By Irina Costea, Transformational & NeuroMindfulness© Coach

It was January 2020. I was rocking my child to sleep for the 100th time that night. In the last month he had two ear infections and a cold. I was at the end of my patience, of my resources and I was contemplating the end of my life.

What could I have possible done wrong in this life to deserve this suffering? What on Earth could I do more so I can end this horrible pain? The best response that came into my mind was to basically end my life. I could not go another day. Not like this.

But somehow, I managed to pull myself together and survive another night.

3 years later and I have over 1000 hours of 1:1 coaching, I run a coaching school and my own coaching practice. What? What is this? What happened in the last 3 years that from suicide I became this a coach with this amazing environment? Let’s go back to January 2020. A few days later, the ear infection subsided, and life was beginning to look normal. Our normal.

But then my son fell on the floor and hit his head really hard. He started choking and for a split second I thought I was watching him die. We called the ambulance, got admitted into the hospital. Fortunately, it was just a concussion and he was fine.

I was shaken to my core. He was ok. He was alive. I was alive, but not ok.

Something clicked inside of me and my perspective shifted. I suddenly had this urge to live and to do something with my life. But what?

I wasn’t particular good at anything, I was your average person who had done some things in her life, but nothing exceptional. I was living in the shadows for most of the time, I hated being seen, but somehow I craved that from my inside.

I started this Positive Psychology specialization and things started to move a little. I understood that optimism is a skill that you can gain, and that became my little goal.

I was doing therapy for the last 4 years and it helped a lot with my anxiety, but it was still a very heavy thing for me to carry around, along with the horrible lack of sleep and suicidal post partum depression.

So I did the next best thing, and the thing that ultimately saved my life: I hired a coach. What else did I have to lose?

She sent me a video with a guy talking about play prior to our first session. What the hell had play anything to do with coaching? (oh, my innocent child, Irina, you will be amazed).

I burst into laughing, thinking how foolish everything sounded. But then, it started to make sense. Little by little I stopped laughing and I started really listening to this man. What do you mean Industrial Age? What do you mean Connected Age? What the hell do you mean that failure is the foundation of success? I would later come to know this amazing man. His name is Dave Buck, and he is one of the first life coaches in the world.

I know him as the man who taught me that all human being are creative and playful. I love him with all my heart, and I think everybody needs a Coach Dave in their lives.

I had my first coaching session where I launched into this “Ted Talk” about how life is hard, about how everybody seems to be good at something and I can’t even be a good mother to my child, something that was supposed to be natural. What do I have to give to this world?  And then something shifted when she started talking.

It felt so powerful that 2 hours later I was researching coaching schools online, because I again started to feel this urge to do something with my life. What if I could take this massive pain of mine and transform it into something good? What if I could bring to other people what this woman brought me? It was too time consuming to go into college again to study Psychology, but also, I wanted to work with people on building their future and their life, not on their past.

I was introduced to CoachVille, sent them an e-mail, and after a 9 minute call with Deanna, she told me “Welcome to CoachVille” . What just happened? I hated being tested about anything, but she did not test me. We just talked. Why would she give me this scholarship? She didn’t even knew me. But somehow she saw something in me. Could it be?

No. My mind was running 100mph with reasons with why she needed to give me that scholarship. But no matter how, I was in.

Classes started on April 2020 and before my first class I was literally in a horrible panic attack. That’s how much school terrified me. But then it started and I heard his voice: “Hi, Coach Dave here”, my heart pounded. I started listening to him about play, about failure, about influence and I had AHA moments after AHA moments.

Basic things like listening (do you think you know how to listen? Sounds easy. It’s not.), communication skills, fears, beliefs, everything was reframed. Everything I knew about myself, about other people, about what drives us and what stops us, has been reframed with each CoachVille class.

I was in tears. I had been living in my own head for my whole life, and all these amazing things were out here. But now I found them, and damn me if I let anything slip.

Very soon I started coaching my friends, and every coaching session was like a meditation for me. I was so in flow with what was happening, but I could also see my own triggers, my fears and my limiting beliefs.

I made this decision to forget everything I knew. My mind was like a blank page now, ready for a new story to be written.

With every class Dave and Deanna gave me insights, gave me purpose and brought  ideas to life that I didn’t even knew I had.

Before discovering coaching I changed career 3 times: I’ve worked in the music industry as a Label Manager and I was an IT Recruiter for a corporation and then an IT recruitment agency.

I graduated from The Faculty of Sociology, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources, I have a Master’s degree in Human Resources Management, yet until 3 years ago I felt like I didn’t belong in any domain.

I knew my superpower was connecting with people and my curiosity, but somehow they didn’t seem to serve me so well. I never believed in myself and in my natural strengths, but coaching allowed me to sit with parts of me that I didn’t knew they existed, on a subconscious level.

While discovering coaching, I built the self confidence to go out to the world and play, I discovered my superpowers, I sat with my fears and anxieties, looked them in the eyes and thanked them for trying to protect me.

I then proceeded to become a NeuroMindfulness Master Practitioner, which changed the way in which I approached life and transformation processes in general.

Not once I said: coaching saved my life. It gave me the tools to navigate emotional storms grounded and centered. It gave me purpose, it gave me a mission. The mission to help people understand that they are not broken, that there is NOTHING wrong with them. We are all amazing human beings that need to (re)connect with out authenticity and human nature.

For me, I feel this is only the beginning of an amazing journey. From a person that had no idea where her life was going, to a person determined to change the world, and actually changing it bit by bit, I cannot wait to see what it is store for me.

Helping other people to go through this kind of journey is my dopamine, my drive and everything that I need to go on. Because I believe in the power of coaching, in the power of profound belonging and growth! And this is what I want to bring into people’s lives.