Understanding The Difference Between A Life Coach And A Transpersonal Coach
It’s difficult to decide what kind of coach you need when there are so many different kinds. But the more specialised a coach is, the better able they are to help you with your unique needs. So, today, we’ll take a little look at transpersonal coaching versus life coaching.
LIFE COACHING
Life coaching is a process that empowers individuals to achieve their personal and professional goals. Through guidance, support, and structured conversations, life coaches help clients clarify their values, overcome obstacles, and create actionable plans. It’s a partnership focused on growth, self-discovery, and unlocking one’s full potential.
Life coaching is a type of coaching that is very broad. You can go to a life coach with any problem or goal. The life coach won’t necessarily have specialist knowledge in the area you want to work on. That’s not to say they can’t help. The coaching conversation is very powerful and provides an opportunity to reflect on your life in a way that you don’t usually get talking with friends and family.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE LIFE COACHING INDUSTRY
The problem is that life coaching is easy to get into, and many people see it as a career that will get them out of their own problems. I am a coach, but I don’t like telling people I’m a coach because the coaching industry has got a bad reputation and for good reason.
Life coaching, as a career, is often taken up by vulnerable people who are exposed to fancy marketing. They’re promised big bucks if they just do the two-month course. There’s money to be made, and it seems today that everyone is selling get quick-rich coaching schemes. The dirty secret is that many successful life coaches make their money in almost pyramid schemes where the main bulk of their clients are other coaches, coaches that they’ve trained themselves. They make money from the training, the supervision and the coaching.
LIFE COACHING TRAINING
Life coach training comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. From overpriced online courses, you can wizz through in a month or two at your own pace to longer, more well-thought-out courses with classroom time, homework and case studies.
Personally, having a psychology undergraduate and master’s degree, I think that this sort of foundation is essential. But the coaching industry doesn’t agree with me. Most life coaches know very little about psychology or the line between coaching and therapy, which can be pretty blurred.
BYPASSING IS RAMPANT IN THE COACHING INDUSTRY
With get-rich-quick schemes, a coaching career seems like a way out for many people struggling with their life. But you can’t solve your own life problems by focusing on other people’s lives. This strategy takes you further from inner work, a fundamental step to getting your life in order, and living with purpose, meaning and joy.
In the world of spirituality we call this bypassing.
It means not being real with where we’re at on our journey.
I don’t mean to be hard on life coaches. Their hearts are in the right place and they tend to be people who go all out helping other people in their personal lives. They’ve also experienced the benefits of coaching first-hand and believe in what they’re selling. But they tend to get swept up in the marketing and take the leap from getting coaching to being a coach far too quickly, missing the wonderful journey they could have taken into their deeper selves. A journey of discovery, enlightenment, revelation and integrity.
A couple of life coaching sessions can be transformational, but you’re just scratching the surface. We’re complex creatures and the journey inwards to personal and spiritual development is an adventure not to be rushed. There’s an entire world within each one of us to be explored. The greatest gift you can give yourself is to know yourself.
The greatest gift you can give yourself
Is to know yourself
The problem for many life coaches is that for coaching to be a useful tool, the client needs to learn to expand their awareness and oftentimes do deep work to unravel behaviour patterns, integrate their shadow and overcome their self-limiting beliefs. And to help people do that, you’ve got to have walked the path yourself.
SPECIALISED COACHING
Of course, there are some fantastic coaches out there that know their stuff. A language coach or a finance coach probably knows a thing or two about language or finance. If you are looking for a coach, I highly recommend that you seek out a coach that works specifically with what you want to work with. They are more likely to have other relevant qualifications, which means their practice is based upon a deeper knowledge than a life coach. They bring more to the table and, as a result, have more to offer clients and better success rates.
TRANSPERSONAL COACHING
Transpersonal coaching is a specialised type of coaching. While it uses traditional coaching methods, it’s based on transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal coaching integrates psychological and spiritual principles to guide individuals toward self-awareness, personal growth, and spiritual transformation. By addressing the mind, body, and spirit, transpersonal psychology coaching helps clients tap into their higher consciousness, explore their purpose, and achieve deeper fulfillment. This transpersonal psychology approach fosters profound healing and alignment with one’s true self.
TRANSPERSONAL COACHES
Most transpersonal coaches have psychology degrees, psychotherapy degrees, and master’s degrees in psychology and/or transpersonal psychology, so they bring a depth of knowledge about psychology and transpersonal psychology to the table. A transpersonal coach is not only interested in personal development but has a keen interest in spiritual development, altered states of consciousness and our ability to expand our awareness.
INNER WORK AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Any transpersonal coach worthy of their title will be deeply committed to inner work and self-inquiry. Transpersonal coaches are committed to understanding what triggers them, identifying behaviour patterns, integrating their shadows and learning present-moment-self-awareness. A good transpersonal coach will also be committed to their own spiritual practice. Practices such as journaling, meditation, breathwork, and Qi Gong help to keep the transpersonal psychologist grounded. These practices over time, will develop compassion, non-judgment, clearer unbiased perception and presence. All of which are fundamental coaching skills. Transpersonal coaches have a background in transpersonal psychology.
With a strong commitment to psycho-spiritual inner work, we start to identify less as the limited egoic identity and more as consciousness itself or the oneness of all. We also start to see other people not as the role they are playing in this lifetime but as something far greater and limitless.
Traditional life coaching tends to focus on attaining life goals sought out by the ego for egoic reasons. You know, like a new car or a bigger house. And it's not that there is anything inherently wrong with wanting these things, but transpersonal coaches are interested in getting to the bottom of why we want these things.
Most often, we want a promotion so we feel more powerful, a fancy car so we can create a desired image, and a good-looking partner so we can feel better about ourselves. All these things bolster the ego and make us feel better about ourselves but that means our assets and achievements are keeping us happy. And if they’re taken away, we become unhappy.
If your happiness is dependent on external things
external things determine your happiness.
TRANSPERSONAL WELL-BEING
But true happiness comes from within. It comes from being genuinely happy with ourselves exactly as we are. It comes from embracing all of who we are so we can become whole. So, instead of setting out goals and strategies to get the things we thought we wanted, we work on connecting with our deeper, truer, more authentic selves and being comfortable with that self. Even better, learning to love our true selves, having genuine gratitude towards ourselves and expressing kindness to ourselves.
We might even work on getting a promotion or a bigger house if it truly fulfils our needs or is of service to others or to a higher purpose.
TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY COACHING PROCESS
In transpersonal coaching, we hold a safe space of exploration to work all this out. We help our clients to expand their awareness for the bigger picture. Tapping into expanded awareness states has two benefits. Firstly, we come out of tunnel vision and find creative solutions to our problems. We start to see things from different angles and perspectives and often from other people’s perspectives that we have been in conflict with.
Secondly, we learn to connect with our true selves and really start to understand what drives us, what serves us, what triggers us and what’s important to us.
THERE’S NO MAGIC FIX
Just as a transpersonal coach is committed to their own inner work, they will encourage you to begin your own journey of inner work.
For me, this is one of the most important aspects of what I do. I want my clients to learn to access expanded states of awareness for themselves and be able to identify their own limiting beliefs, negative behaviour patterns, self-sabotage and biased perceptions. I want my clients to learn to love their limited egoic selves and access their authentic, true selves so they can enjoy a more harmonious and joyful life with purpose and meaning.
Thanks for reading, and as always, keep striving for growth and well-being, and never settle for less!
How I Can Help
I hope you found this blog post helpful and inspiring. If you have any questions or need further guidance, please don't hesitate to reach out. As someone who’s deeply passionate about well-being and personal growth and development, I offer services designed to help you cultivate a life you love. Whether through one-on-one sessions, workshops, or online resources, I’m here to support your journey towards becoming the best version of yourself.
Here’s to your well-being, personal growth and success!
Head over to the services section on my website for more information on how we can work together to achieve your goals. I work online and face to face on the Côte d’Azur, in France.
