Why I Call Myself a “Spiritual Coach” Not a “Spiritual Leader”

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I understand that there’s a place for spiritual leaders. But even though I have strong feelings about spirituality, I don’t consider myself one of them. Instead, I consider myself a spiritual coach.

The way I understand it, a spiritual leader is someone who will lead you toward believing what they believe. And they may have good reason for believing those things. Their own experiences with spirituality may have led them to those conclusions. But as a coach, it’s not my job to lead you to believe what I believe when it comes to spirituality or spiritual matters.

I don’t want you to believe what I believe just because I believe it. If you ask me about my beliefs, I’m willing to share them with you. But as a coach, my job is to help you discover your own authentic beliefs so that you can develop your own authentic spirituality.

My Experience With Religion

One of the reasons I struggled with religion was because it requires you to believe other people’s beliefs and practice rituals established by other people. In my experience, I didn’t find anyone encouraging people to reflect on how they actually experienced their Higher Power. It seemed that you were just supposed to accept that when you practiced religion the way you were taught to, that was enough. But people can experience their Higher Power or something greater than them in many ways.

For example, people can experience this Force in nature, in art, in anything that captivates their mind or heart, or anything that allows them to get in the flow state. I never heard this kind of talk when I went to church. The emphasis was on believing other people’s beliefs and performing other people’s rituals. And while that may help some people feel connected to their Higher Power, that wasn’t the case for me.

By nature, I tend to be someone who does things differently than other people. And I highly value independence and autonomy. So, I don’t do well with other people telling me what to believe or how to live. This is one reason why I think religion caused me to develop mental health issues. It was forcing me to do things and believe things that were contrary to my nature. Now that I consider myself spiritual, not religious, I’m free to live according to what I believe. And I find that to be very freeing.

How Spiritual Coaching Works

Unlike a spiritual leader, I’m not going to tell you exactly what to believe or what rituals to practice to feel connected to your Higher Power. As a spiritual coach, my job is to help you uncover the ways you already experience your Higher Power so you can better understand your relationship to that Power.

Additionally, I want to help you uncover spiritual beliefs that are authentic to you and that allow you to practice an authentic form of spirituality, rather than following rules and performing rituals established by others. This can allow you to live more authentically, which in turn can make it easier for you to make decisions for your life. You’ll be making them from a place of inner power, as opposed to from a place based on other people’s beliefs.

While I know that some people can find great comfort in religion, I can’t help but think that there’s always an element of control in religion because someone has to be the authority figure who’s telling other people how to live their lives according to religious teachings. But when you practice your own version of spirituality, you become the authority figure in your own life.

I’m passionate about people having control over their own life because I know what it feels like to take a passive approach to life, feeling like you have little to no control. I feel like religious teachings can lead people to believe this.

Not everyone who practices religion arrives at these conclusions, though. Religious people can take an active role in their life. But if you’re already inclined to take a more passive approach to life, religious teachings can encourage that. They can encourage you to believe that you have very little power and that you have to rely on an outside force for everything.

I find this to be a very disempowering way to live. The way I understand things now, I see my Higher Power as working with me, as opposed to me having to passively wait for my Higher Power to do everything for me. And that means I have an active role to play in my life.

Also, as a coach, I’m not going to tell you to perform specific spiritual practices or rituals. Instead, I’ll encourage you to explore and experiment until you find practices that work for you.

And while you may find that more traditional practices like meditation are beneficial for you, you can also do things to help you feel connected to yourself and your Higher Power that fall outside the traditional idea of what’s considered “spiritual practices.” Just experiment until you find what suits your spirituality and your lifestyle.

Final Thoughts

A spiritual leader is someone who leads people to believe what they believe and practice spirituality the way they do. As a spiritual coach, I assist people in uncovering their unique version of spirituality so they can be an authority figure in their own life and enjoy the unique relationship they have to their Higher Power.

More specifically, as a coach, I help people navigate the transition from being religious to being spiritual if that’s something they’re interested in. I find that this transition has been very beneficial for me, including helping to ease my religious scrupulosity and helping me stop suppressing my sensuality.

Since each of us is a unique individual, I believe we all have a unique relationship with our Higher Power. And I believe that the only way to truly enjoy that relationship is for us to practice spirituality in a way that’s authentic to us. While you can adopt spiritual practices and beliefs from religion or other forms of spirituality, to really live authentically, I believe you have to make sure that your spiritual practices and beliefs are authentic to you.

~ Ashley C.

P.S. If you’re currently religious and you’re interested in making the transition from religious to spiritual, feel free to click here to learn more about my spiritual coaching services.