I often am asked what I do for a living.  My response that I am a Transitional Life Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist usually gets a puzzled look.  Some have the courage to ask me exactly what is a Life Coach and how does it differ from counseling.  Others just mumble and walk away, or ask about the Hypnotherapy piece completely ignoring the life coaching portion.  So, let me address what a Life Coach
really is and the difference between counseling and life coaching.

Counseling, as defined by http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com, is “treatment of mental disorders and behavioral disturbances using verbal and nonverbal communication, as opposed to agents such as drugs or electric shock, to alter maladaptive patterns of copying, relieve emotional disturbance, and encourage personality growth.”  
  
Wow!  I am definitely NOT a counselor.  Counseling focuses on what is wrong with the person.  Life coaching focuses on what is right!  A Transitional Life Coach works with people going through changes in life.  I help you see opportunities in that change.  The whole “change your mind and change your life” mantra.

Did you know that almost 95% of our beliefs and attitudes are formed before age six[1]?  It is the way that our young minds struggle to discover how this whole world works, and our place in it.  It is survival and it is okay. 
We then spend the rest of our lives perceiving situations and events that support those exact beliefs and atitudes.  One of the questions I often ask is how does that belief serve you now in your 30's, 40's and beyond?  Most likely it doesn't so we need to find a new belief that serves you.  A new belief that serves the
person you are and want to become.

When I meet with a client, I see this incredible and perfect individual before me.  I am inspired by all that is right and all that works!  My job is to get that person to see what I see about themselves.  Sure, things “come up” in sessions and that's okay.  Life coaching is about identifying the roadblocks, or subconscious programming, that inhibits the person from achieving their goals in life.  Then we create a different belief, one
that serves them, to take them to their next level.  
 
Psychological counseling also takes time—lots of time.  I know a woman that has been in “therapy” for 30 years.  Really?  Thirty years? Life coaching is about providing the client with the ability, the tools, to achieve their goals without years of commitment.  With few exceptions, my clients transition out in 8-12 sessions (3-5 months).  My coaching goal is not to spend years analyzing your “issues” but to help you uncover what is holding you back, and develop new beliefs and attainable goals.  We then work on reaching those goals together.  I gently push and celebrate your victories.  I am your greatest fan!  If you don't achieve your set goals, we step back and ask why. What held you back?  Is there another belief that doesn't serve you? Then let's create a new one that does.

I am not discounting psychological counseling, not at all.  It has a valuable place and many people benefit from it.  But life coaching is not counseling.  Life coaching is short-term, goal-oriented, and works with high-functioning individuals to change their mind-sets ultimately allowing them to fly solo.  My reward is seeing them succeed, and making a lifelong friend in the process.

 [1]Katz Delauney-Leija.  “What is Energy Modality Psych-K?”  EFT, MTT & Tapping Therapy Articles, The International Energy Psychology Article Archive, www.eft-articles.com

Somedays there's just not enough alcohol in the world to get me through parenting.  I'm having one of those days when I just want to lock the door to the bedroom and fall into a heap, curl into fetal position and cry my eyes out.  I admit it--I am tired.  I am tired of trying to do all the right things and feeling like I fail at every one.  I am tired of cleaning and straightening only to turn around and find a mess behind me and four lazy bottoms planted on the couch.  I am tired of asking for help and then having to stop what I'm doing to direct them.  I am tired of breaking up fights and hearing the tattling on each other.  I am tired of dealing with emotional issues and cleaning up after someone elses' mistakes.  I am tired of having to direct, organize and prepare.  I am tired of going from one disaster of epic proportions to another.  Yep, I am just plain tired.  (I realize I am using the two most powerful words in the Universe--I AM--but God, I AM!)

I realize that I chose this.  I am the one that married a man with a child, and together we adopted three more older children from foster care.  I know from all the adoption classes, and listening to parents, this was not an easy job yet we signed up anyway.  I knew there would be good days, hard days and sometimes impossible days.  Lately, it's been bordering on the latter.  I tell myself, "I am a life coach.  I specialize in this stuff.  I work with people to change the mindset and turn the negative into the positive."  Yet, I still struggle. 

We are preparing for a move.  Is this what is triggering the acting out with one of the children?  My experience tells me yes and that love, patience and reassurance will eventually move us all through it.  But escalation to violence against one another as what happened today?  Now that has gone too far.  What gives him the right to think it's okay to hit his sibling with fists and have to be physically pulled off each other?

Now before we go in to the "therapy" angle--been there, done that, multiple times.  These are children that have been in the system since they were 4 years old, 15 months, and 3 months, respectively.  They grew up in the system and therapy is paramount in all foster childrens lives.  They know the angles, the story line and the avoidance.  Each and every therapist tells us we are the ones doing the work.  Why keep them in therapy when they don't want to be helped?  "You can lead the horse to water but you can't make them drink," is the old adage.  And why pay someone else when we are doing the work?

I fantasize about our former life--the childfree one--where Ridge and I travel, lay on the beach and the biggest worry that night is if we want seafood or steak.  I also remember feeling that there had to be more than this.  More than just the materialistic.  I had such a drive to give back, to contribute, to make a difference.  No matter how great the memories, or the fantasy, I remember that empty feeling that having a family, and a purpose outside myself/ourselves, fulfilled.

Anyway, I guess I just needed a sounding board--a way to release that doesn't involve calling my husband or girlfriends and having a meltdown myself.  We are committed to these children and to the family we are creating.  There are days that I dream of their 18th birthday and/or them running off to join their birth families.  But I know when that time comes, it will be painful.

Parenting is a thankless job.   What do other parent's do to keep their sanity and take care of themselves?