The One Size Fits All Myth

Hello Beloveds,
I’ve always had a bit of a hard time with the idea of career/ life coaching and mastermind groups. I find I’m highly suspicious of those who claim they have the formula, and that all you have to do is follow their carefully laid out plan. And when people ask me to teach them my particular healing modality, I’m deeply hesitant. Sharing ideas with people about how they might find healing feels comfortable, telling people “this is how you heal yourself and others”, feels incredibly dissonant to me. 
It’s not that most of the teachers and coaches out there aren’t tremendously charismatic and as highly successful as they claim to be. And, completely well intentioned. It’s that I suspect the reason they are so charismatic and highly successful is because they came to their framework/ signature work themselves. They came to their perspective via their journey. The reason they are so alive and lit up about their thing is because it encompasses their truth. And when we come to our truth there can be tremendous energy behind it. And often, we want to share it with everyone. The problem is, it’s not everyone’s truth.
Coaching and teaching work really well when there is a specific skill we are trying to develop. Or when we want to mimic something that someone else has done. Or when there is a set way of doing that particular thing and we are in agreement with that set way, and truly see it as the way forward. It also works really well if we are good at following instructions. And if it feels healthy and authentic for us, in that moment, to do things in the way that someone else has set out for us. It works really well when we don’t mind being told what to do. There are many experiences we each have had with coaches and teachers that have left us ‘better than we were before.’ We have come out of those experiences more knowledgeable and more skilled.
Where it breaks down for me is when people think they can package their framework and sell it to others, as if finding your way in life, professionally and personally, is a one-size-fits-all sort of thing. It’s their truth, and it’s beautiful and something others want to emulate, but I’m not convinced it works without their entire journey attached to it. In other words, someone would have to re-create the entire journey (start to finish) to have similar results. And ultimately, I don’t think we can (or, are supposed to) recreate someone else’s journey in our own lives. 
For me, it comes back to the ancient yoga teachings of dharma. Karmically, or on a soul level, it is of a more positive consequence to live my own dharma poorly than to live someone else’s dharma well. So, if I follow your plan and try to recreate your experience, will I find the same kind of ‘success’ you have? Or does it actually move me farther away from my own dharma, because I am forcing myself to fit into a pre-existing framework, instead of exploring what my own life/ dharmic journey and framework might look like? 
So, can we really coach/teach people how to be successful and “align” with their life-purpose? When I was going through what might be called a dark night of the soul, which was precipitated by being booted off of my ‘chosen’ path, I was in a constant state of seeking. I was seeking a teacher, and seeking the answer. I gained some knowledge along the way, passed some helpful road signs and encountered some truly lovely people, but I don’t feel like I really found anything of true substance until I looked inward, to my heart and my soul. 
I keep coming back to the idea that we can really only encourage people to engage with the journey. Encourage ourselves and others to continue to open doors and peek into different worlds of possibility, so that eventually we come to our own dharma. To enthusiastically encourage people, especially young people, to seek and explore, to fall and make mistakes, to keep looking under unturned stones, so that eventually they find their very own truth. And we will have actively participate in our own journey along the way. So that when we arrive at that place, we are lit up, on fire and charismatically living our life purpose, with a deep understanding that it is our very own journey that brought us here.

I love you all,
Tawa
P.S. Having said all that, I am getting ready to offer a new class. As with all of my classes in the last couple of years, it will not be taught in a traditional way. You will be given opportunities to experience yourself, others, and the Universe in some new ways. From there, you get to decide how, or if, it fits into your truth. I’m offering it online and in-person, and I’m specifically offering a 12-15 year old class online. I don’t know who these 12-15 year old humans are, but I am being guided that I need to offer something just for them. Also, I have taught these classes online, and they don’t aggravate my nervous system like teaching yoga online did. I suspect it has something to do with how I teach energy healing classes. And maybe that it simply isn’t my dharma to teach yoga at this stage in my life. ​

The class will explore the energy fields, the matrix, if you will. The timing couldn’t be better, with the pandemic, and the amplified experience of the individual in connection with the collective, and the experience of how we manage the confusion it provokes.