How To Choose a Coach/Mentor/Guide in These Times…

In today’s online world, the coaching and wellness space can be a really unregulated space and on any given day, you may have an IG feed and an inbox full of coaches and mentors offering their programs and masterminds and client spots to you… and right now I am one of them… 🙂

Sometimes people can have amazing marketing skills and branding and splashy numbers, but does that mean they are your person?!  Do you judge a book by the cover?  Or how does one decide? It’s a big decision!  Which leads me to…

This is something I’ve been reflecting on this month as I welcome new mentees into my group program, and it’s something I consider as I pay for retreats and coaching myself.  Because as I said recently… I DO pay for classes, support, and continue my own training daily.  It is integral to my showing up to YOU.

I want to share with you how I myself choose teachers and coaches and mentors in hopes that it will be helpful for you.

Choosing a coach, mentor, or guide is really specific, and I look at these 3 areas when trying to decide:

1. Research – Training, Press, Credentials.
2. Embodied Intuition – A deep KNOWING that shows up as FEELING, sensation, and also heart knowing.
3. Areas of Lived Experience that resonate with my journey – Has this person been through lived experience that matches where I want to go?

1) RESEARCH:

Checking out someone’s credentials is really important.  Whether it’s a degree, press, testimonials from various clients, public recognition, a published book, or articles… this can help factor into you choosing someone to work with, based on what feels important to you.  I feel like it’s in vogue to be sort of “beyond traditional” ways / be self-made, etc. which is partially wonderful and empowering, but also, having training, press, accreditation, etc. are important markers. Check out someone’s website, background, bio, because why not?  If their training and press aren’t front facing, consider why.  Sure there is intuition (more on that below) and soul contracts and feeling – AND there’s also honesty and transparency and hard work that achieves real tangible things in the world.

2) EMBODIED INTUITION:

A deep knowing.  Clarity in the mind.  Clarity in the body.

I sometimes receive questions from those interested in working with me that go something like this:

“What if I think this is a good fit now, but then realize it’s not quite right?”

or

“How do I know that this will be a good fit for me this year?”

My best answer??

BREATHE and LISTEN.  Listen below the fear voices.  Listen below the surface desires.  (Okay, this itself takes practice!)

Only YOU know if something or someone is right for you.

I don’t pressure people about working with me because I cannot KNOW what’s best for anyone!  And if someone pressures you, I would step back and consider that.

When you receive their teachings, do you:

• Feel a heat running through your body, like the heat of inspiration?
• Get tingly and activated in your system?
• Feel inspired to create, start your projects, put yourself out there?
• Feel warm and gooey or LIT after you talk to them or consume their work?

3) MATCHING LIVED EXPERIENCE:

Once you do your research, and read the book of a mentor/teacher/coach or their articles, you can consider: “Do their lived experiences resonate with mine?”  Perhaps you have gone through similar things, but are still struggling with them.  Perhaps they write about things you are on the cusp of integrating.  Perhaps there is shared interest on what spiritual path they have taken…

For instance, I have a dear friend who teaches a ton on forgiveness and battling health issues and it comes from her own struggles with health problems and forgiveness.  She shares her story and perhaps it touches YOU.  Where I myself share a lot about overcoming issues around my body, sexuality, shame, fear of speaking up and sharing, finding my own spiritual mystical path outside of male-oriented traditions… that is specific!  So, take in the story of a person, feel it, notice if it touches your heart.  And if the person shares nothing of their lived experience… does that feel trustable to you?  Truly only you can say.

All of the above can help factor into you choosing someone to work with who you trust to guide you on your path of spiritual awakening, embodiment, healing, and sharing your gifts with the world.

If you have checked in with the above, and feel that we would be a good fit to work together for your expansion, healing, transformation, and getting clear on how best to deliver your gifts to the world, I am currently accepting applications for my 2022 Radical Awakenings group coaching program. 

This program will be combining ritual, practice, self-inquiry, embodiment, expression, creativity, community, and spiritual study.  You will receive accountability for growth and self-liberation throughout the next 10 months from me and our group.

But first… in case you don’t know the details on my background… and places I teach and mentor on:

To give you a bit of information on my background, I went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and studied healing through theater, through the body, through voice, and through writing, during my time there. While simultaneously studying yoga, energy work, and healing work on my own with over a decade of plant medicine work, therapy, and study.  I wrote and directed many short films, one feature, a web series, documentaries and more, as an artist.  In the past few years, I traveled to India and received tantric initiations while there, have continued study with many amazing teachers, and stepped into leadership myself.  My first book was published by Sounds True in 2020, and my work working with women 1:1 was reviewed in the NY Times.  I ran a membership that had between 200-500 members over the past five years, and continue to teach and mentor women, as well as write!  You can read all of it on my website.  There is nothing hidden.  It’s all there, clear and true.

And I have worked with hundreds of women in 1:1 work and on retreats and in my programs as their coach, mentor, and guide.

APPLY HERE.