My story so far
When I came across Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach Training, an inner voice clearly prompted me - ‘you should do that.’
Really? I wondered, isn’t life coaching just a fad? I didn’t know much about it, but it sounded a bit naff to me. ‘You should do that, the voice insisted, until I paid attention and signed up for the training.
Some of the best decisions I’ve made have come from my intuition.
When I was sixteen it led me to move to a farm in Italy, where I lived for fourteen years and where my daughters were born. It was my intuition that guided me to the specific treatment I needed to heal a breast tumour naturally. It prompted me to join the water protectors living in arctic conditions in tepees at Standing Rock to discover I never need to feel the cold while in the warmth of the community. It also caused me to win six hundred pounds the one time I bet on the Grand National back in 2001!
‘When we need direction in life, we need to read the signs.’
Martha Beck named Wayfinder Life Coaching after the indigenous guides in the South Pacific, who are able to find the way to islands hundreds of miles away by reading the signs; tracking their position in relation to the stars, observing the direction of the winds, the way the fish, birds and the waves are behaving.
When we need direction in life, we need to read the signs. If we pay attention to our own guidance and to what is happening around us, it can show us the way forward. Despite initially having no ambition to be a life coach, I soon discovered that it comes naturally to me. Coaching is about listening to what is said and what is not said. It requires one to stay present. It is about listening to hunches and it is about asking questions.
I love working with people to track their inner guidance, usually starting with where they are least satisfied in their lives. It’s exciting to witness clients recognise what’s true for them, to see them owning their own potential and taking steps towards making their visions real. It’s rewarding to see people find freedom from suffering, to see them go from feeling stuck to taking action and finding success. It’s a joyful thing to see how once clients commit to themselves and their visions, synchronicities and magic begin.
It turns out that life coaching isn’t naff after all. On the contrary, it can and does change people’s lives for the better. All my life experiences make me the coach I am today, including the times I felt broken as well as my breakthroughs and successes. In my experience, our wounds hold the potential to become our medicine.
For over 25 years I have read and studied tarot cards, and the archetypal wisdom I found there has taught me much and informs my coaching. I still do some tarot readings, but what I like about coaching is that it puts clients in touch with their own intuition and inner guidance. As the Chinese proverb says: give someone a fish you feed them for a day. Teach them to fish and they will feed themselves for a lifetime.
The more we each follow our guidance and find our way in life, the more we can live creatively, harmoniously, happily and sensitively on this beautiful living planet. Being in nature brings me joy, peace and connection.