Depth First, Structure Second
Lessons Learned from my Feminine Embodiment Coaching Certification
Yesterday I celebrated a big milestone with a glass of Moet champagne 🥂 🍾 I have finally received my official certificate of Feminine Embodiment Coaching so now I can proudly put it on my wall and officially call myself a coach! To be honest, this piece of paper doesn’t mean much because I have been coaching for almost six months now but it feels good to accomplish something and celebrate this achievement (and the fact that my investment is paying off ;)
It’s been a full year since I started the certification. I had a lot of stigma about the coaching industry from working in personal growth as an online marketer in Mindvalley and I never thought I would become a coach. I also think that it’s ridiculous that everyone can call themselves a coach and we now see the rise of so-called coaches everywhere. There are some great ones who “make it” but the majority of coaches are broke. To me, most life coaches seemed to have the same message, headlines, and sales pages and copy each other. They all seemed to follow one online marketing guy who taught them how to “make money with your offers.” It felt so boring and same-same.
So one day while doing show notes for one of my Girlskill Podcast guests Rosie Rees, I stumbled upon the amazing Jenna Ward and her School of Embodied Arts. I saw that she was offering Feminine Embodiment Coaching Certification and I immediately signed up for a call because it spoke to me on a deeper level. The description of this program wasn’t using the same words and phrases I read oh-so-many-times. It didn’t follow a certain design template and a writing style. It was raw and vulnerable and it was real. Something clicked and I knew this was it. I got on a call with Jenna (which I have recorded and later asked String to listen,) and asked her a million questions. She was supposed to be selling me on this program but I was the one who was selling myself on it because Jenna so brilliantly answered all of the questions and demolished my objections. But the most important thing she said is this:
“DEPTH FIRST, STRUCTURE SECOND.”
That was my “aha” moment. Because before, like everyone else, I was trying to follow all of these marketing gurus and their ways of writing sales pages, creating webinar headlines and coming up with the best subject lines for emails. I was trained to be a top-notch direct response marketer at Mindvalley but when it came to my own stuff I was pathetic. None of the formulas worked. All Mass Control and Auto-responder Madness theories wouldn’t apply. Because there was no depth. I didn’t know what my message really is and who I was and what I wanted to bring into the world and my work with women. I was trying to build a house (structure) without a proper foundation (depth.) And so, after talking with String about doing my biggest ever investment in my self, he finally agreed and I signed up!
Personal Embodiment Practice
Six months of theory, personal practice and learning have been an incredible journey. I have worked with the body before (through yoga and meditation) but not so subtly and not on so many different levels. I have adopted a personal practice of embodiment (which basically means “inhabiting your true self” and flowing within a full spectrum of emotions) and I now know how to merge with all of my emotions instead of running away from negative ones because “the goal is not always to feel good.” The goal is to feel what I feel and to feel it deeply. Emotions, sensations, and textures in my body come up, want to be felt and released. It’s a very different life when you live in flow, accepting everything within you, knowing that what you feel is there for a reason and letting it be felt and liberated. It’s a life of true freedom where there is no need to patch it all up, hide it and bottle it up inside. It’s a life where I feel it all and am open to more. Where my heart and my womb are connected and where feminine embodiment means letting it all be without judgment or shame. Accepting all of me. Ahhhh, if only everybody lived that way. (And that’s why I’m coaching this :)
“We can only coach as deep as we ourselves go.”
“Teach and coach from your scars, not your wounds.”
Embodiment Theory
I have learned about embodiment and dis-embodiment, how frozen tension is stored in our bodies and the reasons behind it. I’ve learned about shame and power, primal resistance patterns, limiting beliefs and their payoffs, boundaries and the mother’s wound; pelvic wellness and pleasure, polarity and magnetism, body-based decisions and so much more. I now apply all this theory + everything I’ve learned and experienced in my own life into my coaching practice with women from all over the world.
Feminine Embodiment Coaching
And last, but not least, I’ve learned about coaching and how to coach from a woman of integrity, purpose, and power. A gentle, loving, yet very disciplined and smart mentor who not only knows the depth and had guided thousands of women there. A coach who is also business savvy and knows how to build a sustainable coaching business and lead from the heart in a feminine way.
One of the biggest learnings was that coaching is a partnership where my client and I are on equal terms. Where I, as the coach, don’t have all the answers for my client. I am not the guru. I am just like her, standing beside her. I just happen to have the tools, knowledge, and experience to guide her where she needs to go and to let her body lead her there. It is truly liberating to stand powerfully together with my client in a relationship of support and lots of space as well as holding our boundaries. It feels liberating not feel and carry the burden and the responsibility of “fixing” her — which is a huge problem in the coaching industry. And that’s was why I didn’t want to become a coach in the first place — because I didn’t know how to not carry all this weight and crumble down when someone was sharing a devastating personal experience.
Now I know better. I know how to powerfully show up for someone but not take on her story, her emotions, her wounds. I don’t set up an imaginary wall or build distance. I just show up holding space and listen. I ask powerful questions and I let her body lead (with permission) to illuminate what needs to be illuminated.
It’s also a position of power for me and the client where she takes on the responsibility for her own life and improvement and doesn’t expect me to “heal” her and magically make everything better. It’s a journey of exploration and discovery, full of unknowns and magnificent corridors of personal revelations. It’ also a position of respect for the client’s journey and witnessing her standing in her own power claiming her experiences, wounds and her own healing.
I absolutely love this work. It comes naturally to me, it’s easy and it brings me the income I desire and can comfortably live on (more on that later.)
Deeply grateful to Jenna, my teacher, my mentor and a true role model who leads with integrity, passion, and conviction. Thank you.
P.S. I also fell pregnant on month 2 of going through this certification. Coincidence? Maybe not :)
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