I’m a declared self-improvement enthusiast. I’m sure we all know a few. Sometimes you’ll find them in the Self Improvement section of Barnes and Noble. Well that’s me! I love to be inspired and to read from those that seem to really get it. A few of my favorites include Wayne Dyer, Gabrielle Bernstein and Tony Robbins.

Since my college days, I’ve read countless books and have been on the path of searching, learning and growing. I had a knowing inside that there was something much larger happening.

When I recently hit 40 I looked back over the last decade and it felt stalled. This was a bit of shock and honestly incredibly hard and painful to admit. Because from the outside it all looked so fantastic and the life I longed for always was here and now. I was with a good stable career, a loving husband who’s also my best friend (yay!) and 2 daughters that I absolutely adore – wow this couldn’t be more perfect.

At some point after getting married, I had totally shifted and focused all my energy on everything but me that I felt well… like “me” was missing.

I was still reading my books and going to workshops, finally the real spark happened and sustainable growth came when I took the leap to work with a life coach. Wow did my life really shift. At first I was not ready for the hard work that would about to come. This was work, really hard work!! I had goals and actions every week all about what I wanted to achieve. And the accountability was exhausting!

Those early days it took time to get over the guilt of focusing on me and the inevitable self sabotaging that decided to come along for the ride. For a decade my entire life was about taking care of others. When the coaching didn’t seem so hard anymore, I looked up and noticed that this coaching thing was really working below the surface.

The benefit of working with a life coach is that they focus on next steps of getting you from A to B. Where are you now and where do you want to be?

Traditional therapy methods tend to look back and healing old traumas. There is a strong validity and a place for all the disciplines available to help people through difficult times. For me I got to a point where I wanted results and wanted to propel my life forward and fast. And boy was I in for a ride. I never would have imagined the lessons I was about to learn by partnering with a life coach.

I never expected that a life coach would teach me some of my most profound and universal spiritual lessons. But it did and here is some of the amazing stuff that came out of it.

 

When you tell the universe you are ready and willing to grow, it will throw all it has at you.

 

That’s what happened to me when I was ready to be open to the lesson, that is when they started. At first I didn’t realize the lessons I needed to learn until they kept getting stronger and stronger and I couldn’t ignore them anymore. When I saw them as the lessons that’s when I knew something incredible was happening and I was growing.

 

The universe wants you to heal.

 

This is where the lessons come in because they are always about a healing a wound that has yet to be healed. It all may seem like crazy chaos and painful and challenging but the reason it’s so loud and uncomfortable is because we have something really important to learn. So I took the time to slow down and listen to the lesson even when it felt so painful.

 

On the other side of fear is exactly what you want.

 

The parts of life that seem the scariest and the parts of ourselves that we think we can never change are the ones that are screaming inside to be changed. Taking a leap even when you don’t know where you are going to land is the first step to transformation. I was able to look at fear in a different way because the fear is a message.

 

You are much stronger than you can imagine.

 

Like building muscle with repetitions so does action of any kind in life. The more we do the easier it gets and along the way we keep getting stronger. The facing the fear and the listening to the hard lessons made me stronger because I knew they were there for my highest good.

 

Follow your inner voice and intuition.

 

We have an internal guiding system that is built from a perfect place. If we listen and follow that voice down that path it will take us to exactly where we need to be. I learned that my voice is the most important and as we listen to it more we can recognize it more quickly. This helps with making decisions that we know are supported by the universe.

 

So I continue to read my books and go to workshops. I have finished working with my life coach but the lessons will stay with me forever and I am forever grateful.

 

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Kerri Benz

Kerri Benz has a passion to help modern entrepreneurs build successful businesses with a focus on digital marketing strategies. She loves to write about business, marketing, spirituality and all around life lessons to inspire and elevate the world around her. While she’s not doing all things marketing, she’s relaxing at home with her husband and two girls. She loves to read, watch movies, do hot yoga and travel.

Connect with Kerri… www.kerribenz.com, Instagram, Twitter