Listening leads to new pathways of understanding

The past two years have changed many things. It has changed our personal lives as well as professional lives. It has changed relationships and how we do our jobs. The way we look at our lives and the way we look at our careers has evolved significantly.

And so it was for Tina Zimmerman. As an ordained minister since 2014 who was working as a chaplain in a retirement center, she had an opportunity to be trained in how to become a coach. She started out thinking that it could be an extension of her current career, the skills helping her with her chaplaincy work, so decided to move forward.

As she did, she realized that she was not only enjoying this new path but that she felt specifically led to the work.

"I was feeling like I had been designed to do this, and I saw that at this time the world really needed it," she explained. "People now are simply hungering to be heard. We don't get that much in everyday life. I started to see coaching as a ministry in itself; so I quit my job and I decided to focus on coaching."

At about the same time she also was offered a pulpit supply position, preaching a sermon each Sunday but not having any other pastoral responsibilities. This allows Zimmerman to utilize her ministerial skills, which she enjoys, for income while finding her way into the coaching business, and eventually fully focus on the coaching side.

And what does it mean, exactly, to be a life coach?

"For a person to be in conversation with a life coach, we're trained to listen very carefully," she explains. "As a coach, I don't have to be an expert in your life or your situation — you're the expert! Your life has taught you enough to move you forward. Coaches, on the other hand, are trained to listen, ask good questions, and shine the light on your own wisdom."

The coach's role is to encourage, to reflect back, "here's what I'm hearing from you," and to help you set up a system of accountability: where are you going, and how to you want to get there?

Zimmerman adds that anyone, at any stage of life, can benefit from a life coach, but she found that it was surprisingly helpful in her role as chaplain at the retirement center.

"Seniors, the elderly, employees at the center, families of the aging ... I talked to all of them," she says. "But a big part of the reason I started the training was to counsel employees during season of Covid, as they were making decisions — do I keep on working here; is it safe; do I need to find somewhere else to work; what else can I do? I was feeling at a loss of how to help people make sense of those questions, and that's what originally took me into it."

Throughout her ministry, she says, she has repeatedly learned the lesson of "don't try to box God in ..." There are always new doors that will open up; you just have to be flexible and ready to go where God is calling. And so it has been in her life. As a stay at home mother, she volunteered in what she calls "churchy" stuff while her four children were growing up. "I spent my time teaching Sunday School; my journey has taught me and prepared me well for a life in ministry," she adds. "I would never trade those years."

And while she's done a lot of "churchy stuff," she says she's equally well equipped to be in conversation with people of faith as well as those people who don't claim a faith life. "There are a lot of ways to express a person's spiritual life," she adds.

She is available to coach via zoom and for in-person coaching through the church. The first one-hour session is complimentary, to allow you to "try it on," and get a feel for what coaching actually is and for the coach and client to get to know each other. After that, she will usually schedule monthly experiences, but there is flexibility in that too.

Zimmerman stresses the importance of listening well during the coaching sessions is the essence of what works.

"It can be very helpful to talk to someone who is hearing you," she says. "It's a healing response at this time in the world. And it's a wonderful way to respond to the craziness that is 2022."

Reach Personal Coach Tina Zimmerman at coachtinazimmerman@gmail.com or at www.belovedriver.com

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.