A Deeper Commitment To My Coaching Practice
Another Chapter Opens
I’m back in the SF Bay Area for a few days before I travel to Melbourne, Australia to officially complete my coach training program (BYCA) as well as network with coaches, trainees, and alumni from around the world from other cohorts! I’m excited for what’s to come, the connections, friendships, and community that will open up as l spend time getting to know some of the most heart-centered and successful coaches in the world in person.
I’ve spent the last month honing down and refining my coaching niche until it feels “just right” in my heart as preparation for my journey ahead. I went through at least 15 revisions to get here, testing every word choice and feeling whether it resonated deeply in my heart. After all, this is my why for becoming a coach that I will return to when I feel lost and when I bump into obstacles. It is my north-star that will keep me fulfilled and energized. And I will continue this practice of feeling whether my niche feels true every year because as I evolve and change, my niche and business may as well.
My coaching mission statement:
I am a heart-centered coach who supports Asian millennials to deepen self-love and bridge intergenerational and cultural gaps, leaving them feeling more joyfully connected to themselves, to family, and to community, as well as empowered to live in greater alignment with their personal values and needs.
To learn more about me as a coach, visit my website at alaliwei.com.
Here is a small sample of some tangible examples of what deepening self-love and bridging intergenerational and cultural gaps may entail:
When you are learning something new, rather than being critical, putting high expectations on yourself, or seeing where you fall short (which is something you may have been used to receiving from your family and culture), you change this conditioning you have inherited and instead start to notice how far you’ve come – you encourage yourself, you celebrate your wins even if it’s small, you praise yourself, you talk gently with yourself, you are patient with yourself because you’re still a newbie and in some ways will always be! Your confidence doesn’t build through harsh talk where you put yourself down for not getting as far as you’d hoped, your confidence builds when you see the steps you are already taking.
You may have been taught to people-please and even though you want to say “no” to something, you end up saying “yes”. When you learn to honor yourself, you say what is true for you and learn to say “no”. Doing this is not selfish or disrespectful to others. You instead see it as you being honest to others who are in relation to you. And people respect your honesty.
It could mean not shooting your anger directly at a child or pet thinking they’ll learn their lesson because they may not truly comprehend at their stage of development why you are angry. They may think it is about them and not their actions. It is also seeing that animals have feelings and are sensitive creatures, not “just animals”. Doing this work means not passing on outdated mindsets, behaviors, or beliefs to our future generations.
When your boundaries are crossed, and you feel frustrated, angry, or sad, you turn inward to be curious about what the emotion is trying to let you know. Was a boundary crossed? What was your part and self-responsibility for letting it happen? How can you express your needs more clearly? Breaking the pattern or cycle of how you have been used to relating with others means that you can start to see that when you speak from a place where you are triggered and in attack mode, it will also result in responses that come from a place where someone may be defensive and triggered which does not engender deeper connection. When you are grounded, centered, and know what your emotion is about, you can then communicate your boundaries, needs, and true feelings more clearly and hopefully calmly.
You start to question the default society and cultural norm where success seems to be centered around money, status, title, and looks. You instead find your own values and center your happiness, life, and fulfillment around them.
You start to be courageous by having vulnerable conversations with family rather than running away, avoiding, or ignoring what’s uncomfortable. You recognize that getting out of your comfort zone is required for change so that old patterns do not continue and you along with others can evolve. Showing your vulnerability helps the other person soften and want to connect because we are relational beings and need each other for support.
You truly start to see your family members (ie., parent, spouse, kid) and other individuals in your life as human beings who are also going through the ups and downs of life, doing the best they can, and are beautifully imperfect. You can start to accept that we are not all perfect and not meant to be. This means that you shift your expectations and perhaps change the definition you’ve learned from your culture of what “perfect” is.
Here are ways you can support me and my work:
I am a heart-centered coach who supports Asian millennials to deepen self-love and bridge intergenerational & cultural gaps, leaving them feeling more joyfully connected to themselves, to family, and to community, as well as empowered to live in greater alignment with their personal values and needs. Book a coaching series with me through my website: alaliwei.com
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