Brainz Magazine Exclusive Interview
Seema Kohli is a transformation coach with more than 30 years’ experience of personal development and transformation, in her own life and in working with women around the world. Her signature coaching method, Powerful Life Mastery, takes women through a process of radical transformation in which they reconfigure their inner world so that they can create the outer reality they desire. Her mission: to empower women to show up unapologetically as who they truly are and create the life they desire.
Seema Kohli, Transformation Coach
Why are you passionate about supporting women?
For more than 30 years, I’ve done the work of embodying what I call the “inside-out” way of living. It’s a way of living in which we are guided by our inner wisdom, and we free ourselves from the conditioning that stops us living our most powerful lives, in our purpose.
For generations women have been told that what’s possible for us is limited. We’ve been told what we should want and how we should behave. We’ve been taught what roles we should play and how we should show up for each one. And when we dare to want more and claim it, or to choose ourselves, we’re judged.
It’s no wonder that our “default” setting is to play small – not speak up, not rock the boat, not take the chance, not ask for more – and to feel guilty or ashamed when we choose ourselves.
We all know a woman who wants more but isn’t able to claim it. Or who yearns to feel inspired and fulfilled by life, while meeting the needs of the different roles she plays.
Somewhere along the way she’s lost sight of herself and she may have even compromised essential elements of who she truly is.
Even though women have more freedom and opportunity today than any generation that came before us, this conditioning that has come through generations, and that is also learned in this lifetime, continues to hold us back and stop us showing up in our true power.
Our internal barriers hold strong, even when the external barriers may be coming down.
This is where I step in to help. My clients remember who they truly are so that they stop showing up as who they are not.
What made you walk away from a great career as a financial services lawyer to go on a spiritual quest in India for more than a decade?
I experienced a spiritual awakening in my early 20s which set me on my spiritual journey and the decision to live my life on my own terms. Since then I’ve practiced following the guidance of my inner wisdom, rather than being directed by what the world, society and the culture I was born into told me I should be, should want and should do.
In 2005, I experienced a personal loss which gave rise to a yearning in me to deepen my understanding about life and how to live today in such way that I would not have any regrets tomorrow.
So, at the height of my 13+ years career as a financial services lawyer, I chose to walk away and immerse myself in spiritual endeavour in India so that I could deepen this understanding.
I spent more than a decade in India, studying spiritual truths about who we truly are, where we find our purpose, and what it means to live our most powerful life.
How does your own transformation and spiritual journey influence your work?
From an early age we learn to look outside of ourselves for answers and for joy. We’re taught that our success is measured by external markers like our job, salary, label/rank, bank balance, and what we own, and that this is where we’ll find happiness.
We’re told that there are specific pathways that we must follow to achieve these things. And, we’ve learned to ignore our own inner wisdom and our intuition and to follow these pathways even though they may not inspire or fulfil us.
We’ve forgotten who we truly are and we live from the outside in.
We hope or believe that when we finally “achieve” our goal, we’ll be inspired by our life and experience what we yearn for. And we keep going on the pathway we’ve been told to take, even though in our heart we know there’s something different we’re meant to do, and something more we’re meant to experience, in our life. And when we arrive at the goal, we find that we aren’t more inspired, and we don’t have the experience we longed for.
Inspiration and fulfilment comes when you remember who you truly are, and practice living from the inside out.
Every spiritual tradition tells us that success is not about what’s happening on the outside. It’s about what’s happening on the inside. That it’s not about what you do, it’s about who you are when you do it. And that your inner wisdom will always take you in the direction meant for you.
Each time I walked away from a successful career, the first time to live in an ashram and spend more than a decade in India, and the second time to dedicate myself to guiding women how to live in their power, the thing almost all my colleagues and friends said to me was that they wished they had the courage to do the same and follow their heart’s desire.
Women who work with me discover how to follow their heart’s desire and live an inspired life, in their purpose wherever they are, and in the now. They don’t have to wait for something or someone to happen in the future.
What makes Powerful Life Mastery different from other coaching methods out there?
Most coaching methods are based on you living from the outside in. This is how we have been taught to live and these methods work within this paradigm.
They focus on you achieving a goal in the future (which may never come), rather than elevating your experience of living today.
They pay little or no attention to you becoming clear on who you truly are and what you really want. And so the goals, strategies and actions that are set are often what you (or your coach) think your goals, strategies and the actions “should” be.
They don’t support you to recognise and dismantle the internal barriers that stop you showing up unapologetically as who you truly are, in you power, and claiming what you desire.
Many women find these coaching methods very uncomfortable and ineffective. They have to grit their teeth and somehow push through with willpower to take actions that don’t feel aligned with who they truly are. And chances are they don’t keep it up for very long. If they do see it through and achieve the (should) goal, they didn’t enjoy the journey, and they’re disappointed when they don’t experience what they thought they would when they get there.
This is why I designed the Powerful Life Mastery method.
It gives women a different roadmap to create what they desire. They learn how to live from the inside out.
What makes Powerful Life Mastery so life transforming?
In Powerful Life Mastery I guide women through a process of radical transformation in which they reconfigure their inner world so that they can create the outer reality they desire.
My client discovers how to live from the inside out. She:
connects to her truest self and what she really wants
attunes to, and trusts, her inner wisdom which is always guiding her towards her soul’s purpose
frees herself from the inner barriers and the patterns and stories that are holding her stuck in a reality she doesn’t want
trusts in her infinite potential and limitless possibility
raises her energetic frequency and capacity so that she is able to attract and hold what she desires
leads herself so that she lives her most powerful life today, in her purpose – rather than waiting for something/someone to happen in the future
This is Powerful Life Mastery.
