Your WHY and your HOW are like yin and yang — one gives meaning, the other gives movement. Without knowing your why or your how, we can spend a lifetime moving in circles, repeating the same patterns.
There is a story about a priest who was once confronted by a soldier while walking down a road in pre-Revolutionary Russia. The soldier, pointing his rifle at the priest, demanded, “Who are you? Where are you going? Why are you going there?” Unfazed, the priest calmly asked, “How much do they pay you?” Somewhat surprised, the soldier replied, “Twenty-five kopecks a month.”
After a thoughtful pause, the priest said, “I have a proposal for you. I’ll pay you fifty kopecks each month if you stop me here every day and challenge me to respond to those same three questions.” As we move through the challenges and transitions of life, we all encounter moments like this. Moments that ask us to stop — to reflect, rather than rush forward. To pause long enough to ask ourselves with openness and honesty:
What am I doing?
Is what I’m doing now aligned with where I’m going? Where am I going from here?
Why am I going there? What can I do?
Who can help me to get there with clarity and confidence?
When we hold space for these questions with honesty and openness, we begin to walk with greater clarity, purpose, and inner alignment.
A Simple Metaphor for Coaching
The metaphor is of a car and driver. The driver is the client. The client is steering and making decisions on how to move. The coach is the car, supporting—not directing—the process.
In therapy, most time is spent looking in the rear-view mirror—examining the past so that you can move forward. With coaching, we are primarily looking out the front windshield to where we want to go (future-focused, vision & goal oriented).
What is not Coaching?
Coaching is not therapy
It’s not about healing the past, diagnosing, or treating mental health conditions. Therapy often explores “why” things happened and works to resolve emotional wounds. Coaching focuses on the present and future — helping you create awareness, make conscious choices, and take empowered action forward.
Coaching is not consulting.
Consultants are experts who analyze problems and tell you what to do. A coach does not give you the answers — instead, we help you uncover your own wisdom, clarity, and solutions through guided inquiry and reflection.Coaching is not mentoring.
A mentor shares their experience and advice to guide someone along a similar path. In coaching, the focus is entirely on you — your goals, your values, and your way forward — not on the coach’s personal story or expertise.
What is Coaching
Coaching draws from a range of disciplines, including education science, business science, philosophy, sports psychology, positive psychology, and neuroscience.
Because of these many overlaps, there is at times confusion as to what falls under the umbrella of coaching and what falls under the umbrella of other helping professions − Which is why it can be helpful to understand coaching by distinguishing it from other personal or organizational support professions.
A collaborative conversation
Inquiry-based process
Future-focused
Action-oriented
Enhances personal responsibility
Recognizes the coachee has many answers within themselves.
At the heart of all coaching is self-awareness
Being aware is fundamental to our very core existence. Without awareness, we move through life disconnected — from ourselves and, ultimately, from others.
As we grow in self-awareness, we begin to understand why we feel what we feel and why we behave as we do. This understanding opens the door to freedom — the freedom to change, to grow, and to become who we truly want to be.
If you wish to change your life in any way, you must first know yourself. Understand what holds you back. Face your fears and self-doubt with compassion. Gain clarity on your vision, your desires, and — most importantly — your why.
When you connect with that clarity, you begin to consciously and actively create the life you want. Greater self-awareness brings a mind that is clearer, more centered, and more confident in action. The people we admire — those who live purposefully and achieve their goals — are not necessarily the most talented or lucky.
They are individuals who know who they are, who intentionally design their path of growth, and who remain devoted to the lifelong journey of self-knowing.
Christy Lin
E-RYT 500 Experienced Registered and Certified Yoga Teacher since 2014
Certified Deep Transformational Coach.
She has completed Continuing Coach Education (CCE) training that meets the standards of the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
Since 2014, I’ve had the privilege of guiding individuals, groups, and organizations through yoga and meditation—supporting people in reconnecting with themselves, finding healing and strength through movement, and experiencing their inner calm. But something shifted in 2020—both within me and in the people, I was working with. I began receiving more requests for one-on-one sessions. The conversations that followed moved far beyond physical practice. They became heartfelt exchanges—spaces of truth-telling, vulnerability, and healing. Over time, our yoga space transformed into a sanctuary for reflection, insight, and deep personal transformation. I was there, and it is beautiful and powerful!
Since then, I’ve facilitated over 600 hours of heart-centered sessions. What I came to realize is this: the hardships that I gone through in my own life—beginning as early as age three—were not in vain. They gave me a profound understanding of suffering, darkness, and hopelessness, not as concepts, but as lived experiences. And from that place, I’ve learned how to hold space—with compassion, presence, and unwavering support—for others trying to lift a huge rock out of their own way in life.
In 2025, I became a certified professional coach, and now I bring people and small groups from the practice of mindfulness to finding their clarity and taking action toward their personal goals that truly fill their spirit.
1, Schedule a 20-minute phone call (Free)
Before you schedule a 20-minute phone call, please reflect on the question below.
What do you want to get out of this phone call?
What exactly would you love to have, achieve, overcome, see, or feel, and why it is important for you?
By when would you like to experience, achieve these things in your mind?
What would you like to happen in the next three- six months?
What are you doing at the moment to change or work through those situations or reach those goals?
2, Schedule a 60 mins Trial Coaching Session
Coaching is a partnership that supports you in moving from where you are to where you wish to be. If after our 20-minute call, you feel inspired to go deeper, you’re welcome to book a 30-minute trial session to experience what our work together could look like. Please fill out a pre-session form first before you book a 30 mins trail session. Thank you!
🌿 Coaching Reflection questions
1. Bring one question you’d like to explore in our trial session today.
2. Tell me a little bit about where you are right now — emotionally, mentally, or in life/work.
3. Vision — Where would you like to be? How would you like to feel? What experiences or goals are you hoping to create or achieve?
4. Action — What steps do you think will help you get there? What needs to happen to move closer to your vision?
5. Challenges — What fears, setbacks, or obstacles are you currently facing that you’d like support with?
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Christy is a powerful pure presence! She held space for me to dive deeper, to hear my inner truth and be able to speak this inner knowing out loud. I feel hard and seen! When I have a wobble and fall back on the “old programming,” she gently reminds me of the truth that came from me in stillness, the truth that is Me, beyond all the stories and identifies I’ve thought were me. She reminds me of My True Self and the freedom the comes from listening to the wisdom that lives within Me! Thank you, Christy! You’ve taken coaching to a whole new level! I’m deeply grateful for your presence!
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One of my takeaways from our session is that only I can truly know my inner self, but that doesn't necessarily mean that "I do know myself". There's a lot that I do know about my inner self but I feel as though I've barely scratched the surface, it seems infinite. I feel that there is so much potential inside of me, inside all of us, but if I want to discover my potential, then I need to actively listen to what my inner voice is telling me, because no one else can do it for me, and I find that exciting. It's unique to me just like everyone else's inner self is unique to them, and that's awe inspiring.
Another interesting part of our session was the question "what is the light in the dark for me regarding my physical pain?" After meditating and calming my busy mind, I let that question swirl around in my thoughts for a while and it feels like the light almost extinguishes the dark. Here are some examples of the light I see with my pain: My leg wasn't amputated and I walk fine and without using any devices. The physical pain doesn't come anywhere close to the mental pain and anguish I was feeling prior to my accident. The physical pain from the accident is what put me in the hospital for 5 weeks, but the 5 weeks in the hospital gave me lots of time to think and reflect on how out of control my life felt, and that's when my inner voice started me on my path to becoming sober. Because of my pain, I have more empathy and a deeper awareness that all creatures deal with some sort of mental and or physical pain during their lifetime. My pain put me on a path to meeting and working with Christy and what I've learned from her so far has changed my life, and I don't say that lightly. Those are just a few but significant ways of seeing the light within the dark. My pain can be hard to deal with at times, but I don't think of it as dark very often and in fact I'll say "Thanks pain for all you've given to me!"
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Thank you for the great session! The first message that resonated with me was the importance of recognizing the effect of our history on our reality – both genetics and the way that I socialized and grew up. I started a pattern of behavior that included a lack of awareness and self-talk that was making it hard for me to be grounded and true to myself. I was applying temporary fixes (band-aids) and short-cuts to deeply rooted issues and was completely unaware of my own garden and only focusing on the gardens of others. It was a world of chaos and disarray that eventually manifested in every aspect of my life. It did not allow for me to be comfortable in my own skin and everything was a projection of what I thought others wanted to hear … and this of course was a projection of the self-talk that I had been engaged in with myself since I was a child. By the end, I couldn’t focus or complete anything and this resulted in unfocused and unthoughtful responses most of the time as I was just forcing my communication. I see that by spending time daily cleaning, clearing, and nourishing my space it changes everything that I’ve been seeking to change. By applying that energy that I was putting into things outside of me to focus inside, the shifts immediately started to happen, but I have noticed that they do not come easy – they often come thru difficult and challenging situations with the challenges bringing the shifts. A major part of that inner work is becoming aware and accepting myself without judgement or labeling.
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Thank you so very much for your loving presence at our session we had last Friday. I really enjoyed your deep listening ability and compassionate guidance. I found it really helpful in the beginning how you gave me a little overview of how the session could flow in an organized yet organic way. I found it really helpful how you made me feel valid during the moments that I felt like I was not really honoring my own truth regarding how I experienced the situation of powerful figures in my upbringing and their impact on my self-esteem and confidence essentially. I was brushing it off as if I was making it okay for others to make people feel less than loved and accepted yet you gestured in such a way that let me know that you were with me and by my side about the pain it may have caused me, so you made my fears and pains be seen and that was the most transformative moment in our session that really helped release more of me that felt resistance and unseen. You did a great job of staying with me wherever my consciousness went. I don't have any feedback for improvement other than to continue operating as you already do in session, it has a positive impact on me.
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Over the past few weeks, I've been intentionally facing some things from my past that I have never fully come to terms with. While it will take time, at least bringing some suppressed memories/feelings to the surface is helping me process some of the inner vulnerabilities that my psychological triggers attempt to protect. I've observed some connections between triggers/emotional imbalance and lack of being present in the moment, as well; when I my mind is somewhere else, I am not in complete control of my emotions. I'll likely be working on some of these past issues for some time, although I can already notice a difference. I'm in a process of commitment and full acceptance of my past as who I am today, in each moment. As I am getting older, there is increasingly more past than future time remaining, and the only guaranteed time that I have is each present moment. I'm trying to more deeply appreciate each moment as a gift.
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It seems that I am too often affected by what the world has to offer- it seems to always be dissatisfied with who I am. Furthermore, I am often the same way. I have learned that insight into one's true nature comes from looking within- a non-reliance on outer phenomena.
The way of the world can distort one's perception of true nature, particularly if that is where you are looking for the final truth. It may be that there is importance in the knowledge gained from our experiences in the world. But, ultimately, in finding peace of mind, it is letting go of these experiences that is important. As I understand it, experiential knowledge comes not by mere participation in the world. After participation, one must be willing to let go of the experience in order to receive the insight that leads to such peace. The mental and physical agitation that I experience seems to suggest that I have difficulty with the part of this process that involves letting go. The fact that I am able to recognize this, along with progress made, suggests to me that I am on the right track. Thank you for another great session!
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For the past year I’ve been exploring my purpose. With a broken heart and anxiety from betrayals, I knew it was time for me to take a hard look at myself and identify the parts I played in my own suffering. I have difficulty trusting others, but my first conversation with Christy was everything I didn’t know I needed! She has been such a blessing. She is welcoming, honest, wise, supportive, and genuine. A beautiful soul! Life is not about the destination, but the journey and people you meet along the way. I highly recommend connecting with Christy to support you along your life’s path.
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"I'm so glad that I chose to meet with Christy to talk about achieving a goal of mine. She did a wonderful job creating a warm, open, and light-hearted space for our dialogue. I not only left with a plan to move forward, but a greater peace of mind. Christy is compassionate and wise. I highly recommend reaching out to her!