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Life Coaching -- Skode Investigates!
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I have some big brilliant goals. I want to grow Skode's. I want to publish my book, Stories From Fish Hatchery Road. I want to compete in dressage as well as competitive trail with my currently, out of shape Arabian, Vashka.
The problem is that when left to my own devices, I tend to stay in my comfort zone of WORK WORK WORK. I can work until I literally drop.
I end up skipping over everything I love -- neglecting my passions.
"I'm like one of those horses who doesn't get any vitamins or minerals or really any quality care but who can do whatever she needs to do and never gets sick," I bragged to Cindy, my new life coach.
There was no laughter on the other end of the telephone wire. Rather, there was a suggestion to take a multi-vitamin every day.
"Baby steps," Cindy suggested.
And so we began our coaching together.
"People Have the Answers Inside Them"Working with a life coach means communicating my heart's desires -- and the steps I have taken to reach them. This last part hasn't been my strong point.
Accountability to my work is easy. Accountability to the actual quality of my life is a completely different matter. I want it. But will I reach past all those awkward places and feelings to have what I want?
I chose Cindy to work with because she stridently addresses the realms of the spiritual, physical and mental.
Her credentials as a horsewoman include everything from being a respected trainer and breeder to owning her own horse farm to graduating Cum Laude from Morrisville Agricultural & Technical College at Morrisville New York! Actually, the scope of this article isn't wide enough to cover all of Cindy's credentials so check out the About Us page on her Website: www.blackhorseconsulting.com
"I believe that people have the answers inside them about what to do," Cindy says. "They just need help getting to those answers. And I believe that no one is balanced unless you are balanced in body, mind and spirit. That includes horses. Those three things make up every living being."
In our second telephone conversation -- Cindy works in person as well as over the phone -- I told her I was really concerned about my horse, Vashka. In the past month or so he has become very overweight. Since he is Insulin Resistant, the weight gain is especially alarming, as obesity and laminitis (the #2 killer of horses) are often linked.
I told Cindy about the new riding instructor I had found, as well as the trail rides Vashka and I were taking in the mountains of Southern Oregon. Only he still wasn't losing weight.
"He likes the lessons but he seems kind of nonchalant about the trail rides," I said. "Just ho hum."
"Do you think he is sad?" Cindy asked. "Because it came to me while you were talking that a lot of people gain weight when they are sad. Maybe that is happening with Vashka?"
Cindy knew that Vashka's best friend, Sunny, had died about two months ago. And as the owner of an Insulin Resistant horse herself, Cindy also knew that I.R. horses could have an especially hard time dealing with stress.
All she had to do was mention the possibilities and a million light bulbs began to flash for both of us.
Vashka and Sunny had become inseparable. I knew that, but I had a tremendous amount going on in my own life: For starters, I had moved -- both my home and my business. I was so busy trying to regain a sense of normality that I couldn't see the proverbial forest for the trees when it came to Vashka.
Cindy and I agreed that I should continue to ride him as regularly as possible, tell him that I loved him, and tighten his diet. Seemed simple enough.
But when we ended our session I hung up the phone and burst into tears. Even I hadn't allowed myself to feel the full impact of Sunny's death. I went to my front door, where Vashka was standing in the moonlight. As if he was waiting for me. I put my arms around him.
"Vashka you're sad about Sunny!" I exclaimed.
My horse let out a deep, audible sigh.
"I'm so sorry," I said. "I didn't realize you miss Sunny so much. I miss him too."
We stood together, me with my arms draped around him, he with his neck arched around my waist.
The next morning there was a bounce in my horse's step that had not been there since before Sunny's death. And the improvements continued. So much so that my new riding teacher declared that the difference in Vashka from one week to the next was profound.
"He looks thinner and he's moving a lot better," she enthused. "He's doing things that seemed impossible for him last week!"
A SPIRITUAL SHIFTSome might attribute Vashka's quick turn-around only to his change in diet. Others might say the change was purely coincidental. And there is always the thought that he was simply mirroring me emotionally -- that the healing was purely mine mirrored back to me. All I know is that on the night I spoke to Cindy, he was one way. And on the morning after, he was another.
She attributes the pointed effectiveness of her coaching to a form of healing and communication called Shamanism.
Shamanism is a spiritual practice using journeys to non-ordinary reality to gain information for healing.
"In Shamanism there is an upper world, a middle world and an lower world -- and there are spiritual helpers that are there to help you," Cindy explains. "We depend on them to see what is wrong in the body and what to do about it."
Before we started our coaching I asked Cindy to tell me how she had used her skills as a Shamanic healer to help her own horse, Alf.
"I gave him a special herbal bath.. something I was taught by an Amazonian Shaman. They use plant spirits. The plant spirits all have a special healing power and they are all very happy to share it.
"With Alf, it was amazing and humbling to me, how many plants wanted to help him. I was told he needed a bath every two weeks when he was in a particularly critical stage. I also used a healing song that I was given by the spirit helpers."
I asked her if she used the skills inherent in Shamanism in all her interactions with people and horses.
"Yes it is automatically part of what I do," she said. "I get all kinds of messages from Spirit. They are like nudges that guide me."
TRUSTING OUSERLVESThe cool thing about the style of coaching Cindy advocates is that it is interactive. No one gives her power away. In other words, I'm not looking to be fixed, or for Cindy to fix my horse. Instead, I'm looking for the forces within me that will do that.
For example, Cindy did not tell me to get off the phone after our session and empathize with Vashka. That was my own inner calling. It's just that Cindy helped me see my own wisdom. I love that.
"Trusting myself has taken me a long time," Cindy told me. "I have been practicing this for almost 15 years and it has taken me almost that long to trust my nudges."
It is with the conviction of this inner trust that Cindy is currently transitioning from her job as a farm office manager in Chittenango, New York, to a full time coach for equines and their humans.
"Everyone says I'm nuts to start a business during this economy," she says. "They ask me if I really think I can make a full-time living doing this. But as crazy as it may sound, I know with all my heart that now is the time to do this."
She says she will make the transition as quickly or as slowly as Spirit intends. In the meantime, I have homework to do.
I have written out a list of short term and long term goals and Cindy has asked me to send her an email every night updating her on my progress.
"Tell me what you have done that you agreed to do and also tell me about the things you haven't done. And tell me why."
Phew.
Since I'm only in our second week, you'll have to check back for Skode's next newsletter to see how close to the mark I got on my goals.
How's that for a cliffhanger?
