Celeste Mendelsohn is one of the coaches that we found this month and we did a little interview with her. She impressed us with her courage and wisdom.
She is a coach for women who grew up in challenging circumstances that resulted in trauma and she uses Yoga as a therapy to help them heal.
She started her career because she is too a childhood trauma survivor and she wants to help people overcome the challenge she also faced.
Her coaching approach is unique because she utilizes Yoga as a therapy. She says that Yoga is more than cool clothes and esoteric music. In fact, Yoga is one of the oldest systems and sciences that was used for healing the human being and help it thrive. Here is what she said.
Meet Life Coach Celeste Mendelsohn:
Name: Celeste Mendelsohn
Pillar: The Body, The Heart
Who is this coach for: Women who grew up in challenging circumstances that resulted in trauma.
How they can help: Through personal awareness practices including breathing, meditation and movement, Yoga as a therapy.
First of all, how are you and your family doing in these Pandemic times?
I’m doing very well, thank you for asking.
How does the coronavirus pandemic affect your clients? Did it affect you at all?
It affected me, yes.
But the effects weren’t the negative that they originally seemed.
When the Pandemic happened, I and many like me, moved their work online.
What happened then was fascinating!
My clients actually started improving faster!
I spent time looking at this dynamic and realized that trauma survivors actually do better when they are in their own homes rather than treatment centers or care facilities, and the Zoom perspective allowed them to feel connected to me in group meetings, and not feel like they were amidst a group of strangers in a strange place.
All benefits.
What are the biggest lessons that you learned in this pandemic?
As I said above, that trauma survivors are way more comfortable, and so, learn more, in the online environment than in person, at least for a while.
Meeting people in their comfor zone is critical to healing.
The Origin:
Tell us about you, your career, how you started with your coaching career?
I’m a coach for women who grew up in challenging circumstances that resulted in trauma.
Like many drawn to coaching, I started the work I do because I am one of the people who could benefit from this type of coaching.
It’s my passion and my mission to help others to overcome the challenge that I have also faced.
What was your biggest obstacle that you had to overcome in your life that made you who you are today?
Childhood trauma was the obstacle, needless to say.
What it created was a huge lack of self confidence and fear of public speaking and meeting new people, which, as you know, is what coaching requires.
My path through the effects of trauma started with yoga, but in a big way has also been my passion for helping others, enough of a fire was lit that in order for me to be comfortable at all in my skin, I had to walk through my fears and put myself out there to assist others in their own recovery.
The Coaching Style:
How do you innovate with coaching your clients?
I’m not sure what this question means.
My work is “innovative” because my approach is using yoga therapy as a foundation for healing.
I’m a yoga therapist and family recovery coach.
What’s unique about your coaching approach?
Using Yoga as Therapy, including breathwork, movement practices and meditation as well as more traditional coaching has made a huge difference for my clients.
This is what worked for me as well, and happened organically, as when I started doing Yoga there weren’t words for Childhood Trauma at all.
This was 27 years ago.
What benefits do your clients get after working with you?
More comfort being present in their bodies, less anxiety, ability to shift their moods and perceptions, easy to use tools that help them to deal with life and overcome obstacles, and in the future, an online community for support, this is an ongoing project at the moment!
Do you use any specific tools to be efficient with your clients?
As stated before, personal awareness practices including breathing, meditation and movement.
The Impact:
If you had a super megaphone that, when you speak into, the whole world will hear your message, what would you say?
Yoga isn’t all about cool clothes, slender bodies and ethereal music.
The original foundations of Yoga (5000 years ago), was theraupetic!
It is a comprehensive system that encompasses many valuable tools and lessons to assist human beings to heal and thrive in a challenging world.
What is the greatest lesson you have learned in your life?
That breathing is the key to recovery from so very many ills of the body, mind and spirit.
Your final thoughts?
Yoga was first recognized as helpful to trauma survivors by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk in his book “The Body Keeps The Score.”
It’s taken many years, but Yoga is now recognized as a healing modality for trauma survivors by the medical and psychological communities and is a science based and science backed modality for treatment of childhood trauma.
Where Can You Find Celeste Mendelsohn?
If you liked this interview and you would love to learn how to heal from trauma and thrive through Yoga, go to https://childhoodtraumacoaching.com/ and see how Celeste can help you.
If you’d like to connect more personally with her, you can do that through LinkedIn or by sending her a message on her email [email protected]. It was an honor having this interview with her.
