What’s Special About Transpersonal Coaching?

The various types of coaching all have their place and their value: Career, Life, Wellness, Relationship, Leadership, Business and the others – all of these are specialties which can have considerable overlap. What is different about Transpersonal Coaching or “TC”?

Motivation

TC focuses strongly on our sense of purpose. All of the other approaches to coaching rely on some level of motivation. If motivation is low or mediocre, the goals that a person may have related to Wellness, Career and even Relationships are apt to suffer from starts and stops and the common experience of being “stuck”.

If a person’s sense of purpose and motivation is already high, that person may well be able to skip over the work of TC and go right to the strategic work of the other coaching specialties to get to goal achievement.

Clarity of Purpose

However, it seems that many of us are held back by an unclear sense of purpose which keeps our motivation level in limbo. So, the starting point of TC is the question, “Where is my sense of purpose found?” For some, especially for many young people, this is yet to be discovered. And “dis-covery” is the best word to understand this work. We all have it within us. We just may not know yet how to articulate it or we may be afraid to look at it. So, one of the things that is special about TC is that we start there.

We are willing to plumb the depths and explore and uncover what we love, what is important to us and what we truly want in life. This realm is so important, that it can’t usually be expected to become clear in a single session or a short time. There is some sorting out that may need to be done with the help of your Coach/Guide.

Missteps

There can be missteps and course corrections that are needed in defining and connecting to your sense of purpose, and this is part of taking the work seriously. If a person thinks, for example, that the desired purpose in life is to find the right partner to “complete me” in order to have the perfect family and home with the white picket fence, this may be misguided.

If a person thinks of purpose in terms of work, we explore that to identify work that can be meaningful. But we also explore how putting all eggs in one basket, whether it be in relationships or work, can be a recipe for frustration – because jobs end and relationships evolve. Purpose can encompass work and relationships, but it needs to be deeper. This is why the work of TC is so important.

Authenticity

Your coach will never be able to tell you what your deep purpose in life is. For it to be authentic, it must come from within. It needs to be discovered or uncovered. Sometimes we have known it all along but have been afraid to let it come forth. Once recognized and embraced, this sense of purpose informs and motivates our lives. It doesn’t make everything perfect, but it becomes our guiding light.

Next time we will look at examples of what some people have found to be their life’s purpose. But be careful! We can’t appropriate someone else’s sense of purpose. We may resonate and even be inspired by the paths of others, but we need to look inside ourselves and sort out and discover that which is true for us.