When Healing Work Can Be Dangerous

About 20 years ago, I bravely decided that I wanted to break free of the ‘Golden Cage’ that is a UN job.

I took a sales job with Dell Computers in Geneva.

I went ‘private sector’ which was not so common for those that had tasted the fruits of a tax-free UN job.

But I was craving more freedom and less bureaucracy and politics.

Hilariously – in hindsight, definitely not at the time – I bit off a lot more than I could chew.

I was pretty fluent in French and German.

So I was hired to sell to the French and German markets in SWITZERLAND.

The glorious thing about French in Switzerland is that they speak slower than in France. It’s easier to understand for a non-native.

The devastating thing about German in Switzerland is that IT’S LIKE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE to actual German!!

I had lived in Germany and my German was pretty fresh at the time… but I just was not armed for the insane vocabulary differences between High-German and Swiss-German.

Most of my customers were Swiss German.

So not only was I learning to master sales (which I was disastrous at) and getting to grips with a new job, I was also getting to grips with what felt like a brand new language!

Needless to say, I felt pretty stressed.

The ‘Golden Cage’ suddenly became very appealing again… and when I was offered a very interesting opportunity a few months later, I did return to the cage for a few years.

But I divert.

Whilst in the Dell job, we were ‘rewarded’ with 20-minute shoulder massages by wellness practitioners for an excellent sales month.

It was a wonderful and powerful technique and the practitioners, who cleverly offered their services for free, worked magic on the staff that day.

I, and several others, took a business card after my shoulder massage.

What followed was some months of great body work to heal chronic back issues.

I had really chronic back issues which is bizarre for me to imagine now as my back is in good shape.

But I recall working with one practitioner who I had an interesting experience with.

I was pretty vulnerable back then.

If I was told ‘you are this or that’ by a perceived expert, I would have taken it on and believed it to be true.

This particular practitioner was triggered by the word ‘hot’.

She suggested to me that I was too.

I recall being confused but then thought maybe I am triggered by that word.

I recall developing a real hangup around the word ‘hot’.

Even down to my HOTmail account!!

When we are not grounded in who we are, health and wellness practitioners can cause more damage than good.

This was an interesting memory for me today.

Because I have always been in the camp of ‘you don’t need a certification to be a great coach, you just need to have gone through courageous transformation’.

I still stand by that belief that living proof is worth a lot more than a piece of paper. It rattles me when ‘holier-than-thou’ coaches flaunt their ICF certifications, but have not got a courageous bone in their bodies.

HOWEVER. Some basic professionalism and coach training is necessary.

Coaches and wellness practitioners need to be VERY, VERY CAREFUL about what they say to a vulnerable client.

Inside my Fired-Up Coaching Academy, I certify based on instinct.

I don’t care if a participant has the highest level past certification or degree.

If said participant has not stretched vastly outside their comfort zone, if they have not experienced the pain of doing hard things in the short-term in order to reap longer-term benefits, then they are not a Fired-Up Coach.

But they are also not a Fired-up Coach if they dare to speak carelessly to a client.

The truth is that the less we speak to a client, the better. Our job, as a coach is to ask great questions that bring the client closer to their own clarity. That way, they got their transformation themselves. That way they learn empowerment and self-trust.

Oh how I would have benefitted from some good coaching 20 years ago!

The general public still does not realize just how powerful good coaching is.

Good coaching is totally life-changing.

That’s not an understatement.

If you would love to receive coaching or to become a coach, I can help.

Book in for a no obligations chat.

I’ll share honestly if I think I can help change your life.

I probably can .

Much love,
Niamh