What is a Life Coach?

Let me begin by stating what a Life Coach is for anyone that has yet to hear of this growing industry. A Life Coach is someone who can help you improve your life, feel better, and achieve your goals. A life coach does this by supporting you in a confidential, non-judgmental safe space allowing you to share your thoughts. A life coach can help you go after your goals or become aware of why you may feel stuck and how you can move forward. You really can’t see this yourself, and this is why having someone outside of your brain is powerful. A life coach will call you out, give tough love, and believe in you before you see it yourself.

Carisa and Life Coaching meet.

One might think that my career switch was sudden. Looking back at my former career, I can recognize how my desire to help others was present for quite some time. I would listen to team members. I would feel empathy for their pain & struggles. I would offer advice. I had a desire to see people grow and thrive. I wanted to show them what I saw in them. Things they may not be able to see in themselves.

So when the Covid pandemic came in March of 2020, I soon found myself sitting at home on the front porch watching our business shut off like a faucet. Client activity reduced to a trickle initially. As we were all trying to process what was happening, I suddenly found myself with a light calendar. Of course, my mind would soon race on how to survive the slowdown. For a brief time however, the hamster wheel stopped, and I stepped off.

I can’t express to you in words how bizarre this felt. It was nothing like I had ever experienced before. So many things I never noticed. It was as if they were now screaming at me. Birds chirping, the hummingbird buzzing past me to feed on the feeder hanging on my front porch, the red bird that was visiting daily and staring at me from the tree in my front yard. I started taking morning walks to clear my head. I watched the sun come up. I felt the wind and sun on my face. I met my daughter when she got off the school bus. I listened without agenda to my adult son. I smiled more. I laughed more. I tried to be less busy doing things. 

Of course, I was still worried about so much. Our team members. Keeping everyone safe by working remotely. Continuing to serve our clients and produce a product. However, I was being pulled in a new direction that I had not experienced before. Over the next 3 months, I started looking at my life and realizing how unhappy I was and how I was just getting by. My lifestyle had taken a toll on my mental and physical health, and I was tired of feeling this way. That led me to reach out to my former primary care doctor, who was now a functional medicine doctor. That one call changed the trajectory of my life. It would be a couple of months before I would begin her program, but she suggested that I listen to a podcast. She thought I may find it helpful with the journey of self-discovery I was already on. 

On my morning walks, I would listen to these podcasts. I began to open my mind to new ways of thinking. Challenging the previous belief systems that were holding me back. I recognized how I was buffering my way through life with work, alcohol, food, worry, and control issues. Piece by piece I worked on transforming my life. I would never be the same again.

Despite what the outside view looks like, we all have baggage!

I may have looked like I had it all together, but I was so fragile on the inside. Any adversity could send me down a path that was not healthy. I had faced a variety of family issues that would rock my world starting in 2016 and lasting through 2020. I was in a constant state of fear and worry. I pushed through most of it, but I was not well. 

I didn’t have the tools to handle these parts of life. I didn’t want to experience any of this, I just wanted it all to go away and feel better.

With clarity & awareness, I saw a new path.

Over the next 18 months, while running the company, I would be on a journey of self-discovery like I had never experienced before. I would work daily to uncover the root causes of my discomfort. I would then apply the new tools and concepts I learned through my life coaching journey. I made peace with my past and let go of baggage weighing me down.

I began to have clarity and a new awareness for what I was creating in my life. I began to dream. I never was a dreamer. I had thought it was silly and served no purpose. I began to meditate, journal, practice yoga and manifestation. I began to seek a higher level of spirituality and gratitude with my prayer. I began to see a new future for myself. A future where I take all the dysfunction and pain I had experienced throughout my life, and combine it with all the lessons I had learned along the way. I could help others with their suffering. I could make a difference one person at a time.

I pushed outside my comfort zone and made a substantial financial investment in myself by joining a premier life coaching program. This program would push me beyond so many limits I had placed on myself. It would bring up all my insecurities and doubts. One by one I would work through them and come out stronger on the other side. I can now see that I was my first client and I would not be able to help others if I didn’t walk the talk.

A new day.

I now view my journey as what brought me to this place in time. I am doing exactly what I was meant to do. At exactly the right moment in time. I often would vent to people throughout my entire life. It never really helped me feel better. It just kept me feeling stuck. I’ve often thought…. if only I had a life coach through some of those dark times. I now get to be that for others. 

This is why I left the comfort of all I had ever known to pursue something unknown. I am grateful for all the experiences I had in our family business. I’m proud of the work we provided for 47 years. I’m also proud we survived the pandemic. We were very lucky to find a family with energy and passion to continue the business that my family had built. No matter what happens, I will never regret the journey. I have grown so much as a human being and I love so much harder now. I don’t take a day for granted. I never will again.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. ” ~Mark Twain