Life Coach Advises: Find Satisfaction

By Nancy K. Crevier

Diane Ingram, a certified life coach, met with members of the Newtown Senior Center at the Riverside facility on Wednesday, March 21, to offer a lighthearted and interactive look at a serious subject — life satisfaction.

Creating balance, identifying desires, and overcoming the obstacles that prevent those desires from being realized are all a part of Ms Ingram’s coaching program. Ms Ingram has been a life transformation coach for more than 25 years. She received her certification from Success Unlimited Network and is credentialed by the International Coaching Federation. Life coaching offers the process, tools, and support to help others discover well-being in their personal and business lives, and Ms Ingram demonstrated several techniques to do so to those present at Wednesday’s presentation.

There are several areas that promote the richness of life, including choices, focus, well-being, and purpose, said Ms Ingram.

The choices people make, whether they are good or bad, have an effect on lives, she said. What a person does with what they learn from that experience can also be used to further future choices. When she asked if anyone had an example of that, one member offered that her choice to take up smoking had resulted in her needing an oxygen tank to aid her breathing in her later years. Smoking was, she said, a bad choice; however, she has used her experience to discourage others from smoking.

“We can choose to feel good and give that feeling to other people,” said Ms Ingram.

When purpose is defined, Ms Ingram told the group, there is a feeling of deep fulfillment and satisfaction. “Purpose is the gift we have to give to the world. The things you choose to do that make you feel good are an indicator of that purpose,” she said, before leading the group through a guided visualization exercise.

“Go back to a time when you felt satisfied and fulfilled,” she encouraged the seniors, following a brief relaxation period. By getting in touch with the sounds, smells, sights, and feelings of those moments, Ms Ingram explained that it becomes possible to identify what is important in an individual’s life.

“In life coaching,” she said, “we look at what you want, not what you are pushing away. We think not in terms of ‘I want to lose weight’ but instead, ‘What do I want from that?’ It is about recognizing what you do want.”