Our main objective here at the National Coach Academy is to enable aspiring coaches to reach their full professional potential. One of the most effective ways to educate students about the world of coaching is by offering them a window into the world of real, practicing coaches and showing them all the different ways coaches make a difference in the lives of their clients.
We hope today’s interview adds another insightful glimpse into the dynamic world of coaching.
Today we are interviewing Ronda LaRue. Ronda is an Author, Mentor, and Life Healing Coach based in Ojai, California. She is the founder of the Center for SoulArts.
NCA: Can you describe your coaching practice and the kinds of clients you typically work with?
Ronda: I work with people from all over the world who come to work with me in a private in-depth guided intensive. I work primarily with people who are at the very bottom of life, who have been in therapy but have not found it to really reach the true healing of self-realization. Clients come specifically to work with me on a healing path which I specifically developed over the course of a life time. I call this The SoulArts Living Meditation Practice ™. It is a highly engaging and creative process for finding the wisdom and clarity that lies within one’s own wounds and blind spots.
NCA: What initially got you interested in this career path and what kind of degree or certifications did you need to complete, if any?
Ronda: In my 20’s I went on to graduate school (after a BA in social-psychology) and earned an extended Master’s of Science Degree in Applied Social Research and Evaluation Methods. The main distinction in my work with clients compared to the world of “life coaching” professionals, is that I did not “choose” this vocation. It chose me! Let me explain: I have studied sociology, psychology, world religions, metaphysics, life-style sciences all my life.
I also am a voracious reader and have read many thousands of books on healing, wellness, spiritual awakening, eastern medicine and western bio-spirituality. But it was my own mid-life crisis and Dark Night of Soul in my mid 40’s that spawned my true life work, and people began contacting me asking how to work with me. It was from this organically evolving inner listening and honoring of life that my life work with clients began and still continues to evolve to this day.
Never consider yourself the expert; Don’t use other people’s methods and models but rather find the truth within yourself and then help guide from that more organic place.
NCA: What is the most rewarding part of your career and on the flip side, what is the most challenging aspect of the work that you do?
Ronda: The most rewarding aspect of my life work is directly experiencing the dawning moment when a person I am working with has their first major “AHA breakthrough” to a new never before seen self-realization. It is a moment when someone who comes from stuck feelings of crippling self-doubt, fear, anxiety, often early childhood or marital trauma or abuse – and there is a (what I call) awakening breakthrough to the realization that there is a wisdom pathway to healing that comes from a completely different level of awareness than traditional talk-therapy or life-coaching modalities. I teach the inner artistry of self-awareness. My process requires learning how to come from a place that is beyond methods and analytic over-thinking, in order to hear and follow the soul’s deeper and more subtle wisdom, insight and clarity of path toward true Self.
The most challenging aspect of this work for me is putting into words a realization that cannot be understood by the mind or the world of words, but rather has to be seen and experienced directly to “get it”. It is challenging to help people in a culture so stuck and so fixated on linear thought, the very fine art of entering into the landscape and language of the soul and its astonishing genius for showing a person the gift within their suffering, and the unique light that is uniquely theirs.
NCA: Can you think of a mentor who was most vital to your success as a coach? In what ways did this mentor help you to thrive in your career?
Ronda: Yes, I worked with a very old (in his late 80’s) Jewish Shaman who had a “wickedly wise ability to cut to the chase”. My former husband was also a major teacher as he had studied directly nearly every modality of healing known to God or man (and beyond…) I guess they helped me thrive in my career in so much as I learned by struggling with them both, the art of awakening to that inner paradox and how to find and follow my True Nature by honoring the wisdom way of the soul while repositioning my mind to the places it belongs in life. This understanding makes me able to guide and shine a light on how to breakthrough fear and live from soul as a daily, real life wisdom.
NCA: Finally, what advice would you give someone looking to get started in the career path that you chose?
Ronda: My strong advice to any who truly feel a Calling to serve others is this: Never consider yourself the expert; Don’t use other people’s methods and models but rather find the truth within yourself and then help guide from that more organic place. Become very very vigilant to the places and seductive ways you can get hooked into the business, money making side, and don’t let it over-take the deeper gift you are here to offer. Integrity starts and stops with you on this. It is very easy to get too linear, template driven, over organizing for your own comforts’ sake… and then the true magic of facilitating transformation is gone.
Stay clean. Continue to self-observe. Turn the mirror back on yourself. …And if you are entering this career for any reason other than a deeply heartfelt “Calling”, then listen further and find another avenue and profession that is a true calling for you! If you don’t start a career from that deep an inner passion, you won’t really be fulfilling your soul’s unique genius in the world, and will merely offer a more superficial help to others …and they, you – and our world – deserve more than that.
