Coaching Model: Soul-fully

A Coaching Model Created by Minna-Maria Virtanen
(Life Coach, Transformational Coach, FINLAND)

A Holistic Life Coaching model: Soul-fully

The aim of my blended coaching model is to help clients to reconnect to their authentic self and support them to make goals, take decisions and action from a place of inner wisdom and truth. This model is based on the understanding of body and mind connection. 

Besides coaching, I use the ancient concept of chakras, to help the clients to align with their authentic self. To work with chakras in my model means using methods such as movement, dance, music, color and painting, writing and journaling, visualization and guided meditation. These methods can be used with coaching variable ways, but they will always form a cycle, where coaching session is followed by a creative mentoring session and again that can be followed by coaching. 

To illustrate how to use this model, I have two examples:

• A client has manifested everything that is generally looked successful, but she’s not happy and she doesn’t really know how her authentic life would look like. Here working with chakras can give help her to open up to hear her own unique voice and recognize her passion.
• A client has great ideas, she is able to vision them, talk about them enthusiastically and take some action, but in the end, she is not able to finalize and bring the project in the daylight. Looking at this in the framework of chakras makes it possible to work on the blocks and help the client to use her/his whole potential. 

The chakras and areas that we connect in the process are the following:

1. Connecting to our body’s wisdom and instinct, Root chakra

Often we might are too much in our heads and get disconnected from nature and connecting to our body and nature brings us a firm base. When we have balance in this area, we feel safe and confident in our life and good in our bodies. When have balanced energy flow in root chakra it manifests itself as material well being and feeling of belonging to a place and a community? In case we have problems with security and handling the material world, balancing root chakra is a powerful way to make a change.

2. Connecting with desire and passion, Sacral chakra

This level we connect to our desires and passion, which gives motivation and puts us into movement.  We also let our emotions to move in a healthy way. We are connected to our feminine and nurturing energy (this applies to women and men) and creativity.

3. Connecting with our personal power, Solar Plexus

Living soulfully and fulfilling our ideas requires also taking action. When we are connected to our power, tasks seem effortless. We feel capable, worthy and enough. By connecting to this chakra we gain our energy that might have been suppressed for some reason or other.

4. Connecting with the heart, Heart chakra

At this level, we connect with our hearts. When we do that we can feel connected and at peace. We feel love for ourselves and for others. We are kind to our self and others. This is also a level where we feel enthusiastic about our project.

5. Connecting to the expression, Throat chakra

At this level, we connect with our truth and we express it.

We can use creativity and expresses ourselves in our own unique way.

6. Connecting to intuition, Third eye chakra

At this level, we connect to our vision and clarity for life. We don’t only use logic, but we hear our intuition for navigating in life. 

7. Connecting to a bigger self, Crown chakra

Here we connect to our higher sense of purpose in life. This means that we feel a connection with the universe, source, spirit, Buddhahood, or whatever we call it.  

Issues and patterns that occur in life can depend on many chakras, so it requires careful examination. However, being aware of the chakras and working accordingly with body and energy can be a simple way to help something that just as the psychological issue seems very complicated.  In case you’d like to know more about the ways of balancing chakras please read also my research paper. 

My mission

My mission is to support people to follow the soul’s calling and find a unique path.  I believe that proceeding in our unique path makes life happy and meaningful even in the times we face difficulties. It’s also a way that makes us feel more satisfied and spread our glow to others as well.  Moreover, believe that change in the state of the world can only be reached by one person at the time finding her/his own potential and authentic voice. I’m naturally in this path myself. 

I chose to become a life coach because it is all about my passion: living a fulfilling, meaningful, healthy and balanced life. Back in my time at university, I have taken a Master’s degree in Educational Sciences with a specialization in Art Education. In my personal life, I have become a practitioner of Buddhist meditation, yoga, and Expressive Arts therapy, but it was not until I started to feel really unsatisfied and drained in my teaching work, that I put in practice what it means to live a fulfilling life for myself. I resigned from my work and moved to Italy, which had been calling me over for years. In this new environment I gave myself a lot of time for yoga, writing, painting, meditation and strolls around the town, -everything I needed to really get connected with my heart. Later I started arranging “Creative Break” -retreats as my new work. Soon after it seemed very natural to start studying Life Coaching.

In my coaching model “Soul-fully” I put together what I learned in the ICA and everything that life taught me meanwhile… That is the fascinating part of chakra work, which opened my eyes and made me look at my beliefs about how life works and change the ones that no longer served me.

My clients are people who want to stop running the rat race, but something is on their way. They want to open-mindedly explore the world, they want to find their inner wisdom and live according to that. They acknowledge that they are responsible for their own journey, but that they don’t need to do this journey alone. They want to have better insight into what is blocking them and how to move forward to the life that feels lighter, more enjoyable and rewarding to them.