Does this happen to you too?
Every day’s headlines make me tear up. And some days it’s more than just tearing up; it’s a full out big cry that, if I actually wore mascara, would make it stream down my face.
The fires. The hurricanes. The pandemic. The needless and unjust killings. And beyond.
It’s a lot. (This is an understatement). READ MORE
Even though I’ve been coaching and facilitating transformation for nearly twenty years now, my answer to the question: “What is the one thing in your business that has the potential to make you cringe the most?” would be the same today as it was twenty years.
The thing in my business that has the potential to make me cringe the most is the thought that I am not supporting my clients in the most valuable and masterful ways possible.
This is more important to me than anything else – than marketing success, than visibility, that income.
For me, providing exquisite and highly skilled service, as well as transformation, is BAR NONE.
If you feel the same way I do, then I’m so happy to share this article with you! READ MORE
I know, I know – Positive Thinking is a good thing. I admire and have learned a lot from those who naturally have a positive outlook on life. For better or worse, I did not grow up in an environment that modeled any kind of positive thinking. In fact, quite the opposite. I grew up with two immigrant parents whose own parents had survived the Holocaust. My parents trusted no one, always expected the worst, and because of their own trauma, they were perceiving a constant threat of annihilation. It was kind of like living in Catastrophic Thinking Central.
Needless to say, my proclivity towards the negative (& my neurotic quirks!) speak for themselves!
In my early 20s, I learned about the power of looking through more hopeful and happier lenses, and I’ve been dutifully working on my own positive thinking ever since. I find it powerful and very helpful.
BUT.
And this is a HUGE “But”…
Over the summer, I had a private session with a client who had been in session with her healer the week before.
My client was telling me that her Healer had intuited that she needed to go to the beach for a week. It sounded like a good idea to my client because she trusts this healer’s intuition, yet she told him she was feeling stressed out and pressured because she just couldn’t figure out how to make a week away that month fit with her life.
I often get asked how I’ve been able to grow and sustain such a thriving business, with so many hard core fans, happy clients, and referrals.
The answer? Well, it’s not just one thing (if only!). It’s been a number of things, but one of the biggest is that I approach all of my client work with what I call The Integrity and Depth Principles.
Integrity and Depth are at the core of creating an environment that motivates your clients to trust you deeply, be vulnerable, explore the parts of themselves they otherwise would ignore or reject, see their Truth with clarity, and be willing to take bold, aligned actions.
Integrity and Depth also allow your clients to see you as the practitioner they have profound confidence in, an individual they cherish and want to do their soul work with.
Over the next week or two, I’ll share some of these principles with you. Here are the first 2!:
A big integrity issue as well as transformational skill is the ability to fully love ALL of your clients’ parts: not just their brilliance or their motivation or their kindness. But also their judgmentalness or their laziness or their victim selves or their jealousy.
When you are passing judgment or uncomfortable with or scared of an action your client has taken or a way that they are showing up either in the world or with you…your client can feel it.
Even if you don’t say a word about it, your client feels the judgment or fear, and as a result your client either feels shame or resentment or defensiveness. It does not create an environment of trust and willingness to look honestly at issues.
Practitioners are able to go deep and act in full integrity (i.e. guide clients to make the most aligned decisions) when they are able to love and accept each and every aspect their client shows up with…even if the client shows up in anger or resistance to the practitioner herself.
But it’s not so easy to do this.
It’s not so easy to truly love and accept all of your client’s parts, especially when they show up in a way that has you feel you’re not doing a good job, or in a way that challenges your own belief & judgment system.
It takes deep inner work around Accepting Yourself, Managing Your Own Triggers, and also Checking Your Biases and Filters so that you can show up fully present for all your client brings to the table.
We’ve all witnessed this: a practitioner who is “GURUing” their client.
A big mistake I see practitioners make is that they offer an opinion to a client – either about a situation or an inner pattern or dynamic in their client – and the opinion simply does not resonate for the client. But the practitioner sticks to her guns – out of fear of being wrong, or out of fear of “not looking smart enough”.
And then one of two things happen:
a) The client ends up feeling unseen and unheard, and often mistrusting the practitioner
OR
b) The client overrides her own inner wisdom, listens to the practitioner, and ends up taking actions that are misaligned for her.
It sounds easy enough to Be Willing to Be Wrong, but in fact, most practitioners need more work on this one. It requires deep work Befriending Your Own Fears around being good enough, and being seen as smart & able. It also requires skills work around how to Create Awareness for clients in ways that activate their inner wisdom without “GURUing” them.
Hope these first two Integrity and Depth Principles were helpful and sparked some inner conversation for you! Will share more Principles soon!
A few times a year, I have the honor and privilege of training 25 world-changing leaders on how to align your life and business with the seasons and cycles so that you are more successful, more in-the-flow, and all-around happier. (If you’re interested in being at the next training, let me know!).
Whenever I teach this, the room is blown away by the power of living and working in attunement to the Earth.
It is life-changing.
And inevitably there is also some initial disbelief on what the cold, dark, bare Winter could ever teach about life and business.
Most folks shun the Winter and the dark, anxiously waiting for the warm, pastel days of Spring. READ MORE
Over the summer, I had a private session with a client who had been in session with her healer the week before.
My client was telling me that her Healer had intuited that she needed to go to the beach for a week. It sounded like a good idea to my client because she trusts this healer’s intuition, yet she told him she was feeling stressed out and pressured because she just couldn’t figure out how to make a week away that month fit with her life.
In lieu of a full blog post, I wanted to share with you a recent post I wrote on Facebook.
I was scared to hit post on it because I know it’s a little controversial….
and I wasn’t sure if it would trigger some people…
but I ultimately decided to post it because I feel so strongly about it.
It’s about coaching & coaching skills & ethics & so much more.
You’ll see it got some attention and a lot of folks commented very passionately on it.
Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/joanna.lindenbaum/posts/10155812738623437
Would love to hear your thoughts!
A few years ago, while I was leading a group call with nearly 30 women, my parents telephoned me on both my home phone and my cell phone 4 times within about 2 minutes.
I could feel my heart start beating faster as I was coaching. My mother has had MS for 30 years, and there have been many emergencies, hospital visits, and even life-support situations over the years.
A version of me 3 years ago would have tried to ignore her calls until I was done teaching — yet be scared & un-present to my teaching the entire time — because I wouldn’t want to come off as unprofessional.
An even older version of myself would have freaked out completely, told the folks on the call that I needed to reschedule, and then go on to deal with whatever was happening.
Last week, instead, at an appropriate pause in between spotlight coaching moments, I let the women on the call know that my parents had called 4 times and that I was concerned enough to feel I should call back, but that it would only take a moment. I asked everyone on the call to hold for just a minute and quickly called my mom. There was a slight emergency situation, but nothing very serious. I was able to get off the phone in under 90 seconds, return to my clients with full presence, and then take care of the situation at an appropriate time.
