Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.

 -Antonio Machado

We get one chance at life as far as anyone really knows.  So who we are in this life is important.  We are born into certain situations.  We stumble upon others.  Others we search out.  But one thing is true: we can not go back.  We can only make conscious decisions about how we want to live the situations that we find ourselves in from here on in.  The possibility to choose who I am in each situation, what I will take away from an experience, being able to reflect on who I am as well as what has made me this way are all invaluable rights of each person.  I am always a work in progress and things are  not always easy or pretty.  But living life to its fullest is not always pretty.  The really inspiring thing is that as a coach*** I also get to do work that allows me to accompany my clients as they explore themselves, their values, their desires and hopes and as they realize that they have a choice, too, in who they want to be in this world.  I get to be with them as they work through how to identify what makes them put the brakes on when they are trying to achieve something and what they already have inside that will empower them to take their own foot off that brake and go forward bravely as the leader of their own life.  I get to ask them questions that push them to dig a bit deeper into who they really are and what they really want.  I give them a safe space to allow them to feel all they might be feeling without judgement from me or from themselves, and to mirror back to them what I hear and see as they go through this process.  I love my work and as I go forward in it, I try to delve more deeply into myself as well.  I try to look behind the door that I might have closed tightly at some time in order to always be moving toward a better version of myself.  I learn to make better and more conscious decisions for myself thus letting me open up more to everyone around me.  And there is so much to open up to.   As a coach, I feel that I have to understand personally the work I encourage from my clients.  This is why I choose to share my reflections in the written form.   

So here is a bit more about me and the life I have already lived:  I have had a very full life already.  I am lucky, as my friends say- whether it is good or bad luck sometimes we are unsure! But I like to think that with each challenge and experience I have found the learning and the positive. After all I am still here.

I am from the US but have been living in Barcelona since 2007.  Since I left my family, my friends, my teaching job and my culture I have had hard times as well as the best times of my life.  I came here for love.  I closed up shop in Chicago and took on the huge challenge of making a life in another country.  This change and its challenges have taken years to fully understand, adapt to and truly accept. And there are still bumps in the road. Since I came here I got married, followed a passion and trained as a yoga teacher, had two beautiful children, made amazing, loving and inspiring friends, and have now trained as a coach and teach courses based on leadership, emotional intelligence, and managing teams.  

On another note,  I had lymphoma as an 11 year old, suffered paralyzing migraines that robbed me of months of my life  each year for the past five years (until I finally found a preventative medicine and have been migraine free since 2012!), had Guillain- Barre for 7 months and in March of 2014 was diagnosed with Stage 1c ovarian cancer.  Life is never still or stagnant.  I choose that life is about movement.   "No moss grows under you, Kristin!", as my dad tells me.  

I lay my experiences out in a list for the first time in a public space like this and it makes me balk because the illnesses I have had do not define me, but what  I see is that they do make up a part of who I am.  Leaving them out would be leaving out a huge part of me.  Living in an adopted culture and leaving my former profession as a high school Spanish teacher, becoming a mom and a wife, and having to really search for my identity away from what I do and rather in who I am have been fundamental in my path and in the work I do now.  I hope that some of the topics here reach someone and allow them a place to reflect on their own processes.  

***If you are interested in knowing more about what a coaching process is like, please contact me at:

También hago coaching en castellano.  Si te interesa saber más sobre el coaching, por favor ponte en contacto conmigo:

kristincoaching@yahoo.com

I would love to hear from you. Me encantaría la oportunidad de hablar contigo.

People seek out coaches to find new perspectives on difficult situations in their lives, to understand more about themselves, to reach goals or objectives in the workplace or in their personal lives, to better a relationship, to gain self-confidence, or to change or find the correct career path among other topics.  If you are looking for more fulfillment in any aspect of your life please contact me to see if a coaching process is right for you.  

La gente busca un coach para buscar perspectivas nuevas desde la cual se puede mirar una situación difícil en su vida, para conocerse mejor, para llegar a algún objetivo en su vida profesional o personal, para mejorar una relación, para subir el auto-estima o para cambiar o encontrar el camino profesional más alineado con sus valores e intereses entre otras razones.  Si buscas más plenitud en tu vida, no dudes en contactar conmigo para ver si un proceso de coaching es para ti.