Happy & Healthy

away with the life coach

What does bonding, grounding and earthing even get you?

For a while now I’ve had the feeling that having writing as your main profession is something that is dying out. The reason why isn’t important now per se, but I thought it would be a good idea to think of other things I could do to make a living. And what I can tell you so far, it’s not looking good. I believe I am one of those one-trick pony’s. I do have a couple of other skills. But none that are going to help me pay my bills.

Luckily, if you ever find yourself trapped in a fickle like this one, you’ve got plenty of places to go to for advice. One person says I should get a life coach to help me find some clarity in what I should do career wise, while other are telling me to look at the things that are already mapped out in front of me, who I am as a person and what the world means to me. ‘Meaning’ and ‘exuding your own strength’ are vague life lessons I could apply to my life through the use of a spiritual coach.

Huh. I knew that coaching and spirituality were booming businesses, but I had absolutely no idea that (sane) friends and acquaintances actually took their advice seriously. I thought we were all on the same page. I personally know a couple of life coaches. One who wrote a book about how to be zen in your day-to-day life, the other took his personality training practice to a higher level and another focused specifically on processes at work.

“Almost all of their sentences start with ‘I’, after which they start tooting their own horn like there’s no tomorrow”

I never have to use extreme interrogation techniques with coaches – whether they coach in life, work, love, spirituality or flirting. Coaches just love to talk about themselves. How good they are at seeing the signs of certain processes. How they can easily spot exactly what a person needs. How easy it is for them to apply spirituality to their daily life. And how easy it is for them to teach you all of that (at insane hourly rates, I might add). Almost all of their sentences start with ‘I’, after which they start tooting their own horn like there’s no tomorrow. And if you’re lucky, you might even get to close your eyes together and breathe calmly in order to ‘earthen’ – the answer to practically everything. They are the saviors that man has been waiting for. Not only incredibly exhausting, but also a pretty rare type of undisguised narcissism if you ask me.

Can you blame me for not having confidence in a coach that only talks about him or herself? Wasn’t it the whole point that that person would help me instead of dishing out self-ego boosts at a tea party? And even though I’m happy for them that they’re ‘standing in their own strength’ and found their own little niche in the market with this self-congratulation method; I say thanks, but no thanks.

On the bright side, these people have awakened the spirit of the power I possess in me. I sometimes say (okay fine; often) things that aren’t always received well. Tell it like it is; Kalinka is always willing to blurt out that a temporary break with your boyfriend is the beginning of the end and just a plaster on an infected wound. Rude and bold remarks: might there be a way to make a living off of that in the future?

Written by Kalinka Hählen