What Is A Holistic Mindfulness Coach, And Why Do I Need One?

Mindfulness coaches have emerged to meet the needs of people on growth and development paths who seek guidance, compassionate support, and tools for discovering their deeper, truer selves and living authentic lives that bring a sense of meaning, purpose, and connection to themselves, others, and the mysteries of life.

An increasing number of people worldwide are living stressful lives and feeling the stress of soul hunger. They’re asking questions that can only be answered by looking deep inside themselves: Who am I? What is the meaning and purpose of my life? Why can’t I be happy when I have so much to be grateful for? What’s missing in my life? The article Soul Hunger: The Silent Epidemic Of The 21St Century explores the experience of soul hunger in more detail.

These spiritual questions and soul hunger arise when our soul begins to awaken to a sense that there’s something more to life than merely surviving and meeting our deficiency needs, as described by Abraham Maslow in his 1962 book Toward a Psychology of Being. Maslow identified that new approaches were necessary to support people’s growth and self-actualization needs.

That’s where a holistic mindfulness coach comes in!

Traditional approaches to psychology and mindfulness coaching are insufficient to answer soulful questions that require a different approach. A holistic mindfulness approach offers deep inner work and spiritual growth, distinguishing itself from mindfulness coaching methods that are either based on Buddhist teachings or have spirituality removed and are secular.

One of my clients, who was a therapist himself, had this to say about traditional therapy:

I had been in and out of psychotherapy for many years. And the pathologizing approach of searching for what was wrong with me and trying to find the ever-elusive answers just was not working.  When I discovered Bev’s website, I was excited about the possibility to try a new approach. Bev’s capacity to truly see me and then offer new paradigms for me to see myself allowed me to let go of a lot of shame and fear that I have been carrying within me for most of my life.  This allowed me to embrace my dreams and develop a growth-oriented and forward-thinking mentality towards my life.

To fulfill our potential and destiny, evolving souls need holistic approaches that don’t pathologize our human experiences, as traditional therapy sadly does. I found this to be true in my own life, and it’s why I’m so passionate about offering a holistic mindfulness approach to others.

I had the perfect life that had been deeply fulfilling for many years until it wasn’t anymore. I developed what I came to call soul hunger, and existing approaches didn’t help me discover my deeper self and what was calling me forward. My problem wasn’t my past; although I did need to integrate it, my problem was that I was awakening and hungry for deeper meaning, purpose and connection with myself, others and the mysteries of life. I was on a new journey to discover my future self and destiny. I share more about this in Does Your Life Lack Meaning And Purpose? You’re Not Alone!

Holistic mindfulness coaching offers a solution to the existential crisis of our times. It is grounded in the belief that we are so much more than our biology and psychology and in the conditions we were raised in.

A holistic mindfulness coach recognizes that people are awakening to our dual nature.

Traditional life coaching and therapy don’t recognize that an increasing number of people are awakening as spiritual beings living stressful human lives.

William Meader, a teacher of the Perennial Philosophy, explains that awakening begins when we realize we have a dual nature, meaning we have a conditioned personality (ego) and our true self, representing our potential and the energy of our soul. Awakening is all about coming into the right relationship with our dual nature. This means that our ego (personality), which helped us survive in the first half of life, takes a back seat to our soul, which becomes the guiding force for the second half.

The purpose of growth and transformation is to shed the limitations of our conditioning and personality so we can flourish by discovering our true selves. In finding our future selves, we feel a sense of freedom, contentment, and connection with something greater than ourselves.

Many people find the awakening journey challenging because it requires managing conflicting energies and shedding our conditioned, habitual sense of self to become our future selves.

Transforming into our future selves is similar to what a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. This spiritual impulse inside of us is mysterious and gives us the signals that we’re meant to transition into a new way of being in the world. There’s a time when we’re called to let go of who we have outgrown, our conditioned self to evolve into who we’re meant to become.

Although challenging, it is the doorway through which we arrive at a place of more profound peace, fulfillment, contentment, happiness, joy, and service to others.

My holistic mindfulness approach is holistic in that it considers the body, mind, soul and shadow.  It includes four pillars of awakening that enable people to flourish as spiritual beings living stressful human lives. The four pillars include self-mastery, self-love, self-discovery, and self-expression. The article, 4 Holistic Pillars For Awakening Your Future Best Self, explores this further.

Holistic mindfulness coaching meets our growth and development needs.

As a meditation and mindfulness teacher and coach, I use practices that work from the “inside out,” addressing internal blocks, limiting beliefs, and unconscious patterns. This approach aims to help people achieve deep, sustainable transformation by fostering self-awareness and spiritual growth that aligns with the soul’s purpose.

My mindfulness coaching approach empowers people with a core meditation practice that shifts people from the survival mode of fight/flight/freeze by settling their busy minds and nervous systems, making them more receptive to soul nudges—those quiet and subtle messages that arise from our intuition and synchronicities.

The part of us always weighs in on whether we’re living lives that are true to who we’re meant to become. Meditation can help us access this inner wisdom and guide us toward our true selves. The article, With So Many Choices, What’s The Best Meditation Practice For Me?, provides some insights about establishing a core practice for holistic well-being.

The Enneagram of personality is another essential component of my mindfulness coaching approach. The Enneagram helps people by providing a map for understanding and discovering themselves from a psychological and spiritual perspective. It enables people to see their core motivations, habitual thoughts and feelings, blind spots, and what may keep them stuck and spinning their wheels.

The Enneagram map also provides insights into what specific and intentional practices are most appropriate to help people grow into the next version of themselves. When people combine the wisdom from the Enneagram map with intentional meditation and other practices, they build new muscles that lead them toward a deeper sense of peace, contentment, connection, and fulfillment. I explain why this is so helpful in the article, Deepen Your Meditation Practice By Using The Enneagram Of Personality.