Key Takeaways
1. Deep Coaching: A Spirit-Based Path to Self-Transformation
Awakening is a rich and complex experience that defies a narrow definition, but the essence of awakening is the new-found awareness and experience of one’s spiritual reality.
A new paradigm. Deep Transformational Coaching, or Deep Coaching, emerges as a vital approach for an awakening world, moving beyond conventional goal-oriented coaching. It addresses a profound inner call many people feel to connect with their deeper essence, understand existence, and live purposefully. This approach is not merely about achieving external goals but about fostering enlightened levels of being, thought, and action, enabling individuals to transcend superficial definitions and material boundaries.
Beyond surface-level. Unlike transactional coaching, which focuses on "thinking and doing differently" to achieve specific, often external, goals, Deep Coaching delves into the individual's psyche. It's an ontological approach, centered on "being" rather than "doing," aiming for self-actualization. This means exploring core beliefs, self-identity, and meaning-making processes to facilitate a fundamental shift in one's way of being, leading to higher expressions of selfhood.
Catalyst for growth. The book's primary intention is to catalyze a shift in the reader's own consciousness, helping them experience the truth of "Who You Are." It emphasizes that the capacity to support others' transformation is directly proportional to one's own self-realization. This isn't a collection of tools, but a journey into the most profound human experiences, positioning the coach as a facilitator of awakening and a guide to a greater reality.
2. Transformation is a Revolution of Your Self-Concept
In transformation, we are restoring our mind to truthfulness and moving into our real power: who we are beyond identification with form.
Ego's illusion. At its core, human transformation involves a radical shift in one's self-concept—the mental image of who we believe ourselves to be, constructed from personal and cultural experiences. This self-concept is often a limited, ego-based rendering, rooted in the belief of separate self and identification with external forms like gender, profession, or possessions. This egoic consciousness creates illusions of isolation and limitation, masking our true, unlimited spiritual nature.
The inner earthquake. Awakening begins with a dis-identification from this ego-based self-concept, often triggered by a "crisis of integrity" or an "inner earthquake." This period is unsettling, disorienting, and can feel like things are breaking down, much like a caterpillar's body decaying into primordial goo before metamorphosis. This "dysfunction" is, in fact, perfectly functional, signaling the necessary collapse of the "no longer" to make way for the "what is to be."
Emergence of true Self. As the ego's grip loosens, a new sense of self—our true or higher Self, the soul consciousness—begins to emerge. This is a revolution of our self-concept, moving from a perception informed by the limiting ego to knowing ourselves as an evolving, unlimited soul. It's a process of stripping away all that does not reflect the "I" at the core of our being, allowing our pure, unlimited spirit to shine through.
3. The Dual Dynamics: Personal Gravity vs. Spiritual Propulsion
The propulsion system not only creates energy and momentum, it also heals personal gravity.
Holding back. Transformation is driven by dual dynamics: "personal gravity" and a "propulsion system." Personal gravity encompasses all that holds us back from our innate potential, including:
- Limiting beliefs and false self-images
- Fears, anxieties, and disempowering thought patterns
- Unattended sorrow, trauma, and harmful behaviors
These ego-patterns, often deeply ingrained from conditioning, create resistance and tension, making the transformational journey challenging.
Moving forward. The propulsion system, conversely, is what moves us forward, inspiring and energizing the healing process. Deep Coaches leverage six critical engines of propulsion:
- Spirit: The ultimate evolutionary intelligence.
- Spiritual energy: The creative force of unbounded Spirit.
- Light of the Self: Our inner radiance, dissolving distortions.
- Inner attitudes: Truthfulness, acceptance, forgiveness, perseverance.
- Environment: Healing spaces and supportive communities.
- Transformative practice: Intentional activities for profound growth.
Healing as transformation. Deep Coaching positions itself as a healing modality, recognizing that to transform is to heal, and healing is vital for sustainable shifts in being. By attending to personal gravity and activating the propulsion system, Deep Coaches help individuals dismantle fear constructs, release distorted value systems, and shed the baggage of their conditioned past. This clears the pathway to the authentic Self, allowing the mind to become more awake and clear, and revealing the reality of who we are.
4. Recognize Readiness: Five Signals for Deep Transformational Work
The presence of these signals implies a heightened readiness for the deep dive that Deep Coaching facilitates.
Meeting clients where they are. Not everyone is ready for deep transformational coaching; some seek only short-term solutions. A crucial Deep Coaching competency is discerning the "signals of awakening and transformation" to ensure an appropriate approach. It's never the coach's agenda to force a deep dive, but to meet the client's readiness.
Key signals of readiness:
- Uncertainty, confusion, doubt: Expressed through big questions like "Who am I?" or "What is my purpose?" This indicates the ego-based self-concept is cracking.
- Awareness of personal gravity: Acknowledging limiting beliefs, repressed pain, or shadow aspects that are surfacing for attention.
- Request for healing: Explicitly stating a desire to release old patterns, "let this go," or "stop suffering," indicating a willingness to move beyond the status quo.
- Openness to Spirit, Soul, Spirituality: A new or deepened interest in spiritual concepts, a personal relationship with a higher power, or a sense of inner calling.
- Emerging vision of life purpose: A grander, often initially unspecific, vision for their life that transcends mere goal attainment, reflecting the soul's desire to flourish.
Normalizing the experience. When these signals appear, individuals often feel perplexed, questioning their sanity or fearing ridicule. A Deep Coach's role is to normalize these experiences, affirming that they are on a profound journey. This validation empowers clients to lean into the discomfort and commit to the path, knowing they are not alone in their inner shifts.
5. The Deep Coach's Role: Hold Space and Partner with Spirit
The Prime Directive of Deep Coaching is to hold a space which fosters connection with one’s deepest sense of Self and which makes room for the presence and action of Spirit.
The coach as cocoon. Deep Coaches adopt key roles that build upon conventional competencies, focusing on supporting the "deep dive." Foremost is the ability to "hold space," akin to a caterpillar's cocoon, which shapes, holds, and protects the transformational process without directing or manipulating it. This space is woven from unconditional love, compassion, trust, and other spiritual qualities.
Upholding the Prime Directive. This directive acknowledges Spirit's integral role in transformation, recognizing that we are spiritual beings evolving towards our unlimited nature. Deep Coaches partner with Spirit, trusting that all answers and power lie within the client, and that Spirit guides the process. This frees the coach from personal agendas, allowing what needs to be known to be revealed organically.
Energizing shifts and spiritual partnering. Deep Coaches energize shifts in being by helping clients elevate their vibrational frequency, recalibrating from ego-based to Self- and soul-based consciousness. This is achieved through "spiritual partnering," a conscious path of relating where individuals hold an intention for their relationship to serve a higher purpose. This oneness accelerates evolution, benefiting all involved by fostering authentic power and conscious choice.
6. Practice 1: Slow Down to Sync with Life's Rhythms
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
Counteracting quickening. Modern life's rapid tempo and demand for instant gratification often lead to stress and disconnect from our optimal well-being. Deep Coaching's first practice, "Slow It All Down and Sync with the Rhythm of Life and Spirit," is an antidote to this pervasive "faster is better" mindset. It acknowledges that profound transformation unfolds gradually, often over many years, requiring patience and perseverance.
Optimal rhythm. This practice aims to harmonize individuals with life's natural rhythms, which are flowing, grounded, nourishing, and life-giving. By intentionally slowing down, individuals create inner space for contemplation, allowing thoughts to settle, bodies to relax, and energy systems to open. This fosters a state where the wisdom of Spirit and soul can more readily enter awareness.
Embracing stillness. When coaching conversations slow down, clients are less caught in drama or the rush for solutions. This allows for deeper exploration and the emergence of meaningful insights. Deep Coaches model this by embracing a slower pace, even when clients initially resist it due to discomfort with unfamiliar stillness. This practice is foundational for nurturing a healing space and accessing deeper sources of self.
7. Practice 2: Release Agendas and Live Your Spiritual Values
In every interaction, spiritual partners must leave their ego-agendas at the door and invoke a higher path.
Agenda's shadow side. While coaches inherently care for their clients, this care can manifest a "shadow side" where personal beliefs or desired outcomes become an agenda, subtly influencing the client's journey. Deep Coaches recognize this potential for undue influence and commit to releasing personal agendas, allowing the client's own inner wisdom to lead.
Transformative presence. A coach's "coaching presence"—their undivided awareness and state of being—is a significant influencer. Releasing agendas enhances this presence, making it more transformative. By upholding the Prime Directive (fostering connection with the deepest Self and making room for Spirit), Deep Coaches trust that all answers lie within the client, creating space for them to perceive their own higher awareness.
Spiritual values as energy. This practice also involves "living your spiritual values" by turning them into a current of spiritual energy that nourishes the coaching space. Values like compassion, truth, and love are not just ideals but energy fields that can be intentionally channeled. By embodying these values, the coach's presence radiates healing light, subtly uplifting and transforming others without imposing beliefs or directions.
8. Practice 3 & 4: Nurture Healing Space with Silence
The most beautiful sound, the koto player said, is the sound of ma, of silence.
Oasis of calm. "Nurture a Healing Space" is the third practice, recognizing that transformation requires an environment where stress can be released, and individuals can access their most resourceful state. A healing space is an oasis where harmonious energies are enabled, and disempowering ones disabled, promoting relaxation and inner connection. This space is cultivated by the coach's loving and authentic presence, radiating compassion and trust.
Embracing 'ma'. "Let There Be Silence" is the fourth practice, embracing the Japanese concept of 'ma'—the essential void between all things, filled with energy and feeling. Silence is crucial because the true Self is experienced not through ceaseless thinking, but in the stillness of the mind. It allows for deeper reflection, connection to Spirit, and the emergence of insights from the higher mind.
Sacred silence. Deep Coaches differentiate between passive and active silence. Active silence is a sacred state where the coach invokes aspects of mind, energy, and Spirit, facilitating profound communion. In this sacred silence, the coach channels spiritual energy, invites Divine Intelligence, affirms ultimate realities, and expresses gratitude, allowing the silence itself to do the healing work. This practice challenges the notion that constant questioning is necessary for value creation, emphasizing that "our being is our doing."
9. Practice 5 & 6: Coach from the Heart, Attune to Deeper Self
The head and the gut always have a story to tell, but the heart just knows.
Heart's intelligence. "Coach More from the Heart, Less from the Head" is the fifth practice, emphasizing the spiritual heart as the pathway to our essence and highest truth. While the intellect is vital for analysis, relying solely on it limits access to healing and the core of being. The heart is the center of knowing, wisdom, and unconditional love, providing the energy for soul growth and consciousness transformation.
Direct and indirect attunement. Deep Coaches model living from the heart, orienting their minds towards inner knowing. This connection becomes a means for nurturing the same in clients. The direct approach involves verbally inviting clients to connect with their heart center and listen for its wisdom. The indirect approach relies on the coach's heart-centered presence, which implicitly invites others to join that state of being.
Generative listening. "Attune to Your Client’s Deeper Sense of Self and Let That Lead" is the sixth practice, a "gateway" to deeper healing. It involves "generative listening" or "presencing"—a fourth level of listening where the coach connects to a deeper source of creativity and knowing, moving beyond past patterns. This means attuning to the subtle transmissions of the client's soul, discerning "what wants to happen at the core of being" and "what experience there is a readiness for," allowing that to guide the session.
10. Practice 7 & 8: Embrace Pain and Foster Emergence of "I Am"
A healer is not someone that you go to for healing. A healer is someone who triggers within you, your own ability to heal yourself.
Being with pain. Practice 7, "Expand Your Capacity to Be with Pain and Allow Healing Moments," addresses the inevitable discomfort of transformation. Pain, including negative emotions, repressed energy, and shadow aspects, surfaces for attention. Deep Coaches expand their capacity to be with this pain, seeing it not as weakness but as a "call for love," responding with compassion and empathy. This allows pain to be expressed and accepted, loosening its grip on the mind.
Allowing healing moments. Beyond inquiry, Deep Coaches facilitate healing by creating a space steeped in sacred silence and spiritual consciousness. They don't "do" the healing but recognize Spirit as the ultimate actor. By holding space for the pain, channeling spiritual energy, and affirming the client's ultimate reality (e.g., "You are worthy"), distorted beliefs and ego-patterns begin to release on their own, in their own time.
Fostering "I Am." Practice 8, "Foster the Emergence of What Wants to Happen," is about facilitating an exalted experience of oneself as "I Am"—whole and complete. This is the most powerful accelerator of transformation, establishing a new level of self-identity. Deep Coaches listen for the readiness to step into this emerging potential, inviting clients to "be that" (e.g., "I AM good enough," "I AM loved"). This experience recontextualizes fear and doubt, allowing joy and certitude to arise, calibrating mind and body to higher consciousness.
11. Practice 9: Cultivate Trust in Transformation's Mystery
To trust in the force that moves the universe is faith. Faith isn’t blind, it’s visionary.
Embracing the unknown. Transformation is an unpredictable adventure, often shrouded in mystery and magic. Deep Coaching's ninth practice, "Cultivate Trust in the Mystery and Magic of Transformation," addresses the doubt and mistrust that naturally arise when navigating the unknown. Like Zorba the Greek's lesson with the butterfly, interfering with the natural struggle can be detrimental; instead, we must trust the process.
Antidote to doubt. Doubt, fueled by uncertainty and the intellect's need to comprehend, can lead to fear and attempts to control outcomes. The antidote is unwavering trust and faith in an "unfolding force for good," believing that life is conspiring for our higher good. This allows individuals to lean into every experience, seeing lessons in all circumstances, even the most challenging.
Releasing the need for progress. Deep Coaches cultivate this trust, becoming beacons for clients whose faith falters. This means releasing the need to see rapid or visible progress, understanding that an evolving soul's journey is complex and unfolds in its own divine timing. By letting go of judgment, control, and the ego's need for validation, the coach can fully embody a trusting presence, allowing the soul's desire to grow to register in the conscious mind, leading to a life grounded in the depths of being and infused with love.
Last updated:
Similar Books
