I spent my entire professional career recruiting and placing healthcare staff. For about seven of those years I worked at Seattle Children's Hospital in the Nursing Staffing department. I worked evenings. It was stressful, heartbreaking, heartwarming and absolutely joyful.
During my career, I also worked at many nursing temp agencies, filling the staffing needs for hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and clinics. Many of the nursing services I worked for provided home health, where we placed nurse case managers, home health aides, and chore service staff. My job was staffing, recruiting, interviewing, and coaching staff. I worked to recruit staff into entry-level as well as professional level positions. This was a challenging task due to the nursing shortage, so we often needed to be creative when coaching people who where capable but lacking the skills to enter the nursing field. Consequently, much of my time was spent coaching, consulting, grooming, and changing the mindset of candidates to find a starting point for them to get the education they needed to work as a qualified member of a nursing staff or with allied health professionals and their support team. I did this job for over 25 years. During that time, I saw what a powerful and transformative impact it was to have a coach guiding a change in your mindset and finding the stillness within you.
Something that I feel qualifies me to be a meditation teacher is a personal trauma I experienced. You can go to Get To Know Your Coach and read about it if you’re curious. In order to deal with this crisis, I tried Transcendental Meditation. That was the start of my 35 year journey into meditation. Now my practice is centered around Mindfulness Meditation, but I honor and can incorporate many meditation traditions. Meditation has helped me through my darkest, loneliest and most challenging times.
As I finished one career and wondered what I would do next, I came to the realization that everything I had done had lead me to this new path. So, a year ago, I made the decision to become a Mindfulness Teacher and Life Coach. I wanted to start my new career as quickly as I could. I found Holbeck College in the UK. Not only did they offer an extensive Mindfulness program, but they had Life Coaching as well as several psychology courses. I knew that I wanted my own personal life coaching practice to be informed by current psychology modalities. I also found Transformation Academy based out of the United States, and they offered a variety of life coaching certifications. The two different perspectives in the schools were very complimentary and gave me a full, rounded out perspective on life coaching and mindfulness.
Listed below you’ll find the mindfulness and coaching courses I’ve taken over the past year. They have helped me put my real-world experience into an evidence-based context, in addition to helping broaden my overall knowledge.
- Life Coaching Certificate – Holbeck College
- Life Purpose Life Coach Certification – Transformation Academy
- Spiritual Coach Certification – Transformation Academy
- Professional Life Coach Certification and Guide – Transformation Academy
- Shamanic Life Coach Certification – Transformation Academy
- Life Coach Certification: Self Care and Boundary Setting – Transformation Academy
- Transformation Life Coach Certification – Transformation Academy
- Positive Psychology Coaching – Holbeck College
- Mindfulness Life Coach Certification and Mindfulness Blueprint. – Transformation Academy
- Emotional Intelligence Life Coach Certification - Transformation Academy
I also have several psychology certifications: CBT, ACT, MBCT, SFBT and Person-Centred Counselling, from Holbeck College.
I have taken a number of Mindfulness courses to prepare for the diploma exam. I'm exam prepared for Holbeck College Diploma in Mindfullness