FAQs about Coaching

What training do I have?

In addition to being a registered practitioner with the Three Principles Global Community (3PGC), I graduated with honors with a major in Psychology from Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, CA and went on to get my masters in Educational Psychology from Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles, CA. I worked as the lead school psychologist for my district in Los Angeles, California. Right before I stopped practicing I supervised psychologists in addition to providing individual and group counseling. I have been running counseling groups and training/supporting psychologists in group counseling facilitation for 11 years.

I also have training in council through the Ojai Foundation.  I love this practice because it offers a way of communicating that encourages attentive listening, as well as honest and compassionate expression. It makes room for new insights and understandings, wisdom, and healing. While our group will not follow the  format of council, this practice has influenced my way of running groups and allowing for an experience of true community, recognizing that each voice needs to be heard, that every person has a gift & a story to share.

I completed the ALERT Mentoring Program with Dr. Bill Pettit who is a board-certified psychiatrist who has spent the majority of his career awakening mental health, and sharing the understanding that there is just one cause — and one cure — for mental illness. Dr Pettit had shared the Three Principles within his psychiatric practice for more than 35 years at the time of his retirement from clinical psychiatry in 2018. Bill was mentored personally for over 26 years by Sydney Banks.

I also completed a virtual mentorship with George and Linda Pransky.

What experience do I have? 

I remember experiencing anxiety as early as kindergarten. The intensity of my anxiety varied, but looking back I often engaged in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) behaviors in an attempt to relieve my anxiety. I first had intensive therapy at 19 and individual therapy at 20. I was also diagnosed with ADHD at 19 even though there were concerns regarding my attention in elementary school.

My relationship with my therapist at 20 (Beverly) inspired me to want to be a therapist myself. I went on to work with numerous therapists trying many different modalities such as cognitive behavioral therapy, somatic therapy, yoga therapy, and neurofeedback. A lot was helpful, but not long term. I also have done extensive work in meditation and mindfulness. I completed Insight LA’s 6 week mindfulness-based stress reduction program in addition to completing a small group intensive vedic meditation training and working 1:1 with a mindfulness coach. I am trained to teach mindfulness and yoga in school. I have gone to acupuncturists, which I have loved. I have taken Chinese herbs, worked with holistic and naturopathic doctors. I have taken homeopathic medicine, naturopathic medicine, vitamins, and medication. I have changed my diet drastically and for years rarely ate out or ate anything processed or non-organic. I have used essential oils. I have worked on my gut health extensively. I have tried hypnosis. I have done extensive tapping (emotional freedom technique). I have worked with healers. I have journaled.

I have attended Onsite’s Living Centered Program, which is a world-renowned workshop designed to help you bring your life back to center by connecting your current or past experiences with how they affect you today. I was lucky to have the opportunity to rewrite my narrative and resolve areas of my life that felt stuck. I also attended The Hoffman Process, which is a week-long residential and personal growth retreat that helps participants identify negative behaviors, moods, and ways of thinking that developed unconsciously and were conditioned in childhood. This soul searching, healing retreat of transformation & development for people helped me make peace with my past, release negative behaviors, have emotional healing and forgiveness, discover my authentic self, and improve my relationships.         

You name it, I have probably tried it. A lot of it was fun and I made amazing friends that I still have today. Four years ago I came across the Three Principles and they have been the most transformative of them all although I’m sure everything has made me who I am today. Today I put the approaches that I used to transform my anxiety and build a life of my dreams into Peace From Within.

What are the Three Principles?

The Three Principles differs from many other approaches to tackling anxiety (and all human emotions) in one fundamental way: the Three Principles focus on teaching health rather than treating illness. I love that the Three Principles are rooted in a belief that we all have innate mental health & well being. The Three Principles bring us back to this and through my coaching I help clients remember how to access and sustain this health.

In essence, the Three Principles states that humans create our own psychological and emotional reality via our thoughts from the inside out, and that fresh thought is available in any given moment. We are constantly creating new realities although we may not be aware of it. The good news is that because of that we are only always one thought away from a different (and often better) feeling. For people suffering with anxiety, it also means that they are no longer under the control of powerful emotions associated with past events.

Can I have a therapist and also participate in coaching?

Yes! Lots of people I work with individually and in a group have a therapist.

Communication

Please share with me, your stories, your wins, and your disappointments, anything you like as well as your thoughts about coaching experience. I want to know what works and what does not. 

If at any time you are not comfortable with any part of the group coaching, let me know immediately so we can deal with the situation and move forward. Please note the following information.

What I do as a Coach:

·   Share the principles that have been most transformative in my life

·   Normalize your experience

·   Listen nonjudgmentally

·   Provide unconditional acceptance

·   Offer different perspectives

·   Provide structure

·   Assist in allowing you to have insights and a new understanding

·   Hold you lovingly accountable for what you want to achieve

·   Trust you to make your own decisions

·   Show up with your best interests at heart

·   Tell the truth

·   Believe in you

What I do not do as a Coach:

·   Judge you

·   Give you legal, financial, or medical advice

·   Take responsibility for you or your actions

·   Share anything you’ve shared with me 

What I ask from you:

·   Show up like you’re visiting a museum. Curious, excited, and waiting to see something you haven’t seen.

·   Be open to a new way of thinking about anxiety and thoughts in general.

·   Be open to listening rather than trying to “get it right” and take notes and think intellectually about this.

·   Let me know if something isn’t working for you.

·   Have fun and enjoy the process!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Warmly,
Lily