Unlike sports, where a coach directs the team to encourage growth and hopefully skill within the rules of a game, life comes without such clear cut direction. A life coach is someone who is given the opportunity to ask questions that facilitate growth while maintaining accountability in the direction that is right for you!
Do you feel satisfied in your life? Are you driven to accomplish your goals? Do you have motivation to fulfill your inner calling? If you answered no to any of these, a life coach can be of great assistance! Working together, we can sweep away the confusion of the demands of modern life and open a path to fulfilling your goals and achieving your dreams.
In a one-on-one context, a life coach can work with you to uncover what is stirring in your heart as a priority for this season of life, and give that fine tuned attention. In a group, you benefit from witnessing breakthroughs in each other and additional accountability towards the goals you have set for yourself. No matter your age and stage, a life coach can help you flourish and grow!
Have any questions? Want to work with me? Contact me! I’d love to hear from you. 😀
Some people choose business names that are catchy, others use their names, others still use something related to the product or service they are offering. So, why “snowrose blossom” for a life coach, herbalist and aspiring psychologist? On the surface, it is to represent the blossoming of the human person into flourishing and wellness, a blossoming of sorts. Snowrose, now that has more of a story!
Long long ago, in middle school, I got permission from my school principal to take high school language classes Saturday mornings at a high school. I was obsessed with Japanese culture and history, and jumped at it the moment I learned that I could take classes to learn Japanese. Yes, I was, in fact, that much of a nerd that I got up every Saturday morning and went to learn Japanese for 5 whole years. How much do I remember after not using it for a decade? Not a whole lot, but that is ok!
忘
れ
ま
す
During my classes, my friends and I came up with some OC (original characters) based off of their and my favorite anime at the time (Cough… Inuyasha… Cough… though I think they were watching Naruto). My OC’s name? 雪 薔薇 (Snow Rose). I chose this name combing two of my favorite things in nature, snow and roses. Creative, eh?
Yes, those are in fact images I created in photoshop as a teenager to show the mystery of this OC… and the made up magical flower known as the snowrose. From that point on, my gamer tag was either Yuki Bara or Snowrose and I embraced this as an expression of a facet of myself.
Fast forward to the year I turned 30, and I learned that what I had thought was a made up flower that imbued the essence of snow into a rose shape… was actually the name of a real flower!
This revelation genuinely blew my mind. Not only was this flower delightfully beautiful, it was a real, bonified, not made up flower… native to JAPAN! To top it off, it was not just a flower, it was a SHRUB! Now, to those unfamiliar with the British Comedian group known as Monty Python, go find them on youtube and have a good laugh. To those who are familiar, I was OBESSESSED with “The Holy Grail” in high school… and in particular, the knights who say NEE, or rather, the knights who now say Ikikipootangzoopoing.
My new favorite flower then became the ACTUAL snow rose, Serrissa Japanica. This name represents my own journey to blossoming and flourishing, living out my life’s calling to help others bloom into the proverbial flowers they were made to be!
Let’s journey together and BLOSSOM like springtime!
Yesterday, I received my diploma from Dominion Herbal College in the mail! I am officially a chartered herbalist. To be honest, this, of all my educational experiences had been the most satisfying, affirming, and USEFUL. I first learned about Dominion Herbal College when I was in high school, long long ago.
While it was truthfully what I wanted to learn most, as I scribbled and researched plans for a future forest garden orchard, I felt out of place applying to a college distance learning program. You see, I was in the International Baccalaureate program, and I was convinced that I ought to pursue university rather than college (in Canada there is a difference). I left off this pursuit for Linguistics and later Religious Studies… Only to come full circle in mental health and the practical application of herbs for the treatment of somatic symptoms.
This last year has been particularly tricky to juggle school with homeschooling our son, while my husband’s career change has been rocky! It offered plenty of opportunity for growth and grit. I had times where I wondered if I would be able to finish the program in time, not for lack of effort or desire, but the roller coaster of life throwing curve balls my way. In the end, I finished and feel confident that this is a very important facet of my life calling.
This isn’t why I feel this diploma is the most useful part of my education though. The most useful part? For the first time in 12 years, I have a way to treat celiac reactions! For those who aren’t familiar, celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that is triggered by the ingestion of gluten. I was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2012, and I’m one of those lucky ones that react to less than 10ppm and get neurological/systemic reactions. Ever lost control over the use of your mouth, hands, limbs? Well, it isn’t so fun. Up until now, literally nothing has helped. My only option has been to be very careful for cross contamination and ride the waves of excruciating pain/debilitating neurological symptoms until they finished.
No more!! I have officially, through my studies as an herbalist, found a remedy that WORKS. It is a beautiful infusion made of slippery elm, cloves, cayenne, ginger, chamomile, cinnamon and a little bit of sugar to taste. A few weeks ago I had an accidental gluten exposure, and after taking it 3 times within the following 24h I was completely symptom free. This is the most valuable thing I have learned in my whole education.
If there is one thing that I am passionate about, it is helping an individual heal, grow and flourish. I can’t say that I have been on this road for very long, but the more I travel it, the more I realize, “yep, this is for me”. Over the last 4 years, I have had the privilege of accompanying my husband on his healing journey battling mental illness. Let’s be clear, I am no spring chicken, I’ve had my fair share having gone through major depression caused by chronic illness in my mid-twenties, and Post-Partum depression after my son was born… but there is something different walking with someone else. Was it easy? No. Was it fun? Eh, not really. Was it worth it to get to the other side and really experience them beginning to flourish and grow? You bet.
My husband and I both came into our marriage knowing we had no idea what the heck we were doing. We grew up in broken families, with divorced and remarried parents, stability wasn’t really our forte. I can’t say we did it right, but I can say we tried our best in the first years. After miscarrying twice, we had our son, our little rainbow baby. That’s when my husband’s mental health took a turn for the worse. You see, he had been working shift work for more than a decade by that point, had undiagnosed sleep apnea and the physical implications of that were really starting to hit the fan. Add in a little munchkin bundle of joy? Well, I learned that you start reliving your experiences of childhood… and either embrace them and grow or repress them and get pretty stuck in who you are. For my husband, mixing those with a toxic work environment, some added family struggles helping extended relatives, a little COVID Isolation, and well, it was enough to reach the breaking point.
It was this journey of accompanying him that set me on the path I am on now, determined to be there and accompany those who are ready to take the next active step in their lives. It took us 4 years, many hurdles and hardships, a lot of grit and even more grace, to get here, and I will never look back. Now that he has been symptom-free for almost a year, we are building a healthy home based on accountability, forgiveness, gratitude and trust; we are learning as we go and overcoming obstacles along the way. I am homeschooling our son, studying to reach my goals, and building my business.
I have to say that starting a business based on art, healing, growing and flourishing, is also not easy, but, it is oh so worth the efforts. I am loving coaching, and making art. It may be a small start, but it is the right direction and I look forward to meeting all the beautiful people who will come and join me on this path.
