By Brenda Fagan, Senior MCS Student New Orleans, LA

I’ve been an occupational therapist for 16 years working primarily with older adults in clinical practice and managing rehabilitation professionals. Over the years my work became more and more centered around mindfulness practices and coaching both with the patients and families I served and the staff that worked for me. I found the most joy in my work when I was using these approaches and decided to look for opportunities to hone my skills. I was thrilled to find the Mindfulness Coaching School in the list of ICF-approved schools. For the past two years I’ve been taking classes, learning and growing and being supported by an incredible community. MCS is so much more than a coaching school, it’s a journey to yourself that leads you to everyone and everything.

Over the summer I took the last three classes I need for my ACC and Mindfulness, Wellness and Somatic Coach credentials: Body Electric, Where Mind Goes, Qi Goes and The Dynamic Trio: EMDR, Positive Psychology and Somatic Coaching. I experienced these classes at a time when I was away from my home city working in a nursing home at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I was immersed in practices of somatic awareness, energy flow and expansiveness. Through each class I got to explore with my fellow classmates the many ways there are to feel the connection to your body that is always present, how to be still and listen to the wisdom it has to offer and how to use my learned skills with clients to help lead them to themselves, their truth, their highest excitement.

I used what I was learning with the patients and staff I worked with every day at the nursing home where life seems very out of body and control. I hiked to the top of mountain peaks and the bottom of redwood groves practicing Qi Gong every day and drawing from the power of nature that surrounded me. The energy, stillness and absolute truth that exists in the silence of the woods and mountain tops combined with the coaching skills I was learning and practicing in class and with my homework partners has given me more than I could ever have imagined. Thank you to my classmates, my homework partners, Ann-Marie and the Mindfulness Coaching School for being on this incredible journey with me.

And this is just the beginning…