By Kate Mrgudic, M.A.
Next Steps Coaching and Consultation Services
Irina graciously offered a place in her Pasadena Views website for sharing my coaching/mentoring experience with people who want a more meaningful and authentic life.
For millennia, individuals and groups have searched for happiness and meaning in all their many facets. Some were successful but many were deterred because of fear or confusion on where to begin. This is a challenging time for many, but one that is filled with opportunities to evolve what we can control – our consciousness, awareness, our attitudes, our capacity to love, and our practical responses to creating an authentic life.
Coaching is one avenue to accomplish this. Coaching can explore relatively straight forward issues – getting a coach’s objective view on a decision or course of action you are contemplating to more complex ones.
This month, I will begin by sharing a more in- depth coaching example. We’ll begin with Mary .* My client and I identified lifestyle, attitudes and insights over a nine month period that formed the foundation of a new life for her. Through reading, reflection, exercises and discussion, important life goals were initiated and established.
Mary is a doer. She left an abusive, alcoholic husband and raised 4 children (4-16 yrs of age) primarily on her own. She taught exercise classes at the local gym in between cooking, carpooling, school projects, and creating a loving and structured home for her family. Mary is a hard worker and a speed demon on the treadmill. Over the years though, something continually nagged at Mary’s heart. Something was missing. She had a couple serious relationships that weren’t great and was stuck in a frustrating one when she made the call to me.
LESSON ONE: What you think is your problem or issue often is just the doorway.
After our initial discussion and a couple of sessions together, Mary realized that it wasn’t just a healthy relationship she craved but an internal relationship with herself, her real self, not just the layers of personality she created over time to survive a very challenging upbringing.
I encouraged Mary to get “off the treadmill” for awhile and spend structured time alone getting to know herself, her strengths and gifts. We created a 6 month plan and though it was challenging and scary at times, Mary crafted some wonderful alone time and discovered and embraced a sense of herself that had been missing for decades. We connected every 2-3 weeks and in nine months Mary was in a very different space. Three months later, a man she knew from church suggested an outing and the rest is history. They married, and yes, she still is a wiz on the treadmill and she continues living and learning daily from her deepest sense of self.
Coaching is like watching a flower grow and bloom. All the ingredients are there within us but seeds and flowers can languish without nutrients and helpful environmental conditions. If you are interested in growing and blooming, exploring your life in a safe and supportive setting, stepping up to your own authentic self and living at full power to be a positive force in your own life and in the world, please call at 213.434.0356 or email me.
Enjoy your summer. The flowers are blooming!
www.katemrgudic.com serving the San Gabriel and East San Fernando Valleys & Los Angeles
*all names and locations have been changed to maintain confidentiality.
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