Episode 156: How Energy Work Can Be Integrated With Business Coaching

Transcribe of Episode 156 – How Energy Work can be Integrated with Business Coaching

Henriette Danel:

Today you’re going to learn number one how a business coach can incorporate energy work in their practice. Number two, why your mindset and self belief are crucial for any success. And number three, the energy around clarity and releasing of trauma.

Welcome to the entrepreneurial success podcast with me as your host, Henriette Danel, here we discuss client attraction, business growth and personal development. 

Maybe you’ve been wondering whether you should work with a business coach or a life coach? Or what about a mindset coach? We’re so fortunate these days to be surrounded by amazing people who can help us in life and in business. But choosing the right coach is the hard part. So what if you meet a business coach who can incorporate the same energy work that life coaches and mindset coaches use? Well, that will just solve all our problems, right? We all know that with anything in life, we need to start to work within ourselves. The question is, where do you start? Now I would love to introduce you to Julia Ngapo. Julia is a business coach working mainly with women in business. She integrates Reiki, Seichim and Shamanic Healing with all her other practical tools that you might expect from a business coach. She helps you create the clarity around your vision, the actionable steps towards your goals, breaking down all those blocks and banishing that pesky impostor syndrome, as we all know it. And today, we’re going to discuss how she integrates this energy work into her practice, and how this can help you as a business owner. So let’s get ready and head on over to Julia. 

Henriette Danel

Before we dive into a little bit more of business coaching, what it’s like and the energy behind it, why don’t I hand it over to you so you can introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Julia Ngapo  

My name is Julia Ngapo . I’m a Holistic business coach, I integrate energy work with what you might expect of a business coach, the practical tools. I’m a Reiki and Seichim Master Practitioner. And I use that alongside shamanic healing in business coaching. And whilst you might not think there’s a natural sort of alignment between the two, those tools actually work really, really well on a very practical level.

Henriette Danel  

This is why I’m so fascinated, and so excited to have you here, because it just shows how different we are as business coaches, you are more around the holistic approach with energy. I am much more on the strategic approach. And this is why I just love having this conversation. And I think everybody is just going to walk away with so many great tips today. Before we dive into all the good stuff. Tell us a little bit about your story. I mean, how did you decide to become a business coach? Or what was that thing that kind of led you to this journey?

Julia Ngapo  

Well, I started off way back, probably when dinosaurs roamed the earth I started, I studied law. I worked for a few years in private practice and got really mercilessly bullied by my boss. After sticking it out for two years, I decided that enough was enough. I really couldn’t take any more. I left without any notion of what I was going to do. I couldn’t get another job in the law because my self confidence had hit an all time low and we were just about to go into or were part way through a recession so there weren’t that many jobs. So I was literally thinking to myself, “well, what on earth am I going to do?”. So I decided to set up in business. That didn’t really fill me with the sort of fear or dread that it might other people because my parents were both self employed and ran a business together. So for me growing up, since the age of 11, or 12, it had sort of been just something that you did, either you were employed or you were self employed. I learned very quickly, it was a very steep learning curve and I made all the mistakes that you could make. I ran that business until I got married and had my two children. I worked for 10 years as marketing director for a fairly large, meaty organisation. From then I actually moved to New Zealand, my husband is from New Zealand, we moved over to New Zealand for a few years, came back. And again, I was at that sort of crossroads. And thought “yeah okay, what am I going to do now?”. So I decided to set up self employment again and set up a marketing agency offering marketing consultancy and social media management. I ran that for a number of years, but I got to the stage and I think it was triggered by the fact that my children had grown up. I got to that crossroads, which I think is common with an awful lot of women. Where you get to a point in your life and you think, “Okay, what now?” As I say, for me, that trigger was when my kids had grown up, and I was sort of having to redefine my role if you like. But I gave myself a good talking to and discovered that the bit of my marketing consultancy, social media business, the bit that I really enjoyed was the strategizing with clients and the face to face stuff. Because as a social media manager, most of your stuff is writing content. So, I investigated business coaching and decided that was something that was calling me, went off and retrained and here I am today. So yeah, I always thought when I started, when I came out of university, I always thought that my business life was gonna be a very straight path, I was going to study law, I was going to do this and this. Of course, you know, life isn’t like that. It’s much more peaks and troughs and a very bendy road. So, yeah.

Henriette Danel  

It is fascinating to hear your story because I think so many people can resonate with it, while they hear this is that they will also say, I started with something and thought this is going to be the rest of my life. You know, I’ve got to go into marketing, I’m going to go into a managerial position, I’m going to be an accountant, whatever that might be. Then quite a few years later, you find yourself going in a completely different journey that you never even thought of when you started out, basically. But you just show the natural journey and how you develop as a person. The development that you go through on your journey is kind of like what is guiding you in order to take on these other opportunities that you never even thought were possible.

Julia Ngapo  

I think I’m really passionate with my own children in giving them the freedom to evolve and to decide what they want to be. I mean, why should we at 18 years old, commit the rest of our lives? You know, the next 50 years of working to something that we decided when we’re relatively young, if it works out for you all well and good, but nothing is set in stone.

Henriette Danel  

Exactly, exactly. So let’s talk a little bit about the topic for today, because the topic that we’re going to discuss is very different from what I always talk about, the strategies, the planning. Even though you have a background with marketing, the holistic approach that you’re taking, I think is so fundamental. For you as a business coach to use that approach, I think so many people can benefit from it, only because of my own experience. So I can only talk for myself here saying that I have gone through that holistic approach and getting to learn more about me, but also realising that there’s so much more to coaching and so much more to life as a general when you really just start being open minded to this thing. So talk to us a little bit about coaching and the energy behind mindset in particular.

Julia Ngapo  

Well I think the added input of energy work works really, really well. With mindset work, it has a number of different applications. Let’s take Reiki as the most commonly known form of energy work. People tend to think of it as being a very hands on treatment, you’ve got a physical ailment, and you may go to a Reiki practitioner for hands on treatment. But it has an awful lot of other applications. One of the best ways, the most effective ways it can be used is on clarifying, it has the ability to do is to just wash through you very gently, and to look at or to clear the blocks more effectively and more quickly than if you and I weren’t, you know, in the standard sort of business coach way, we were looking at blocks and self limiting beliefs and all that good stuff. It helps clients to break down those blocks an awful lot quicker. And certainly in terms of mindset, it’s really effective in looking at the person that you are, and what your mindset is, what are the blocks that are holding you back and moving you forward from there.

Henriette Danel  

Yeah, and I think it is so important, because, you know, as we were talking about the blocks in particular, and there are some that we kind of know about that are conscious and then there are other ones that are subconscious that we don’t even know about. I find that the most interesting thing for me is that we might not remember certain memories as an example, that created these blocks. But the thing is those memories always have a feeling attached to it and that feeling is the thing that your brain remembers, and that’s what is causing the block. I do find that with the energy work in particular, like you just mentioned Reiki as an example, the kind of energy work that you would do would really just dive down into the subconscious and clear some of those blocks that you might not have even known were there. This is why it’s so powerful to do things with yourself such as Reiki but to use it in a business format, whereby those limiting beliefs, those blocks can really start getting triggered and cleared out a lot quicker than let’s say, somebody who’s starting to practise meditation, for instance?

Julia Ngapo  

Reiki particularly and Seichim also actually work with the higher self work, with the subconscious very, very effectively. It’s also that Reiki will always win. Reiki is a Japanese term which literally translates as universal life force energy. The energy is channelled. It isn’t my energy that I’m giving somebody, it’s the energy of the universe, because everything, every inanimate object around us has energy. We are all energy, we have 90% water. So we’re energy, everything is energy. I have the ability, because I’ve been attuned to channel that energy. Anybody has that ability, but it’s just that the channel is blocked, until you are attuned. Once you’re attuned, you’re able to channel that energy. So when I use energy with a client, or use Reiki with a client, the energy will intuitively go where it is needed within that person’s body. So intuitively, don’t ask me how we just have to approach it with an open mind in the same way that we know there’s a wire connecting our computer which allows you and I to talk to each other. We don’t quite understand how the technology works, but we trust that it does. Energy is exactly the same and it will allow the person, allow the recipient to receive that energy where it’s needed most and to literally break down this box with no effort from that person, the energy just does what it does which is amazing.

Henriette Danel  

If I can use the analogy, it’s almost like a hose pipe that water flows through. But as soon as there’s a kink in the pipe, the water can’t flow anymore. Energy is the flow, the water that flows through the pipe. But what the Reiki does, it kind of just goes in and unkinks the pipe almost. So the flow of the energy can still keep going. I don’t know why the hosepipe just popped up as you were talking. I was like, well, it looks like it could just be a kink in the hose and it needs to be sorted. Yeah.

Julia Ngapo  

Yeah so it’s an amazing tool to be able to use. I am really privileged.

Henriette Danel  

This is really fascinating because obviously, you know, I have never done Reiki before. So for me, it’s a completely new concept and I’m sure some of the people in the audience would even go “What the heck is Reiki?”. But from your point of view, how can the work in energy also help us with self belief, confidence?

Julia Ngapo  

It’s about that shift in mindset. It’s about self care. Part of being attuned to Reiki, you have to sort of make a commitment to various different things and one of those is commitment to self care, because you can’t pour from an empty cup. So I can’t channel energy for you, if I’m anything less than looking after myself. So when you start introducing self care into your life, you build up importance you know, you start to see yourself differently. You realise that you are important, that you are worthy and one of the things that I work a lot with with women in business is on self worth. On understanding value and charging, what you should be charging and all those sorts of things. So it’s a really useful tool, it literally can change your mindset.

Henriette Danel  

Yeah, self belief is one of those things that can really stop us in our tracks. I mean, from my experience as a coach working on the strategies and the strategic elements, and it’s almost like, you know, as human beings for us seeing is believing. We can only believe something once we’ve seen it working. But at the same time, what you’re trying to do there can’t always be evidence for, the evidence will come but you’ve got to believe before you see it. This is where I think that self care is something that is so vital for us immediately because as soon as you start looking after yourself, you start feeling better. That is already evidence that, “hey, you’re taking care of yourself”. So with that, your belief will grow with the work that you’re putting in, you can see it’s working. So that kind of evidence that we need all the time, it starts with self care, so I can see how important that element is just to grow your own belief. 

Julia Ngapo  

It’s no good being a shrinking violet in business, you’ve got to stretch yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s called a comfort zone for a reason. Whilst it’s all nice and warm and fuzzy in there, you know, growth comes when you stretch that zone and you move outside it and confidence is integral to that. If you haven’t got the confidence, if you don’t value yourself, then you’re not going to do it. It is fundamental building that. That’s not to say that you’ve got to be arrogant or cocky or have all the answers because nobody does. We all have those moments, I’m sure you’ll agree, where we’re thinking, “oh, gosh, I don’t want to do this”, you’re sort of teetering on the edge of whatever precipice you’re standing on. But once you start building that self confidence, you do see the results and you do see that you are worthwhile and that you can do this.

Henriette Danel  

I actually have something that I want to share about confidence and and this is a little thing that I kind of started explaining as well to my clients and I hope you don’t mind me explaining it here. But you know how everybody has got this little diagram about confidence and they say, this is your confidence circle, but the goal you want this this little circle all the way there and then you’ve got to go through all of this vastness, this blackness, there’s white, whatever it is, in order to get to your goal. I think this freaks people out because this is kind of like now I’ve got to step into this vastness, this unknown, this darkness in order to reach my goal, but what I always want to share with people is remember, you never step into the unknown. As soon as you take that first little step out of your comfort zone. Basically, what happens automatically is you go, ‘Oh, well, the walls haven’t caved in, lightning hasn’t struck. Well, you know, it’s okay, I’m alive.’ But what happens at that moment is you get a reward. That reward is the confidence going, ‘Yeah, you did it, amazing.’ At that same time, your little confidence circle grows around you protecting you again and then you take another little step, you get the confidence and your circle grows, again, protecting you again, all the while you’re growing, but your confidence grows with you until you reach your goal. So you’re never stepping out into the unknown. I think as soon as you start looking at it from that perspective, you know, all of these things with what you’re saying, you know, the self belief, the care, everything just falls in place, because now you’re going, ‘Oh, I can see, I can see that, you know, if I take a little step forward, I’m not going to have to freak out because I’m still going to be covered, I’m still going to be safe.’

Julia Ngapo  

Yeah, that’s a really good analogy, actually. And it is, it’s absolutely true. I mean, when we look at any long term goal, or mid term goal is scary. And it should be actually a little bit scary because it’s got to push us out of that comfort zone. Sometimes it’s called a BHA, a big, hairy, audacious goal. But you’re right, it is all about those little steps, it’s not one giant leap for mankind, it’s those little steps that we maybe don’t notice, as we take them, we may be not aware of the progress that we’re making. So when I talk to clients, it’s very much about recognising how far they’ve come as much as looking at how far they’ve got to go. Because it isn’t all about what’s in front, it’s about what’s behind as well, as much as learning from, from mistakes as much as celebrating successes.

Henriette Danel  

Yeah and this is where the self care comes in. Again, celebrating those successes makes you feel good and make you feel like ‘oh my gosh, achievement, look at what I’ve done’. I love how it all comes together. It’s all part of that self care, again and again, building your own belief. Let’s talk about clarity, because I think this is also another thing. I find that so many people always come to me and ask me, ‘How do I do this? How do I do this?’. I’m sure you get so many questions, as well as the how, but you know, clarity is one of those things that you don’t just immediately get, in a sense, it’s something that you kind of have to grow, you got to go on a journey. The more you move forward, the more you get clarity and this comes back again, back to confidence. But from your holistic approach with the energy, well, how do you find clarity? And how do you find that combines everything?

Julia Ngapo  

I can’t really answer it. But I wish I could with a ‘you know, this is how it works’ way because the way that energy work works is actually far beyond any sort of human understanding. I mean, I could go really deep, but it actually transcends time. So with energy work, you can go and heal the past, and you can go and heal the future. That’s not about time travelling. It’s about looking at your response and the healing of trauma, and things like that. Past experiences. But in terms of clarity, I wish I did have that answer of how it exactly works, but I don’t. In terms of energy work, working with the client and understanding their goals, I look at them in a very holistic fashion, i.e. the person behind the business as well as the business. It’s about understanding their values, and getting clear on what success means to them. I think it’s about understanding what success means to you. I’m really against the term success being this intangible thing that we’re all supposed to strive for, when actually success to you means something totally different to success to me. So I’ve worked really hard with clients to define what that success is for them. Is it that they take more staff on and grow their business, is it that they start winding down because they’re looking to retire, is it you know, that they get a full order but whatever they’re sort of definition of success is. Well, I think clarity is an integral part of that. Clarity of vision, certainly.

Henriette Danel  

It evidently starts with having the end goal in mind. That’s what it is all about. Having that clarity and then the in between and how to get there comes together at the end of the day. But I find, like I said, so many people come to me, how do I do this? How do I get this? It’s like, well, you don’t have a goal yet. So of course, you’re not going to know the how. Don’t worry about the how, you know, once you’ve determined in order to achieve a goal that how will show up. But yeah, from an energy perspective, that clarity, I think it is super important to understand where you fit in. It’s so true of success. I’ve had so many people talk about success in different ways and there’s no wrong or right. Everybody is unique in that matter. You mentioned something a little bit earlier and that this was the release of trauma? I think this is quite valuable as well. What would your take be on that when you would approach a client? What would you say about the release of trauma?

Julia Ngapo  

I’ve worked with a number of clients who’ve been quite traumatised, for example, by past employment. Perhaps they’ve had a boss who’s been less than perfect and has caused them trauma. I’ve worked with a lady who’d been employed for a number of years, in a relatively senior position, thought that she was there for life and her boss made her redundant and brought a relative in to take her position. When I started working with her, she was really, really traumatised by it, quite understandably. When you’re traumatised, it tends to sort of infiltrate every area of your work, you lose that self confidence, you lose that self worth, you lose that vision, because suddenly, you’re on this path that you didn’t ever think that you were going to have to be on. So one of the tools that I use is shamanic healing. It sounds really woo, I get it. It sounds like I’m, you know, dancing around a camp bonfire, biting the heads of chickens or something. But it really is the most gentle of energy work. It’s the oldest form of energy work. Practised by indigenous peoples all around the world, although we tend to think of it as being sort of South or Central American. A practical application could be something as simple as imagining that, in this example, that boss, imagining him in a plastic box, where he can see you, but he can’t respond, he can hear, but you can’t hear him speaking. Then you can stand there, imagine that he’s in front of you and you can just vent at him and tell him exactly what it is that you think of him. What that does to our brain is it allows it to process the trauma that we’ve been storing up. The problem is, with anything like that, the more we store it, the more energy we give it and the bigger it gets. It sort of ticks the box, as far as our brain is concerned, my brain can then file that episode away, as sort of, you know, done with. So there’s nothing weird about it, it’s a really simple thing that you can do. Another thing you can do is to write letters to your trauma. So if you had and this works with sort of self limiting beliefs as well, that inner critic, write a letter to that inner critic. Pour out your heart, say whatever you want to, you can swear, you can shout if you can shout on paper. You can do whatever you like and then rip that letter up and burn it. That’s a shamanic technique. So they’re really down to earth techniques, but they’re very, very effective.

Henriette Danel  

Yeah, it’s interesting, because those are the kinds of things that we all know about. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of stories about people saying, you know, write something on a piece of paper and light a candle and burn it. I think we never had a name for it. So the shamanic healings really kind of puts a name to it and then it also describes the history of where it’s coming from. But I think one of the most important things that you mentioned there is that whatever trauma you have is kind of stored in the brain as still it’s an open thing you haven’t found closure for it yet? And I think this is so important with what you’re doing, then, as you’re finding closure, you’re ticking that box and saying done ‘Brain, you don’t have to remember this anymore. Let’s keep going forward now’ and I think that is what the most important thing is, is the brain will always remember something or always will find answers for something that hasn’t quite finished yet. That’s what is holding us back and I think this is also where the limiting beliefs and the blocks and things come in because there are still things there that you feel you need answers for, the brain is telling you that it needs the answers for, it needs closure. So I think it’s really important to look at it from an energy perspective with what you’ve said and close it from there. You can go into the back, you can go into the past and go and clear some things there in order to help you move forward.

Julia Ngapo  

That’s only really the tip of the iceberg with shamanic healing. I mean, there are certain schools of psychotherapy that believe that when you suffer trauma, a part of your psyche is hived off, sort of shaved off if you like. So all of us, any of us who’ve been through any sort of trauma in our lives, may have some sort of the subpersonalities. There is an aspect of shamanic healing, where you can go and reunite yourself with these subpersonalities and sort of bring them back into the whole, it’s really effective. That is sort of going a little bit deeper into the whole sort of shamanic thing but a really useful thing to be able to do and it makes such a difference.

Henriette Danel  

I find it very fascinating, there’s so much that we can learn as human beings, not just as business owners, but as human beings about energy and how to use energy for ourselves for personal growth. But also just to discover what you can do for other people with it. For me, it’s just one of those untapped tools that we can really, really use. This is why we’re so excited when you and I met for the first time and we started having that great conversation, I was like, we’ve got to do a podcast, we’ve got to bring you on, we’ve got to share this with people, because there are ways to work through these kinds of problems. Knowing people like yourself, who are out there doing this, helping people, is so good. Putting everything together, you’ve got an amazing freebie for everybody, you’ve got a workbook that’s going to help everybody, why don’t I hand it over to you, tell us about this free workbook and what they can get from it.

Julia Ngapo  

Thank you. It’s a business vision workbook. It’s called Steps to Success. It starts by taking you back backwards, to look at what it is over the past year, and then you might want to take it back slightly further than a year given that we’ve all had, you know, a hell of a couple of years. Look at what has worked in your business, what hasn’t worked, and what you can learn. There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. I really believe in that. So what feedback can you give yourself from this past segment, and then bringing that forward, the workbook will help you sort of bring that forward into lessons to inform your future. We then do a visualisation of where you would like to be in a year’s time, three years time, five years, whatever. There’s space to sort of note it all down and then we create the action steps that are going to take you to that point. So it’s a quite comprehensive workbook. But it’s really useful in creating that vision of where you are now, where you’ve come from, and where you want to be.

Henriette Danel  

I think it encapsulates beautifully with what we shared here today. So thank you so much for making that available. You know, if you have a vision about what it is that you want to achieve, that’s where the clarity comes in. Just talking about that I think everybody’s gonna see it all mapping together. where you’ve come from, getting rid of all those blocks, you know, recreating your self belief, looking after yourself, and then the how to get there, that’s kind of like the in between that you’ve got to that you’ve got to work through and taking those steps. With the workbook, you’re making that so beautifully available for everybody just to guide them in order to show them some of the steps that I can take. So thank you so much for making that available. Now, I would highly suggest that those of you listening or watching this video, you should go and download this workbook, it doesn’t cost you anything, it will just give you enough clarity in order to take another step forward. So the link will be below in my shownotes, you can go and get it there. Then I would also suggest that if any of the things that Julia mentioned here today that kind of strikes your curiosity, and you’re curious to learn more, about shamanic healing, about how she can help you maybe with Reiki clearing up some of those blocks, getting the clarity yourself building your belief, your confidence, all of those things, I would suggest that you get in contact with Julia and see how she can help you. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to have a conversation with you. So her website details will be in the show notes, including LinkedIn, and Instagram. So you can also send her there a message, Julia, thank you so so much, however, do you have one last little tip that you want to share with the audience before we go?

Julia Ngapo  

I think it is this: ‘Don’t compare yourself to anybody else’. Because you are unique, you’re here to make a difference. So don’t compare yourself to anybody and work on that self belief. Because that’s key.

Henriette Danel  

Absolutely. Beautifully said. Thank you so much. Again, it was a privilege to have you here. Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge and for those of you listening, go and download the freebie. I’m sure it’s going to help you a lot. Julia, we’ll be in touch very soon again. Have a lovely day.

Julia Ngapo  

Thank you, Henriette.

Henriette Danel

Thank you so much again, Julia, for being here with me on the entrepreneurial success podcast. For those of you listening as mentioned, you can now go and download Julia workbook. This is called Steps to Success business vision workbook. The link is below in my show notes. Then also feel free to connect with Julia via LinkedIn and Instagram. And if you have any questions, you can also reach out to her through these links. All of those are provided in my show notes. And as always, I’d love to hear your feedback. So leave me a comment and let me know if this episode was of value to you. And wherever you are. I’m wishing you a lovely day and keep a lookout next Thursday for another great episode. Until then, take care.