people who are stuck in small, limited ways of thinking about themselves and what's possible to be able to live fully and joyfully.

That's not always easy to do with our puny, little words. So we like to have a whole range of fun, lighthearted learning,  and growing tools available to shake things up a little. 

You can use some of these tools, too, the next time you're feeling stagnant, unsure, turbulent, stuck, or just not as focu…

Have I mentioned lately that you mean a lot to me? Being here together with you in our community brings a big smile to my face. 

I don't know if you've taken the time to peruse the Awaken Coach Institute logo, but you're within it! 

You might have noticed the vibrant, peaceful, joyful blue that makes up the roots, trunk and branches of our tree of life.

This tree is a powerful symbol that reminds me of the moment when I was 28 years old. I was awake in the night, depressed and consumed with a…