This month, I'm bringing you conversations with wellness practitioners who may enlighten your path to more peace. Today, meet Life Coach Marcea MD. As challenging as it's been, this year has provided 2020 vision to those who choose to see it. I'm one of those people. Certified Life Coach Marcea MD is an internal medicine physician who helps people like me fine tune their heart's vision to fully experience the life they want. On a cloudy Sunday afternoon, we talked about what led her to become a life coach and why everyone should have one.
La: What do you do for a living? Marcea: I'm an internal medicine physician, and a health and life coach at In Full Bloom Health and Life Coaching. La: Where were you trained? Marcea: I went to West Virginia University Medical School and did my residency at Medical Center of Delaware 25 years ago. My coaching training is through the Health Coach Institute where I was certified in the spring of 2019.
La: What led you to become a life coach? Marcea: I was seeking a deeper purpose and passion, and was frustrated because I couldn't find it. I kept looking and started doing those exercises where you write down the things that you're good at. I realized that people come to talk to me and I help them feel good and they leave with clarity. But is that a thing? I considered becoming a counselor but didn't want to spend many more years in school and even more money. I started looking into health coaching, but noticed that life coaching was the thing that just lit me up. I coach on both, but the life coaching is where I'm drawn.
La: What's the difference between health coaching and life coaching? Marcea: It's about what bubbles up to the surface for the client. If you have someone who has high blood pressure or is diabetic, their "why" is usually related to being healthier or living longer - as opposed to more life issues like needing a new job or understanding a relationship that is really bothering you. Those things will always rise to the surface. It's the same process but different paths. If it's a health problem, once you start fixing it, everything else will fall into place. Similarly, if you fix a life problem the other things will fall into place. It's really just a matter of what's the squeakiest wheel.
La: Who should consider getting a life coach? Marcea: The short answer is everyone should have a life coach. We frequently make long-term decisions based on a temporary circumstances. We may not know that we're doing it, but when you have someone who can hear what your brain is doing, they can say - hold on, rewind that, this is the pattern I'm seeing, is that what you want to do? Let's go back and look at it again to see what you really want to do. It's like a surgeon operating on herself. You could do an x-ray and draw your own blood, but you need someone else to actually see you better than you can see yourself. Do-it-yourself is good, however, when you DIY it usually takes a lot longer. It's also probably a little messier, and it may not look professional or get the result that you're actually looking for. When you're getting coached, that thing that would have taken you six months or a year now takes you three months or six weeks, or even a phone call. So you're getting your results faster which propels you to serving the people who you have been called to serve.
La: What drives you to do this work? Marcea: I had to become the coach that I needed. And I refused to stand around and let other people suffer for the years that I suffered. La: What's the most rewarding part of this job? Marcea: Seeing others' transformation. To get to the end of our time together and say, "I don't even recognize you" and hear them say they don't recognize themselves either. That's the thing. It's my purpose to stay in transformation. I am always working on myself, seeking what's next, and getting more coaching to up-level myself. I can only take my clients as far as I'm willing to go myself.
La: Do you have a life coach?
Marcea: I've had coaches for different times and different focuses. I have the coaches where I trained to get my certification, a business coach, a keto coach, a speaker coach, and a personal coach. Some have ended but I still follow them and so they're still coaching me. I have more than one life coach because I have more than one problem and I invest in myself. They target different things. I have someplace specifically that I'm going and in order for me to get there in a timely fashion, I need all of what's happening.
My coaches also have more than one coach, like athletes and politicians. Baseball players may have a pitchers coach, strength and conditioning coach, speaking coach, mindset coach, organizational business coaching. When we think about it in this respect, it's not foreign. When political candidates come out on stage, they have been coached non-stop. Their speeches, posture, facial expressions, mirroring of people when talking to them, buzzwords to say, and what not to say - all of that has been coached. They were coached and coachable.
La: Wow, any final thoughts to share? Marcea: In life, we think challenges mean we're doing something wrong. But challenges are actually a sign that we're doing something right. It's how you go through the challenge that determines who you become on the other side. So embrace the challenge, and get coached! La's reflection: In yoga philosophy, Svadhyaya is the practice of self-study, self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-reflection, and self-examination. As an internal medicine physician, Marcea's purpose is to help people unlock the only internal medicine that they can give themselves - peace of mind powered by personal passion. "The person practicing svadhyaya reads his own book of life, at the same time that he writes and revises it" (B.K.S. Iyengar, “Light on Yoga”). Are there people in your life who have served as life coaches without you seeing them that way? I have my mix, and have added Life Coach Marcea MD to help me nuke it. Namaste.
