The Real Side of the Life Coaching Business

by Aura Imbarus, Ph.D.

The words “I am nothing,” “Nobody likes me,” or the hardest of all, “There is no point in living anymore” are not only breaking a teacher’s heart, but they absolutely demolish the parent’s state of mind and, worst of all, immobilize the teenager, who has come to this somber conclusion, while voicing the thoughts that have consumed his/her existence.

Even before the pandemic, mental health has been a huge problem among teens and adults. Now, more than ever, the lack of social interaction, the stay-at-home orders have increased the anxiety and depressions levels to the point of throwing people over the edge and giving them the easiest way out – suicide.

People, young or mature, at one point or another, have tried to look for help, to find solutions for a bleak future or a cruel present that is now overwhelming their being, clouding their thoughts and freezing their own existence in its tracks. The maize of experts is so vast and diverse that is hard to simply settle for a name, which hopefully has a certain degree attached to it.

Simply overnight, social media has created experts in fields that people have no training in. Just because someone eats healthy, that is not making him/her a nutritionist. Just because someone knows a little more world history, that is not making him a historian or a political analyst. Or just because a person loves fashion, that is not labeling him/her a fashion or styling consultant.

And so is the case of the life coaching business, superfluous in nature, vague in content but ready to save the life of the ones struggling to keep afloat.

Life coaches have multiplied like mushroom after a rainy day. Everybody knows life, so it should be easy to get that title under your belt. If you have been around for a while, I guess, for some, is more than enough.

They charge more on a less-than-unsubstantiated background. In so many ways, they dilute or devalue the structure of what needs to be the backbone of life coaching: psychology, pedagogy, and methodology.

All those three layers are more than necessary to understand, evaluate, teach, inspire and, last but not least, motivate a person to look for the bright side of life. It takes a certain understanding of a person’s past, finding repetitive patterns, evaluating his/her modus operandi, and guiding his/her actions by having weekly check-ins, phone calls and assigned homework in order to break a pattern, and while employing neuroplasticity, create the new blueprint of the life he/she envisions for himself/herself.

Life coaching is like tango. Both partners need to be involved in the process, in-tune and in-synch with the vision and potential of what can happen, should they give themselves the permission to forgive, forget and start all over. It is not where they have been that matters, but where they want to go from this moment on.

For more information: https://auraimbarus.com/life-coaching/

Bio - Dr. AURA IMBARUS

Dr. Aura Imbarus is an awarded educator, freelance journalist, motivational speaker, and author of the critically acclaimed Amazon best-seller and Pulitzer Prize entry, Out of the Transylvania Night: A Story of Tyranny, Freedom, Love and Identity (Bettie Youngs Books, 2010), a memoir detailing her life in Romania during the Communist regime, and an upcoming self-help book, Conversations with the Past: A Journey Home (Rainbow Ridge Books, Sept 2020). She was featured on NBC, ABC, CNBC, Good Morning San Diego, Forbes Romania, etc.

She is also the president and founder of See Beyond Media, a company focusing on adolescents’ challenges in the 21st century, having as its launching platform See Beyond Magazine (www.seebeyondmag.com) and of Raw and Real with Leo and Aura podcast, where on a light and humorous tone she is examining and dissecting social issues. Dr. Imbarus is a licensed clinical hypnotherapist, having trained with Dr. Brian Weiss and Dr. Wanita Holmes.

She sits on the Advisory Board of CA Ballet, is a member of Royal Society of St. George, SACC – Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce; she is also one of the founding members of RACC – Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce, CA.

In her free time she is taking ballroom dancing. She loves car racing, skiing, yoga, sailing and traveling.