How Sattva Yoga Transformed My Life Coaching Practice

Sattva Connect asks Holistic Transformational Coach, Sattva Yoga Teacher and the Founder of Healing Hearts, Rashmi Shahbazker, to share what ways has Sattva Yoga transformed her life coaching practice? Read her inspiring answer below. 

In what ways has Sattva Yoga transformed my life coaching practice?  

The simple and most honest answer is… in every way. Literally, in every single way possible! And it keeps transforming it, in each and every moment. I became a student of Sattva Yoga first and then stepped into the world of Coaching. So, I consider myself blessed to have this strong foundation and an endless loving journey of self-exploration that no coaching school could have provided me.

I am a Holistic Transformational Coach. I help my clients reconnect with their whole being, their inner wisdom, and rediscover love, safety, freedom and fulfilment within themselves.

Why did I choose to become a life coach?  

It was never the plan, at least not in my thoughts. And that’s the beauty of Yoga!

As you open yourself, expand yourself, elevate yourself, the path, the plan, reveals itself. I literally stumbled upon a coaching certification course during Covid, thanks to a friend. I took it up for my own self development.

As I continue to be a student on this endless, loving journey, yoga helps me to understand myself. And when you understand yourself, your body, your mind, and who you truly are, ‘the spirit’, it transforms the way you see everything. For as our loving teacher, Anand Ji, says all we experience is ourselves. This realisation continues to create deep shifts within my being, bringing me closer to myself. Such is the nature of wisdom, such is the nature of yoga.

Sattva Yoga brought me closer to my ‘Why’, my deepest desire and my purpose - to heal myself, so that I may know my true self; to help to heal the world and infuse it with loving wisdom, one heart at a time. They say know your ‘Why’ and the ‘How’ will follow. Coaching opened the door of ‘How’ to serve my ‘Why’.

How has my coaching practice evolved, as I stay consistent with my sadhana (yogic practice to fine tune my energy)?

Let me start with, What is the role of a Coach? 

A coach helps their client find their own inner resources, to access their wisdom, to find their unique solutions that move them towards their goal.

You can only serve from who you are being. So who I am BEING will continue to shape my role as a coach and so my coaching practice continues to evolve as I stay consistent with my sadhana.

Initially, when I started to practice coaching, I was practicing from a space of wanting to serve, a space of knowing the content (coaching framework) but not from a space of inner knowing, inner trust. Naturally, self-doubt started to grip me but the strength, the resilience, the fearlessness, the will-power, the focus, and the radical self-love that I was inviting in through my sadhana, along with the deep yogic wisdom, allowed me to push through my limitations, the noise, and helped me to keep going. Sometimes it was easy to silence the noise. At other times, when it appeared, it was more challenging, but the observer within would eventually invite the transcendence.

Fear was another emotion that started to show up when I wanted to explore the coaching world through workshops, podcasts, group coaching, etc. but my journey as a student of Sattva Yoga has taught me that fear is nothing but the unknown, the unfamiliar. So instead of letting it consume me, I started to move towards the unfamiliar, by saying yes to what an earlier version of myself would have said no to. To support this intention and action I started to invite more fearlessness and trust in myself on the mat through specific kriyas and asanas.

From this slow and steady building of inner trust on and off the mat, emerged the boon of creativity. Creativity has been a game changer. It allows me to see beyond; beyond my own limitations, beyond the limitations of the coaching structure that I had become attached to, beyond the whole seriousness and expectations of what coaching should look like.

All attachments are based on insecurities. Trust within opened doors to infinite possibilities, infinite opportunities. And thus Life Coaching evolved to Holistic Transformational Coaching. Naturally I was ready to serve from this whole-being space, a heart-centered and holistic approach was born. An expansive yet inclusive framework started to take shape, anchored in love, curiosity, intuition, trust, surrender and a deep desire to serve.

One of the key aspects for a good coach is the ability to listen deeply and the connection and stillness to experience the client, instead of being limited by one’s own mind’s clutter and perceptions. The ongoing practice of observing and honouring on the mat continues to extend itself outside. The ability to observe, to listen, without getting caught in any subjective disturbances, during sessions strengthens as I evolve in my being.

As a coach, like any other role, I am faced with triggers. To be aware of these triggers, the responses and then coming back to equanimity is essential. My daily sadhana allows me to face my triggers, returning to a state of equilibrium on the mat, creating a memory for me to come into this practice of observing and navigating my triggers with more ease off the mat.

In my own healing journey, the somatic practices and the wisdom rooted in yoga, including nervous system regulation, have created huge shifts in my psyche and body. Integrating all that I am learning through the practice and wisdom of yoga, I offer my clients, as part of a session, tools to create energetic shifts to support their journey and some of my coaching clients who benefited from the practices have become my yoga students, also.

Transference of energy during sessions is a natural phenomenon, if not addressed. This I know from my experience of hearing other coaches expressing that some sessions tend to leave them drained. To this day, I have never felt drained by any session, and if there is a dip in energy, the practice enables me to cleanse and strengthen my aura, and create the energetic shift I need.

The lessons I receive from being a student of Sattva Yoga are infinite, but here are some of the significant ones that have helped me in my Coaching Journey.

- Effective Listening Skills

- Absolute Presence in Loving Awareness

- Connecting with my Client as Energy

- Observing & Honouring

- Non-Attachment

- Non-Judgement

- Trusting Myself

- Staying Curious

- Accepting the Different Seasons (in the Coaching Journey)

- Power of the Breath

- Alignment & Balance

- Strong Aura

- Mastering Energy, Mastering Life

As I show up on the mat, I show up outside, in all my roles including the one where I am wearing the coach hat.

The more I am unbecoming, the closer I am coming to my true self, and in this lies the magical “ripple effect”.

If you are looking to fine tune your energy and become more of who you are in Truth, check out the tried-and-tested technology of the Himalayan yogis on Sattva Connect. Your Support to an Awakened Life!

You may follow Rashmi on IG: rashmi_theholisticcoach and email: rashmishahbazker@gmail.com