Spiritual coaching is becoming more distinct from the life-coaching industry it originated from, filling a niche for female alternative religious professionals, writes Molly Worthen in the New York Times (June 3). Spiritual coaches are part of the life-coaching industry, which became an established profession in the 1990s by combining self-help psychology, positive thinking and insights from the business-school world of leadership studies. Professional associations such as the International Coaching Federation offer accreditation and oversight, though “anyone can call herself a life coach,” Worthen writes. “Over the past generation, life coaching has split into a dozen subdisciplines, almost all of them dominated by women. Women account for 75 percent of coach practitioners in North America, according to a 2019 study by the federation.” One reason for the demographic imbalance is that many coaches come from female-dominated caring professions, such as nursing. Women let down by traditional support systems may also find the sustenance they need in a coach. And of all the kinds of coaches, spiritual coaching “seems to feature the starkest gender imbalance of any coaching field,” Worthen adds. Spiritual coaches usually offer a mix of one-on-one counseling and group coaching, as well as certification programs for aspiring coaches.
Drea Guinto, who runs the California-based Soul Flow Co., offers a lifetime-access group coaching program for $3,333, aimed at what she calls “soul-preneurs” who are “ambitious” yet “also spiritual” and seeking to launch their own businesses. Worthen writes that spiritual coaches face an “extra dose of mistrust because they base their claim to transform lives and careers not just on self-taught psychology and dubious certifications but also on supernatural beliefs and ritual [from astrological readings to Reiki] that they swear have worked for them.” She adds that attention to “unseen forces in the universe—especially the divine feminine—is partly a means for these coaches to counter the machismo that dominates American entrepreneurial culture.” Many spiritual coaches target female would-be entrepreneurs with spiritually based business accelerator programs promising both prosperity and fulfillment. “Part of it is strategy,” Guinto says, “but I come more from the point of view of consciousness—what wants to be birthed through me—versus a more capitalistic, masculine approach to business.”
Source: PxHere.
