Kundalini Yoga Coach - International Training Level 1

I believe that people turn to Kundalini Yoga for two reasons: out of inspiration or out of despair. I came in despair. I have had back problems since I was eleven. I remember my mother being so surprised to see these problems with someone so young. The back pains varied in intensity over the years and reached their peak when I was 28.

At the time I was working as a PhD student at the University of Maastricht. One evening I couldn't get up from my desk and a friend of mine had to carry me down the stairs to take me home. With some heavy painkillers and muscle relaxants, some beer and chips, I spent more than a week just lying in bed. Hardly able to be, I remember thinking in pure despair: "How is it possible that I have so little energy and why is my physical body such a mess at such a young age?" Now that I am writing this, I still feel grief in me.

I believe the universe has responded to my desperate request. A few weeks later, when I recovered a little, the same friend asked if I wanted to come along to a yoga class. I thought it would be good for me to work on my physical body, so I went with him. It was a Kundalini Yoga class. Of course I found it a bit weird. I think we did the Ten Bodies kriya and the Kirtan Kriya (the Sa-Ta-Na-Ma made me feel like I was doing something occult). My friend asked me if we should continue with this. I hesitated a bit, but an inner voice said yes. So we went on. Sometimes weekly, sometimes we missed a few weeks, sometimes more than a few weeks. I think you know the dynamics of starting your practice.

When I was 29, I gained my PhD and moved from Maastricht to Amsterdam to work as an economic advisor at the Economic Development department of the municipality of Amsterdam. My brother, who also started Kundalini Yoga after my enthusiasm, told me he went to an early morning training session called Sadhana in the center of Amsterdam once a month. I decided that I would accompany him on one of his sadhanas on Wednesday morning. But every time my alarm went off at 4 AM, I would snooze and decide to go another time. Weeks passed. One day my brother told me that the next morning a 40-day early morning Sadhana Challenge would start and he challenged me to join him.

The next morning, instead of sleeping through, I jumped out of bed, stepped under the cold shower and cycled with my brother to the Sadhana in the center of Amsterdam. After doing the Sadhana group every morning for two weeks, I felt deep in my being that this could change the course of my life. So I made a commitment to follow this path. After 40 days I continued with Sadhana in the early morning and now more than 13 years later I still do my daily Sadhana. Not always in a group anymore (although I did that daily for the first 7 years) and not always so early (although always before breakfast) or so long (although I always do Japji, some yoga and some mantras). But I never miss a day. It has become my strongest life-enhancing habit and I am grateful for it.

Not long after my first 40 days, I started the Kundalini Yoga teacher training and started teaching. I was ready for some new challenges in my life. At the end of 2009 I decided to quite my job as an economic adviser, I traveled to India and promised myself that when I came back, I would only earn my living by sharing yoga. And boy, how I was challenged in that dedication to myself. In 2010 I met my partner and she soon became pregnant. So now I had a growing family, no job, and only gave two yoga classes a week.

My savings shrank quickly and before I knew it, we were in a financial crisis since my partner was unable to work due to her pregnancy. Fortunately people started asking me if I could also give private lessons (on a very limited scale I did that from 2008). So I started giving more private lessons. I asked € 45 for a private lesson of 90 minutes. And then € 15 would go to the yoga studio owner. This gave me a little more income. Although the extra private customers brought in more money, it was still financially very difficult to make ends meet at the end of the month.

I felt a calling to do more and I decided to give workshops. Giving workshops meant that I needed tot reach out. I was very shy by nature, so this was terrible for me. Although my students loved me, I didn't dare invite them to my workshops. My subconscious and my old programming created all kinds of doom scenarios with people who didn't like me, people who said no, people who thought: who do you think you are to give Kundalini Yoga workshops. There was a strong opposition in me, but the urgency was big enough to face these fears and to continue anyway.

Through self-coaching and the skills to go reach out (and of course my dedication to the practice of Kundalini Yoga) I always had full workshops. My interaction with clients and students was much more relaxed and effective. I saw so many people change their lives for the better through Kundalini Yoga and Coaching. So I decided to create a program called Kundalini Yoga Coaching in which I could share my positive experiences with daily Kundalini Yoga and the enormous positive effect of (self) coaching with others.

On a higher level this decision has brought me many things. I started by compiling two manuals with on the one hand the best of Kundalini Yoga (the teachings, exercises, kriyas and meditations), and on the other hand the best of coaching and self-coaching. When both manuals were completed and printed, I remember clearly that one evening I felt the presence of Yogi Bhajan so close. I felt him smiling and that gave me the final push and the confidence that what I was doing was good, and that I had the Golden Chain to support me.

In my research about coaching  I discovered (well, it felt more like it was given to me as a gift from the Universe for taking this bold step) a very good coaching business model based on long-term programs and an intake. I immediately felt this was an important missing link in my 1-on-1 work with clients. I felt goosebumps and shivers all over my body. I was determined to teach this part also, so I had to try and experience it first

So I decided to give away 10 yoga coaching sessions for half the price (normally € 120, now € 60). Then it was my intention to offer them a 6-month yoga coaching program for € 1.250. Because I had never asked for more than € 150 for a 2-hour session, this amount of money made me very nervous. A whole new level of subconscious scarcity programming came to the surface. Who did I think I was to ask for so much money? My subconscious mind fired very nasty thoughts at me. You are a traitor, a thief, how can you request these amounts?

Again, my level of commitment to growth was stronger than my subconscious, and with 8 out of 10 intakes I dared to make my offer (believe me this didn't feel natural - this was a new skill far beyond my comfort zone). Three of the eight decided to follow the 6-month coaching program (2 decided to participate in the training). I was so excited to serve people for 6 months and earned € 3.750 in that week (three programs for € 1.250). An incredible amount of money after all those years of financial scarcity. I loved it.

Of course, the dynamics changed by coaching people for 6 months. I needed different coaching skills to guide them through their resistance and difficult moments, but I quickly felt familiar and at ease. Having more time and space took the pressure away. There was more time to process and go through blockages. I started seeing the steps my coachees could take, the transitions and transformations they made and the tremendous value they would have if they were coached. Most people also had no problems making the financial commitment.

So I thought it would be good to raise my prices and expand my comfort zone even further. So I gradually increased the rate. First it became € 1.500 for six months. Later €1.750, €2.500, €2.750, €3.000. And even € 5.000 and € 6.000 for a year. These higher amounts were usually for entrepreneurs or people who were reimbursed by their employer. I helped people who were on the brink of burnout, but also people who wanted to take their job, their company or their lives to the next level.

The combination of Kundalini Yoga, the kriyas, the teachings and the Ten Bodies numerology combined with all the great tools of coaching, such as self-coaching, creating action plans, accountability, exercises for life and just asking and listening, proved incredibly valuable to people. In my Kundalini Yoga Coaching training I started to see that with every new training I was able to transfer the mindset and yoga coaching skills better and better. And my students became increasingly successful. I see starting yoga coaches who do intakes much easier than when I started and get all kinds of people in their yoga coaching programs. They and their clients are very satisfied with the results. I even see that people are already asking €2.400 for their first yoga coaching program that people say yes to.

For me it's a miracle that unfolds. Students and clients get so many benefits by sharing Kundalini Yoga in a coaching framework. Fully respecting the integrity of the teachings and at the same time use the communication skills from the coaching tradition. Although more than 50% of my Kundalini Yoga Coaching students do the training to grow deeper in Kundalini Yoga and learn to coach themselves better, I enjoy it so much that other yogis become more successful, reduce their financial stress and more often enter this awareness of prosperity.

Of course we don't do it for money, but healing our relationship with money is a powerful experience. It gives you more self-respect and freedom. It opens you to all possibilities (and of course also to distractions and temptations) to the outside world. Kundalini Yoga and Coaching feel very deep and loving for me. And the story continues to unfold as I coach more leaders in the professional world and now discover and develop my own business and leadership skills. Thank you for reading my story about how I became a Kundalini Yoga Coach with clients for whom I can make a difference.