Decolonizing Coaching | ep196
I am finally on the mend and I have my voice back! Which means that we're finishing our decolonizing series this week.
I hope that over the last month, something we've explored has resonated with you. My deepest hope is that you realize that the work of decolonizing is for all of us.
We're finishing our series looking at how we can decolonize coaching. This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.
I have been part of the coaching world for more than a decade, first as a client and then as a coach.
I know how powerful this modality can be, and I also know how much harm and toxicity exists in this industry.
Before we dive in…
Applications for the Wholehearted Life Coaching Certification are now Open!
Throughout this 6-month program, you will learn how to coach with care, skill, and ethics, all while weaving your own magic and medicine into your practice.
By the end of our time together you will become a heart-centered coach who can hold space and create transformation with the communities you hold most dear.
This is about bringing the soul back to coaching. This is about bringing your whole self (your medicine and magic) into this work.
If you've ever considered becoming a coach, I hope you will apply. Applications are open until June 16 or until we fill up!
When I first discovered the world of wellness and growth, it felt like I had come home
Healing old wounds, facing fears, and embracing the truth of who I was, was so incredibly freeing.
But I now look back on that time and realize how unsafe so many of the spaces I found myself in were.
As a woman of color, and as a person who has experienced trauma, I understand now that many of the people I put my trust in were causing me more harm than actual healing.
While I was so grateful to be on a deep transformational journey, a lot of what I read, heard, and saw made me feel so uncomfortable.
I understand why today. No one was talking about:
Privilege
White Supremacy
Capitalism
Patriarchy
Misogyny
Trauma
The list can go on and on.
The truth is that the world of self-growth, as we know it today, was founded on the principles of supremacy and oppression. This is why coaching has such a bad reputation, because it developed from these toxic roots.
All around us we see harmful practices, questionable sales techniques, and grand but ultimately, empty promises.
There are coaching modalities that promote spiritual bypassing, and coaching approaches that are rooted in white supremacist, capitalist and cis-heteropatriarchal ideals. These are coaching practices that cause more harm than help.
So much of what we call coaching today is a watered-down, toxic version of a modality that is centuries old.
A coach was once known as the village elder or oracle. Your favorite teacher in elementary school was a coach. Your favorite auntie is a coach.
Coaches are those we trust to support us during uncertain times. They are those who can hold space without judgment and allow us to explore and excavate our deepest challenges and truest desires.
It is a privilege to coach.
People work with during their most difficult and vulnerable moments looking for answers. They are looking for guidance and support to help them navigate difficult decisions, huge transitions, and big life events.
It is an honor to be a small part of someone’s life journey. And it should always be regarded as such.
Want to dive deeper through more journal prompts?
If you want to be in the know and get each Mindset Monday straight to your inbox complete with journal prompts to take you even further, get on my email list.
About your host, Shirin Eskandani
Hi, love! I’m Shirin.
Coach, speaker, writer, and life alchemist.
I teach you how to trust your intuition again, tune out all the BS, and let your heart lead the way.
Because once you strengthen your inner GPS, decisions become easier, boundaries become clearer, and belly laughs become a daily thing.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME:
I’m a certified life coach (accredited through the International Coach Federation)
My husband and I met on Instagram and we live in Brooklyn, NY with our plant babies
I have a masters degree in Music and was a professional opera singer for twelve years. I worked all over the world singing on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera (more on that later…).
I believe in the woo just as much as I do the work (internal and external). No amount of crystals and affirmations will make up for a lack of a healthy mindset and aligned action.
I love all the Real Housewives franchises. Don’t make me choose one… seriously, don’t.
+ Read the episode transcript here
Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life. When you have come to the right place, let's create your dream life while living your dream life. Okay. Love. Hi love. Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. This is where we take a deeper dive into my mindset Monday post, which you can read on Instagram at wholehearted coaching, or you can get the full post. Plus my weekly journal prompts. When you sign up for my email list, you can do that in the show notes, or you can head to my website, wholehearted-coaching.com. So this episode is going to be a short one because this episode is more a call to action because I am frustrated. Listen, I work with some of the most amazing people. I also get to be in community with some of the most incredible minds. And when I say community, I mean in my own life, but also on Instagram, on my email list, right? The people that I am in community with are people with amazing ideas and dreams and visions. They have some really important things to say, But one of the things I so often hear is that, well, I don't know if what I'm saying is special or, you know, all of this has been said before, so what, what makes me saying it any different and because of that belief, right? That belief that while there's hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of other people saying this thing, then, well, what makes me so special? Why should I do it? And they don't. They don't say what is on their minds, what is on their hearts. And so this episode today is a call to action to anyone listening, who has ever thought that to anyone listening, who has stopped themselves from putting their thoughts, their beliefs, their words out into the world, because they think that it doesn't matter because they think that it's being set already. And so what makes them so special? This is the episode for you. So today's mindset Monday reads. Yes. It's true. That a lot of it's been said before, but no one can say it like you do love no one love. If you have a message in your heart, a vision, a dream that you want to share with the world and you're holding back because you think while there's so many other people doing this. Stop stop holding back because it is you that makes that message so unique. It is your experiences, your background, your past, your present. That makes that message so incredibly unique and it makes it so incredibly unique to someone out there in the world who needs to hear that message the way that you are going to say that message. You know, I have been in the online world of wellness now for over four years. And at this point, honestly, if I'm being super honest, I think like 95% of it has been said, a lot of the ideas, even the ideas that I talk about are ideas that other people in the world are talking about. Our ideas that were probably inspired by other people sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously listen, y'all it happens. Okay. A lot of these things have been. But you come to this podcast, you subscribe to my emails. You go on my Instagram page because of the way that I express it, because of my perspective, my angle, my experiences in life. That's what makes the message so special. And it's the same with you. Love that message that you have in your heart, that vision, that dream, that thing you want to put in the world, what makes it so incredibly unique is you. Now, what we're really talking about here is you using your voice. And that is terrifying. It is terrifying to use your voice because what will other people think? We think of the judgment. We think of how they're going to see us. And that is the biggest thing when it comes to using your voice. It's what they are going to think of me. When I first started writing on Instagram. I kept all my posts pretty like vanilla, you know, they were good, but they were like any other wellness coach, life, coach, page, and lots of quotables, lots of really nice things. And I did that because I didn't want to ruffle any feathers. Like, I didn't know it at the time, but I wanted to just be liked by everyone. Cause I was like, that's how you get work. You just get everyone to like you. Right. And then I finally wrote a post. That was really what I thought really what I thought about wellness. And that post was the one that got the most people to my Instagram page. I lost many people, but then I started to realize, oh, the people who are joining me, who are joining my community are the people that I actually want to be in community with now. And so much of what I say here on this podcast, in my emails, on my Instagram, it has been said before. I know you've heard it before, but you come to this podcast. Do you listen to my podcast? Because of the way that I talk about it, that's what resonates with you. So if you're listening and you're thinking of using your voice. If you're thinking of saying something that perhaps may ruffle feathers. If you're thinking of saying something that other people have said, my love, this is the sign that you were looking for from the universe to say the thing to put it out into the world, because someone out there really needs to hear it the way that you are going to say it. I can't tell you one of my most favorite thing. Is when I get DMS from people saying, oh my gosh, this resonated with me. Or I've, I've heard this said before, but like I never fully understood it until you said it this way. That's when I know I am doing the work that I am meant to do to share my thoughts, my beliefs, with my unique perspective and angle. That's what we are all meant to do. Because again, there is someone out there waiting on you, waiting on the message that only you can deliver in the unique way that you deliver it. Love. I really do think the two things that keep us from using our voice are one that belief that it's been said before. So what makes this so special? So listen, it makes it special because of you, you are the special sauce. You are the unique flavor in that message. The way that you're going to put it is going to make sense to someone out there who needs to hear it the way that you're going to put it. Okay. So that answers that one. Okay. So I don't care if it's been said before. It actually literally has been said before. Okay. I'm going to just, it's been said before, but it's never been said by you. Okay. So that answers that number two, what holds us back from using our voice is what we think they are going to think of it. Their judgment of what we say. If perhaps what we're going to say is going to make people feel uncomfortable, or if it goes against the status quo. So I want to share an exercise with you, which comes from the incredible coach, Tanya Geisler. So I want you to take out a piece of paper and at the top, I want you to write down in big letters using my voice. And then I want you to draw a line down the middle of that piece of paper. And I want you to write on one side the people who could possibly judge. Who wouldn't be here for it. Who don't want me to use my voice? So write that as a label at the top. People who will judge me, who aren't here for it, that I'm worried would really not like me using my voice. Okay. So that's one side of the piece of paper. And then on the other side, I want you to write down at the top. The label is people who are here for this people who want to hear my voice, people who will encourage me, support me and possibly be in my community when I use my voice. So you have these two sides, right? The people who are against me using my voice and the people who are for me using my voice. And I want you to take really like three to five minutes of your time and write down who would go on each side, I've done this exercise in workshops before, and it's so God damn regulatory it's so liberating because when you look on that side of people who aren't going to support you, the people who are going to judge. You're kind of going to be like, oh, these people, these people, these are the people who are holding me back from using my voice like that, that guy, that woman, that person. And when you look on the side of people who are here for it, that is going to make you so excited and so inspired and so fueled and motivated. That is the side we need to be focusing. That is the side we need to be focusing on when we think of our dreams and our visions and our goals and our words of the things we do in the world. Because so often we are focused on the side where the people don't want us to do the things we want to do. That's the side we're trying to convince. To come to our side. That's the side that we spend, 90% of our time focusing our time and energy and emotions on and love. I want you to just liberate yourself, let go of that side and keep your focus on the side. That actually matters the side that wants your words, that needs your words, that supports your words that needs your work in the world. Focus on that side and let go of the other one. Listen again. After four plus years of doing this work, not all people are here for me. I mean, I know you're here for me. You're on this podcast and thank you for being here. I really appreciate that, but I know I'm not for everyone and I'm not meant to be for everyone. That's why this community is so special. Because it is made up of people who resonate with my values, with my mission, with my vision. That's why this community is so damn incredible. So love. This is a call to action. We need your unique vision mission perspective in the world. We need your words. We need your dreams. We need your desires out here. We need. So we're keeping it super bite-sized and short and sweet this week. Love this week. I encourage you to really think on what I am saying to do this exercise that I give you in this podcast. We need you, we need what you have to say and want to do in this world. Yes, it has been done, but it's never been done by you until next week. Love, I will talk to you then. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you liked this week's episode, please share it with a friend comment and rate this podcast until next week. See you later. Love.