Masterful coaching requires growth along two distinct dimensions. One is the outer mastery of our craft. The other is the inner mastery of life itself, which is our own spiritual and psychological maturity.

While outer skills are useful, it is this inner dimension that ultimately defines the depth and impact of our work.

How life relates to itself within us is how life will be able to relate to itself outside of us. Therefore, our illusions about love within us shape our illusions about love outside of us.

Coaches who have not seen past the illusions about themselves struggle to help clients do the same. We can only guide others as far as we have journeyed ourselves.

So let us talk a little about our individual journey, and then we can take a look at how it can inform our coaching.

Our individual journey with love

Most people typically begin with Love as an Action. We are taught to practice self-love, to perform acts of kindness for ourselves, to use affirmations. This is the world of self-love as an externalised verb, a first step where we treat our “self” as an object to which we can give or withhold love.

With maturity, we may arrive at a deeper understanding: Love as Presence. We realise love is less about what we do and more about our state of being. The work becomes more subtle as we focus on cultivating an accepting and loving presence. We might undertake various healing practices like shadow work or inner child integration, amongst others. The coach as an instrument of love becomes more finely tuned.

But there is a final, more radical development. It is the shift to seeing Love as a fundamental reality. This is a vertical leap where we recognise life as a single, unified, and interconnected field. To perceive this reality, however, we must first see through the primary illusion that stands in the way: the deeply ingrained feeling of being a separate, isolated self.

This can be done in many ways, one of which is to confront the subtle illusion of “self-love” itself.

The very idea of “loving yourself” implies two entities: a ‘self’ that gives love and a ‘self’ that receives it. This reveals the concept’s inherent absurdity: if you are the one giving love to yourself, you must already possess the love you seek to give.

This is where the inner work becomes the dissolution of this separate self. It is the recognition that the “I” we believe ourselves to be — our personality, our history, our ego — is a temporary pattern, like a wave on the ocean. The wave is temporarily real, a label given to a shape, but it is not the totality of what is.

When this illusion of being just a separate wave is seen through, what remains is the ocean itself. We realise that our fundamental nature is not the wave, but the water.

We collapse the duality of the subject and the object within us. We realise that we are water expressing ourselves in the form of a wave. We realise that we are the entirety of life expressing itself in the form of an individual.

We identify ourselves with life rather than with a temporary illusion made of thought.

Coaching beyond the person

In any coaching session, there are two conversations that can happen.

The first is the one we are trained for: the conversation between the person we call ‘coach’ and the person we call ‘client’. It is a dialogue between two narrative selves, two stories, two minds working to solve a problem – be it a problem of circumstances or a problem of personal growth.

But there is a second, deeper conversation available. This conversation is not with the person, but with the Life force that is moving through the person.

Instead of a coach talking to a client, we see that the person we call the “client” is Life in a temporary story of limitation. The person we call the “coach” is Life in a temporary role of spaciousness.

The coaching conversation is no longer an interaction between two people. It becomes a space where life can talk to life. The coach, having seen past their own narrative self, becomes a kind of clean mirror for the life force of the client to see itself more clearly.

To have this second conversation, the coach must first be anchored in that same life force within themselves. You cannot speak a language you do not inhabit. This work requires a coach who has done first-hand inquiry, and can rest in the spacious, impersonal and limitless intelligence that lies beyond their limited mind.

From this place, the nature of the coaching changes significantly.

The impact of this conversation

Imagine what would happen if you had a coach who did not collude with your story of being a limited, struggling person. Imagine they spoke only to the vast, creative, and whole intelligence within you.

The “problems” you came with would not be solved; they would be dissolved. They would be revealed as small, temporary and inconsequential clouds passing through an infinite sky.

This will enable your focus to shift from the limitations of your story to the limitless nature of the storyteller that you are. The more clearly you recognise yourself as the creator of all your stories, the more effortlessly you create what you truly desire.

Now, imagine what would happen to your clients if you were that coach. If in a coaching conversation, you can only perceive one infinite life force expressing itself through this person.

This is the work far beyond all technique and methodology. It is the art of seeing Life in another and speaking to it directly. It is the most potent and loving act a coach can offer, because this is the love that is brave enough to see through the illusion of the helper and the helped. And what greater expression of love is there than life’s love for experiencing and expressing itself?

A note on resources

A natural question arises from this: How does one begin the journey to seeing love as a fundamental reality?

The most important understanding is that no practice, book, or retreat is the answer in itself. These are all simply containers. The real work is in the quality of consciousness that you bring to the container. Anything can be a spiritual practice, from drinking a glass of water to engaging in prayer, if it is met with the totality of your presence.

Nevertheless, as coaches, we know the power of a good container. In that spirit, here are a few that can serve as catalysts for this recognition:

Pointers & Philosophies: Engaging with books and teachings that point directly to this understanding, such as ‘The Space Within’ by Michael Neill and ‘The Missing Link’ by Sydney Banks, or exploring non-dual spiritual traditions like Vedanta and Taoism.

Contemplative Practices: Committing to a regular practice like meditation, breathwork, or simply spending silent, unstructured time in nature to quiet the analytical mind and connect with a deeper sense of being.

Immersive Environments: Participating in one-time containers like silent retreats such as Vipassanā.

Receiving Coaching: Engaging in ongoing one-on-one coaching/mentoring with a coach who operates from this depth.

Direct Self-Inquiry: Turning your attention inward to investigate the nature of your own self and experience.