I formally became a coach in 2015 with the goal to shift my paradigm from healing to empowering my clients in their change process in a new way. At the time, I was in the Movement Therapy and Bodywork space and focusing on helping my clients to learn to move their bodies with functional ease to relieve and eliminate chronic pain. My role was largely the teacher and guide and I was having an impact in my client’s lives, but something was missing. I wanted a new way to relate to my clients and to my own expertise.
The shift was subtle at the time, but I knew I wanted to support them to shift the deeper patterns on a holistic level and shift the paradigm on how they were relating to their bodies from something to be “fixed” to a part of themselves that had wisdom and information to offer. I came to coaching looking for a new paradigm to relate to my clients – shifting out of being the teacher or guide and into supporting my clients to tap into their wisdom and potential in a new way. By making a subtle shift within myself from healer and teacher to coach, I was able to facilitate my client turning to their own wisdom, process, and insight and using me as a sounding board instead of a source.
The coaching model puts us side by side with our clients on a path where the source of our wisdom is both between us and within us.
It is an approach to supporting our clients to actualize their potential in their lives by not leading the way, but asking for the next step. The magic of coaching is the relationship and the coach’s own ability to tap into their transformative energy and leadership in their own lives so they can hold that space for their clients. In this way, coaching transforms the coach as well as the client.
I like to think of coaching as a paradigm of relating that is one among many – like healing, guiding, mentoring, and so forth. But I think the coaching paradigm has the potential to move humanity forward in new ways that others may not. This is because the pure coaching paradigm allows us to meet each other not with the expectation that we know the way but that we are going to envision and create the way together. It taps into a way of relating, being, living, and envisioning together that is deeply creative and empowered by its very nature.
I now use coaching as one of my primary methods with my clients but also continue to move in and out of the role as the healer, consultant, and guide. But even when coaching is mixed with other paradigms (like consulting, healing, mentoring, etc.) when coaching is at the center, the energy of the relationship stays creative, empowered, inspired, and visionary.
In this way, coaching continues to inspire the bigger movement at the heart of my life and business- to be constantly seeking my own conscious growth and evolution and supporting that in others.
So how does the coaching paradigm inspire a new movement towards conscious co-creating in your life and business? What is the movement you are here to create as a coach?
Dawn Strom
Dawn is a Gyrotonic Master Trainer, Movement Therapist, Coach and Creative Human who loves envisioning unique possibilities and trailblazing new paths. She works with holistic minded, ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs to help them RECLAIM deep meaningful purpose, down time and joy.
Dawn Strom
Dawn is a Gyrotonic Master Trainer, Movement Therapist, Coach and Creative Human who loves envisioning unique possibilities and trailblazing new paths. She works with holistic minded, ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs to help them RECLAIM deep meaningful purpose, down time and joy.
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