My metamorphosis into a health coach

Dedicated to my Mother

Since I can remember, I have been curious about people and everything that is good for our mind, body and soul. At the time, I didn’t fully comprehend the connection between these 3 areas however. It started with me wanting to know as much as I could about myself. Who I was, why I was here and how I could become better. I was guided by this extreme sense of curiosity and wanting to experience it all. I was lucky to have a mother that was interested in that herself. Since young, she would takes us to homeopaths, local village healers or talk about an astrology consultation she would have had. I remember her sharing her first coaching seminar and having this voice inside screaming “I want to try that too”! And the funny thing was: the weirder the better. I was fascinated how someone could tell so much about you just by your date of birth or how they could heal you by working through your emotions. It looked like magic to me. I was completely open minded to experience all that existed that could help me be MORE, a better version of myself. Little did I know that this was my inner passion “boiling inside”, impatiently waiting to be unraveled.

Finally, when I was 15, my mom took me to my first coaching seminar: the Breakthrough Experience with Dr.John Demartini. A seminar that changed my life forever. We learned about physical laws such as the law of attraction applied to personal development and several tools that we can use on our day to day to reach our goals faster. We also learned how to balance emotions and release situations or people that are blocking us from living our full potential. Above all, the seminar shifted my mindset in a beautiful way when it introduced the concepts of love and gratitude as the strongest tools for transformation. And for the first time, I was presented with the connection between all the areas of our life: financial, mental, physical, vocational, spiritual, family and social. I came back from that seminar aware that we cannot control our lives but that we can change the perception of what happens to us. We can teach our brain to see the benefits in every situation, to see the hidden blessings behind the pain and to use this to elevate us to the next level. I had no real problems or pains in my life at the time but already I could sense its potential. I felt so empowered after the seminar that every cell in my body must have absorbed that information. My thought process and way of talking had changed. My family noticed this in me as well as my friends with whom I started to intuitively share what I had learnt and inspiring them to change as well just by living it. In a way, I became the coach within my circle of friends and family. Whenever they needed help, I not only listened but also gave them the tools to actively help them.

This is how I discovered my talent to grasp these concepts and use them to help people and myself further. I began reading books and going to other seminars whenever I had the chance. Still, coaching was unconventional, especially in Portugal. Thus, it was hard for me to ever consider coaching as a work I could do. Because, how would that be possible? Instead, I took another professional path in business administration but I would still explore all that was self development in my personal life. At one point, I felt I was living parallel lives. With time however, having to overcome painful breakups, learning the root of my food sensitivities and having to change my diet to solve them as well as the lack of purpose I felt in my banking job all brought me closer to coaching and further away from banking itself. I finally understood that coaching and helping people was the direction I wanted to walk towards to but wasn’t sure how.

The final push came with my mom being diagnosed with terminal stage pancreatic cancer. At the time they gave her 3 months and, against all odds, she lived another three years during which she made extraordinary self development work on herself. She wanted to heal. I followed all of her transformation closely and with it integrated all of what she was learning. In particular, I learned about the emotional root of such ailments and tons about food, its impact on your body and using it to heal yourself. Suddenly the connection of food, with mood and health was clearer than ever before and I understood why food was another tool for self-development and for living a fulfilling and balanced life. Furthermore, being faced with this situation, I had to actively step up to supporting my mother through her moments of fear, doubt and despair, something that in every way was painful but that occurred naturally to me... I would encourage her to keep taking care of herself, not to lose faith and would help her shift her mindset whenever she was in a downward spiral. I remember when she would hug me and say “what would I do without my coach?”... Because she already knew I would be one.

Sometimes people around us see things more clearly than we do. My mother knew who I was meant to become even if I hadn’t yet declared it to the world. It wasn’t until her last months that I had my wake up call. Seeing my mom fight for her life with so much persistency and intent gave me the courage to fight for a path of my own. I was no longer willing to sacrifice what I loved and really wanted to become out of fear. Her strength had inspired me to be strong myself. So I finally enrolled in a health coaching course and started looking for jobs closer to people and wellness. Amazingly but not surprisingly, the universe responded. What I would call “magic” before started occurring more often in my life: the right job opportunity, the first client, the perfect partner to support me in this journey. It was synchrodestiny: a sign from the universe that I was living in line with my destiny. A sign from my mother that I should never lose faith in my path.

This brought me to where I am today. I can finally say I am a health coach and for it I can only thank my mother. She used to say I was her coach but really, she was mine.