I recently took an online free quiz about life
coaching. Here are my results:
Out of a
possible 50 points, you scored 33. Not bad.
Based on
how you answered the questions you may have experienced some hesitancy. Or, you
may be questioning if becoming a coach is right for you.
Oh, you know me so well, random life coach training
website. I AM questioning whether
becoming a life coach is right for me.
I am divorced. I think
buying real estate was the worst financial decision in my life. I still belly laugh at fart jokes. Am I the best person to be giving
others advice? No. But I still do. And sometimes I am
forced into it by people who don’t have anyone better around to help them.
Case in point: a recent yoga retreat in Guatemala, organized by a good
friend, Sami. First a little background on Sami: on this same trip I
(with not such a great relationship track record myself) felt obligated to talk
her into de-friending the “really nice” semi-stalker and the horrific ex-boyfriend
on Facebook. I also convinced her
that she didn’t have to meet the latter to give his mother’s engagement ring
back. Leave it at the desk. I think it’s because I was sick of
hearing her stress out about both of them. “Cut the ties, leave them behind!” I urge. I must admit, I
am really good at that. “You don’t owe them anything.”
Now let me give you a little background on how much
fun I was having at this yoga retreat.
It was a mixed group of relative newcomers to yoga and a few, including
Sami, who recently went through training to become yoga teachers. You could
tell the latter by their oddly muscular scrawniness (except for Sami, who is
slim with curves). The yoga teacher for this retreat, we'll call her
Turu, was the best example of this - she is probably 30, but looks about 12.
She and her fellow yogis seemed to rely solely on supplements for
nutrition and only drank tea instead of coffee (something I found irritatingly
pious since tea has to be imported and we were surrounded by coffee bushes).
They passed around Sunbreeze (three eye-watering essential oils that can
do everything from cure headaches to serve as pesticides) like drunks on a
stoop.
Turu plunked down a large bag of pills on the table
for each meal. I found myself hoping (for her sake) that one of the pills was a
laxative - she sure acted like she was constipated. A vibrator probably
wouldn't have been a bad idea for her either. One morning she was going
on and on about her special
supplement - stevia (a natural low calorie sweetener I've been using for
years). Hers had chrysanthemum in it “which prevents the long term side effects
of stevia, blah blah blah”. I couldn’t help it, I’d had too much
(delicious!) coffee. I had to chime in "So I guess it's kind of a
Stevia Wonder?" The rest of the table erupted in laughter. If
possible, her face got more pinched. She didn’t speak directly to me for
the rest of the retreat. I was fine with that. Again, probably not good life coaching qualities.
Surprisingly for a yoga teacher, Turu had some
control issues beyond her sphincter. When Sami told me that she had to
chug a glass of wine in the kitchen when she took Turu to lunch at a friend's
house, I had to ask, “Why do you care?” Turned out that although Sami organized
and recruited all the guests for this retreat, she had some deference to Turu
because she was Sami’s yoga training teacher. Turu didn’t want Sami to
wear black: “It's so negative.” I had a hard time taking that tiny
belligerent girl-woman seriously. I
told Sami that black is the combination of all colors. So there.
I felt really obligated to intervene after Turu berated
Sami the first night of the retreat when Sami and I were having a glass of wine
(or two) in the restaurant. It was after "quiet time" (9 pm), and we
were giggling pretty loudly – probably at Turu’s expense. But when Turu
beckoned Sami (who in my mind is Turu’s boss) over and demanded to know whether
she was drunk, I thought, “It’s on, yoga bitch. It’s on like Donkey Kong.”
That’s why I wasn’t too worried when I egged Sami
on to do yoga for photos on the boat on one of our day trips. Pinchy-faced, Turu moved away as
quickly as is possible on a bouncing boat. She took her yoga seriously.
Looking back, I realize perhaps my participation in
this could have possibly made it worse.
Turu wanted to be the guru.
I was winning out as Life Coach.
Well, I am more fun. It
didn’t help that we started doing yoga classes separate from the group (I must
admit that in my gut I knew that was inappropriate but I didn’t really want to
be around Turu any more than necessary).
Turu told Sami at her next “intervention” that Sami was being clique-y
and enjoying herself too much.
Yep, I accept the blame for that.
Things escalated quickly. Sami told me one night
that Turu had bullied the hotel manager into giving her the bill for the group.
Sami worried that Turu was angling to get half the proceeds from the event. (More life coaching required – you
didn’t put things in writing about how she would be paid? WTF?!)
In addition to her yoga skills, Turu mastered the
art of passive aggressiveness. Unfortunately for her, I'm just plain
aggressive. When she tried to force the group on the second to last night of
the trip to have what I could only imagine would be a bitch session, I sweetly
suggested that if we were going to gather to “express our appreciation” for the
week, the last night made more sense. She called for a vote among an
extremely uncomfortable group. Only three people raised their hands. I win! I win!
I suppose it was inevitable that Sami would get
caught in the crossfire of the two demons fighting for her soul. After dinner, Turu and Sami had a
shouting match and the F-bombs were flying. I am not sure whether that was an outcome celebrated as a
success in the life coaching manual.
Sami defriended Turu on Facebook the next day, with only a teensy bit of
encouragement from me. I win
again!
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