Jiddu Krishnamurti was a spiritual guide from India who lives from 1895 until 1986. Through his teaching and writings often in association with the Theosophical Society, Krishnamurti had a significant impact on the perspectives and practices of many people throughout the world who were on a spiritual quest during the first half of the 20th Century. Krishnamurti’s work became particularly well known in the United States after the noted author, Aldous Huxley, introduced him to mainstream publishers in American. Krishnamurti also became acquainted with the noted physicist, Daivd Bohm, and found that his own perspectives aligned in many ways with the scientific findings of Bohm.
Sonya Carlson, my hypothetical personal coach, studied under Krishnamurti and his proselytes at the Krishnamurti Institute during the early 1980s. She completed a demanding training program at the Institute and initially decided to apply the perspectives of Krishnamurti to her own life while she served as a high school teacher and then as a counsellor at her school. However, after more than two decades, she decided to bring his work into her new occupation in the emerging field of personal coaching. She felt that it was time in the United States for Krishnamurti’s view of life to become more wide-known and applied to the issues that Americans experience in their daily life.
Background
I turn to a set of hypothetical coaching sessions that Sonya has with Katherine Vicanti, a 45 year old woman who has had a successful career as a college administrator and was married for 18 years to a man who was an executive in a high-tech firm. Katherine and her husband raised two children who are now in their early teen years. They have been divorced for 1 year.
Katherine found Sonya’s name in a listing of personal and life coaches she obtained at a one-day conference on “The Future of Coaching” that was held by her college. Katherine chose to contact Sonya because she wanted to work with a woman and because Sonya’s office was located in a small city located only 10 miles from Katherine’s college town.
Session One
The first session begins with Sonya asking what Katherine would like to work with a personal coach. Katherine indicates that she wants to better prepare for her future. She was recently divorced and is no longer interested in working in a collegiate institution. Katherine states that she is at a point in her life when the present circumstances are no longer satisfying and it is time to look toward her future before she grows “old and full of regrets!”
