Tag: spiritual coach

Who is The Real Me

Late yesterday, I updated my Facebook profile picture and cover photo to reflect who I am currently. Interesting that this change got a lot of reactions from my social media feed. This lesson in social media ties into something that I have been thinking about, “who is the real me?” This question relates to how we portray ourselves in public vs. how we see ourselves in private. We live in a very public, open world in our digital age. We live in a world where the majority of us are not just sharing public and private personas in our small communities. Living in a global community requires an increased consciousness of what we want others to see and that most likely moves us further away from our true, inner self that we often show in the privacy of our homes. And if I were to be honest, this is a challenging state to constantly have to navigate.

When we meet new people, are they showing us the glossy website version of themselves, the deep, troubled version or something in between? Sure, meeting a new person and expecting an instant trust is hard to ask of anyone. Yet, why is it that we hide behind an image. We are all guilty of this.

My Spiritual Life Coaching Practice, which is informed by my pastoral/spiritual care training, is also informed by the real, imperfect person that I am. No two people will ever have the same experiences. And, nobody is ever alone in experience, as we all have a well of emotional and spiritual ups and downs we can draw upon to be present with someone else struggling. I believe that if we are to help others discover hope, meaning, New Beginnings in a transitional period in life, we have to meet them from the place of our humanness and vulnerability. We must maintain boundaries with each other and we must find a way to build the trust needed to explore and effect the changes we are looking for when engaging a professional to help in our self discovery.

As I write these words, I realize how so much of this notion of showing the “real” me is predicated on trusting myself to be OK and compassionate to the real, imperfect self that I am. My belief is that each of us is masking our true, real selves behind a mask because we aren’t OK with who we are. Too many of us don’t like the person we see in the mirror, even though we wish we could. And yes, that last line is channeled from an interesting albeit strange self-help practice call the High Five Habit, in which we develop a notion of self-compassion and confidence through literally offering ourselves a high five each morning in the mirror.

May today be the day we begin to foster our self-compassion, trust and acceptance of the person we see in the mirror and may this person be the person we share with others.

Looking to discover your more authentic, spiritually focused self? Let me help you along this path! Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

Audio – Lessons in Tanya 78

Completion on Chapter 41. We shift back to the topic of intentionality and spiritual growth. This section deals with how our actions and level of spirituality might not match where we wish we we were. We discuss taking steps to grow spiritually and connect to Gd, recognizing each small step is a gain in the journey of connecting the soul back to Gd, giving delight to the divine throughout the process.

Episode 78

All episodes can also now be heard on Apple Podcasts – here

Do you want to work on taking the actions of your life and find meaning in all you do and who you are? Are you struggling with your spiritual growth. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

Spiritual Companionship/Coaching is a Two Way Street

It is a both a beauty and a challenge. In the opening pages of the book, Parting: A Handbook for Spiritual Care Near the End of Life, the authors offer a powerful description of what spiritual companionship means:

When you sign on to be a spiritual companion, you enter a two-way street. You invite intimacy, and you share from your own soul. You are a source of strength, but you look to the dying person for inspiration and moments of strength as well.

You open the window for peace to the surround the one who is dying, and you feel its breeze on your face.

You look for truth, for the expression of candid and deep feelings ranging from agony and anger to joy and acceptance, and find you must bare your feelings also.

Both of you will grow. You will care for one another. And you both will find tears to be a healing release and closeness of body, mind, and spirit to be a shelter from the cold night of pain and grief.

p. 2-3

While the chaplain, spiritual coach, spiritual care provider, (pick your title), has the ethical and professional responsibility to maintain boundaries, the ability to accompany a person from a spiritual place requires the professional to enter the sacred space heart and soul. We are the mostly non-anxious presence in the midst of a person’s struggle with the vulnerabilities that come from illness and loss of sense of wholeness. As such, when we enter, we are open to relationship being a two way relationship. While this does increase the risk of compassion fatigue and burnout, when we are meeting people from the place of relationship, we must meet the person as two vulnerable, imperfect human beings, not just in a the hierarchical relationship that is presumed by the professional role the chaplain or spiritual coach brings to the space.

This reminds me of the following passage from the Talmud:

וְהַיְינוּ דְּאָמַר רַבִּי חֲנִינָא: הַרְבֵּה לָמַדְתִּי מֵרַבּוֹתַי, וּמֵחֲבֵירַי יוֹתֵר מֵרַבּוֹתַי, וּמִתַּלְמִידַי יוֹתֵר מִכּוּלָּן.

And this is what Rabbi Ḥanina said: I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my friends, but from my students I have learned more than from all of them.

BT Taanit 7a

If you are in the midst of illness or spiritual struggle and are in need of a person to be on this journey with you, Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

A balanced life perspective

Sometimes we are reminded of a message that is deep and meaningful at the most important of times. Over the past few days, I keep coming across these two phrases, “I am but dust and ashes” and its contrast, “For my sake was the world created.” According to Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, in Growing Each Day, it is said that:

Rabbi Bunim of Psis’cha said that everyone should have two pockets; one to contain, “I am but dust and ashes,” and the other to contain, “The world was created for my sake.” At certain times, we must reach into one pocket; at other times, into the other. The secret of correct living comes from knowing when to reach into which.

p. 62

I realized that this advice/message was crucial to how we all should strive to live. There are times when we feel down, feel lost, feel like we are just going through the motions of life. In those moments we could use the pick me up of recognizing that we each play a role in the role, perhaps even the most fundamental of roles. We should strive in those moments to reflect on how much our actions are of value to existence.

On the other hand, we can all get caught up in taking ourselves too seriously. It is very easy to fall into the trap of seeing ourselves as better than someone else, as the one to judge others, to point a finger and make ourselves out to be the best while others are not. In those moments we are best served remembering that we too are just human, we are imperfect and have our own flaws and challenges that we wouldn’t want others to judge us over.

I believe this is an important lesson when engaging in self-reflection and when working with a coach or a therapist. As we go through self-discovery, we can find ourselves oscillating between our great self and our lowly self, swinging along a pendulum trying to find the balance, static point. It behooves us to take steps to find ways and methods for approaching the highs and lows of life.

May we each find our balance, recognizing our importance and our humility at the same time.

If you are looking to explore and discover new approaches to the difficulties in your life, trying to find the middle path: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

New Beginnings One Year Anniversary

Whenever we venture into the unknown, we see before us a vast expanse lying ahead, leaving us with fears and doubts as to what we will encounter along the way. For many of us, these fears stop us in our tracks and we never get the opportunity to go forth and explore. In these moments, we find ourselves similar to the biblical Patriarch Abraham when Gd calls him to “Go Forth from your land, from your birthplace and from your father’s home to the land that I will show you (Genesis 12:1).” There is a powerful idea in later Jewish writing that this call was not specific to Abraham but was a call that went out to the world that only Abraham was focused enough to hear. Perhaps this call is always out there, waiting for us when the time is right, when we are in the moment of deciding where to go next. In that moment, if we listen, we will know we aren’t going alone. Rather we must take the initial step and we will be shown what truly lies before us, not what we believe might be out there stopping us from going forward.

This is my story as well. This week marks the one year anniversary of New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC, a moment in my life of going forth to a new adventure, a new path in my life. It has been an amazing year for me on this journey of growing a private spiritual life coaching practice. New Beginnings began as a dream to build a business whose mission was to work with others confronting the spiritual and emotional challenges that arise during transitional periods in life. Through a focus on one’s spiritually and faith and the search for meaning, growth and change along the new paths we face, my goal is to foster and harness the tools we have or will need when embarking on a New Beginning. During this first year, I have worked with individuals and groups exploring areas such as:

  1. engaging one’s spiritual self in one’s life decisions
  2. grief and loss
  3. meaning making
  4. finding joy in the next chapter of life
  5. Rediscovery of “Who am I”

Through a combination of active listening, exploration, reflection and reframing, we work together to uncover layers of self-awareness. Through working together, we will often reveal the skills and tools you already possess to affect true positive change. It is my passion to help guiding others through these times of self-discovery, navigating the waves that we experience during the various transitional moments in life.

To get a more in depth sense of what New Beginnings can do for you, please check out the link to the recent interview I did with Jewish Sacred Aging’s Seekers of Meaning Podcast.

If you or someone you know is:

  • Feeling lost, without your anchor?
  • Struggling with the death of a loved one?
  • Looking for the spiritual spark to reignite your life?
  • Searching for a sense of meaning, hope or joy?
  • Trying to grapple with suffering?

Then I invite you to contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com. I look forward to supporting you along your journey and your New Beginning.

I am a writer

As I work with others to help support them as they explore the road ahead, I cannot help but work on my own growth and development. In doing this exploration and work, I continue to recognize the value and importance of embracing my hopes and dreams, claiming them even if I haven’t arrived at the ideal vision I have. Among these dreams that I have revived in myself is the internal belief that I am a writer. Perhaps this is why I have spent many years dabbling and engaging in blogging, writing and sharing different ideas in a public forum. I believe I have something to say and that I have an ability to get across clear messages on “paper.” Simply put:

I am a writer.

Now, in reality, I struggle with writing. It is not a simple task to express oneself in written form. I don’t see myself as a master wordsmith, figuring out how best to manipulate and use words in a way that makes me seem smart and sophisticated. I don’t find that I am great at embellishing and creating poetic magic. Yet, in writing I am finding ways to expand my word usage and to embrace writing for writing sake without being worried about how I measure up in relation to others. The more I practice the skill, the more the skill becomes natural and easier to foster. Writing more frequently has helped me nourish my long dormant desire to write.

I am a writer

I am a writer because I choose to claim that I am a writer. By this I mean that as a function of writing regularly, I am able to comfortably and confidently say that I am this thing. While it is true that just because a person says “I am X” is not always indicative of their reality, especially if it comes to professional credentialing, but when it comes to the creative, to the arts, we can all own our work and our desire to be defined by one type of creativity or another. Why should we sell ourselves short? Why should we hamper ourselves just because we can’t produce perfect prose or masterful poetry?

I am a writer

While I cannot say it was professional goal to write for a living, I did and still do dream of writing. If we hinder our desired dreams, if we don’t claim our aspirations, then we definitely won’t achieve. Of course, even if we do dream, we don’t always make it to the top level. But if we dream, and we work and we work some more, we will have achieved much by the working that we do along the path we have set before ourselves.

I am a writer.

I am writer because I work on writing. Over the past week, pushing myself to write more, to brainstorm and express myself on this blog, I have already found more that I want to say and more ways in which to express the thoughts and feelings I want to convey as lessons to help foster growth.

I believe that within each of us is a creative person struggling to be set free. Part of my spiritual coaching work is to help a person uncover the hopes and dreams we wish stirring in the depths of our soul to better and brighten one’s life and through that to better others lives as well. Part of the search for meaning is the search for finding out the many ways we can define who we are and who we wish to be.

May each of us continue to aspire towards fulfilling and sharing our creative sides to the world.

Looking for skills to uncover and foster your creativity: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.