Illuminating Spirit

 My current coach who is holding me accountable for blogging at least weekly on my blog has suggested that I explore this topic.  Wow!  What a loaded question, so much to write about, I could easily write a book!  What are my unique gifts as a coach?  I have given a lot of thought to my unique gifts as a coach and they continue to be revealed to me almost on a daily or at least weekly basis.  In the past couple of weeks it has become clearer that I am gifted in the area of relationship coaching.  I have done some family counseling in the past and this has always been an interest to me.  I think in working with this population I will need to do it in person because body language tells you a lot about how the individuals are interacting with each other.  I can still do occasional supportive phone calls during the coaching arrangement but the bulk of it needs to be done in person.  I had a journey call with Narcy who was my first peer coach at ICA and she told me today that she difinitely considers me the poster child of trust.  Wow!  What a complement!  I really can understand why she says that about me and I have had at least a couple other people who happen to be my clients currently that they really admire the faith I have in living in  my life authentically and answering Gods call for me to be all that I can be.  It has taken a long time to get here but I think by experiencing not having the trusut / faith and than establishing and living by it will be a strong gift that I will be able to coach others in desiring to take the same risks in their life to live their lives to the fullest.  Some of my other gifts as a coach are my honesty, personal strength, being a warrior, being authentic and true to myself, compassion, being intuitive, my persoal warmth and being able to build a relationship with people from many walks of life that may differ financially,  ethnically, spiritually but their is usually one common denominator and that is that they are real people no pretense.  I have faced a lot of different struggles in my life from being an alcoholic ( now in recovery 20 yrs this August), a recovering codependent ( and boy could I tell you stories of how I hit my bottom with codependency), I have attention deficit disorder and have learned much in learning to live a manageable life with that and with my learning disabilities.  I also have been on disability worked hard on improving my health and got off the disabilities so from this knowing what it is like to live with a chronic health condition and going beyond the limitations placed on me both by society and myself, my educational background and work experience in both mental health, geriactrics and substance abuse and correctional populations are all gifts that I have to bring to my coaching experience.   Additionally, my own spiritual journey. I know I could go on and on but I am going to stop for now.  I have an upcoming class at ICA on building my coaching model.  I will continue to reflect on this question and will further blog as I have more to add.