I’m an Integral Coach. I’m also a martial arts instructor, creative director, and workshop leader. I couldn’t have imagined even one of these things as a possibility when I embarked on my year of training at New Ventures West.
Many people come into the Professional Coaching Course with particular intentions for what awaits them at the end of the year. Some envision going into private practice as a coach, becoming a better HR professional or manager, adding depth to a role as a therapist or teacher, or in some way building out their professional repertoire and creating more options for themselves.
Sometimes it looks just like the vision. Other times — oftentimes — folks are surprised. Going through the PCC almost always results in a greater sense of freedom and possibility, but not the way we expect. Here’s how it went for me.
Feeling Trapped
I was sitting on a sloping green lawn on the campus of a large university where I was working in fundraising. Far from a pleasant mid-day breather, I had been dragged to this spot – to the ground, really – by the weight of my situation. No aspect of the job I was doing had any meaning for me, except that I could contribute to the mortgage my partner and I had just taken on. We’d moved across the country to start a new life in the bay area. Having worked in a small nonprofit back east, this job was, at the moment, the closest I could find to what I’d done in my previous life. Except it wasn’t close at all.
Feeling more deflated and suffocated with each passing day, it was increasingly evident that I couldn’t stay where I was. Yet I couldn’t perceive a way forward. I was trapped in vapidity, desperate for meaning and connection. I wasn’t exactly positioned on my knees that afternoon, but definitely in a mood of postulation.
Finding the Thread
It suddenly occurred to me to engage in an informal thought experiment around the old question, “if money wasn’t an issue, what would I do?” Immediately what rose to mind was a writing workshop I’d been attending for years: one in which connection and healing are the real takeaways — writing being the vehicle by which this occurs. By diving into personal, sometimes painful stories in a safe, non-critical space, folks mine the depths of their souls and memories, and come out more in touch with themselves and with deep compassion for those around them. No activity had ever been more nourishing and meaningful for me. That, I realized, was what I wanted my life to look like.
I didn’t see a way from here to there. I wasn’t even sure if that’s precisely what I wanted to do, but I was drawn to the essence of the possibility. I loved to write but understood that, to be able to hold a container for a powerful process like what occurred in the workshops, I needed to develop myself in some way I couldn’t yet perceive.
Still, there it was: the whisper of the thread connecting me from hopelessness to possibility.
First Steps
What happened next is both the most inexplicable yet undeniable piece of the whole journey. An inner voice I’d never heard before whispered, “What about life coaching?”
Huh. “What is life coaching?” I wondered. I’d heard of it but had always found the term kind of trite (still do, honestly). And yet, in direct answer to my desperate questioning about the direction of my life, something about this mysterious ‘suggestion’ took hold, moving me to take steps.
The first step was to google “life coach,” find someone local, and book a session with him to see what the voice in my mind was talking about. It was lovely. I felt seen and understood, and came to some big insights about myself. I asked where he trained, and had the experience that (I’ve since discovered) many who wind up at NVW have: he’d gone to a different school but wished he’d known about NVW because he definitely would have come here. The depth of the learning and transformation, he heard, was unlike any other.
Okay then. A few weeks later I came to an orientation session at NVW and felt immediately clicked into my tribe. My cells seemed to understand that whatever I needed would happen for me here. I cursorily investigated one or two other schools, though I knew this was where I’d end up. (Beyond the physical, intuitive draw, I realized the term “life coaching” tends not to apply.)
Beyond Expectations
As many a PCC graduate will probably attest, the year was a washing machine of transformation. On the very first day I found myself in a room with 19 other vulnerable people bravely sharing their stories: precisely the kind of space that nourished me most. The things I found out about myself throughout the year were staggering in quantity and depth. I discovered those aspects I personally needed to develop, among them groundedness, voice, power, even anger: qualities I’d always resisted and thought I could skirt around (nope, not if I wanted to help anyone else!). I learned why they were important and concrete ways I could cultivate them.
The moorings to my current life slowly began to release as I found hidden pockets of capacity and possibility in myself. A new part-time job, far more aligned with my values, presented itself serendipitously. My partner and I found a way to make the finances work, showing me that I was never as trapped as I thought I was. I watched my external landscape morph as my internal world shifted seismically.
Only the Beginning
This, of course, is only a fraction of what happened, but it was a powerful start to what has now been an eight-year ongoing journey. For instance, once I understood that embodiment and power were important and why, I took up a martial art, Aikido, and am now a second-degree black belt and an instructor at my dojo. I rediscovered a creative side that I had all but buried during my professional life, and now have the privilege of working at NVW sharing this life-changing work with the world in ways that I enjoy. I even lead workshops — not writing ones as I’d originally thought, but in a realm that is nonetheless about healing and compassion. My life fits me now in ways I only ever fantasized about a decade ago. And it continues to deepen and unfold.
Did I see myself ending up here? Of course not; how could I have? But these are the kinds of stories of possibility we hear from graduates all the time. It’s impossible to say how it will go for you; each journey is as unique as the person on it (just as every Integral Coaching® relationship is completely customized for the client). But what will happen is that lost or missing parts of you will be restored, and you will feel more in harmony with your own life — and more equipped to be of service — than you ever have.