5 Traits to Look for in a Meditation Coach
How to find a personal meditation instructor who can help you release stress, find inner peace, and connect to the healing power within.
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There’s no feeling like being led through a meditation that opens the heart and allows us to relax our bodies. Maybe it’s something we discovered online - through Youtube, Insight Timer, or an app like Calm or Headspace.
But there comes a point when recorded meditations start to fall a bit flat. After all, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to meditation and mental health. What you need today is entirely unique, and can’t be known by someone who wrote a meditation script years ago.
That’s where the help of a real human makes all the difference.
In order to touch the present moment more deeply and discover new methods of stress management, a meditation coach uses guided meditation to help you with the areas you need support today.
At Calm Scholar, our meditation coaches use everything from mindfulness, guided visualizations, breathwork, inner-child healing, personal development, EFT (tapping) holistic wellness coaching sessions, and much more to bring you the support you need - anytime, anywhere.
So whether you’re new to meditation or a seasoned veteran, here are some things to look for in order to get the most out of your meditation coaching sessions.
1. Someone who makes you feel comfortable and at ease
Even though a meditation coach may have all the right tools and techniques on paper, how does it actually feel to talk to them? You’ll get the most from your meditation coaching session if you feel comfortable and supported, allowing you to open up and share candidly about your life, and how the sessions are going for you.
Your meditation coach should use inclusive language, and never make you feel uncomfortable or pressured. Be wary of people who make shocking, uncomfortable claims about you and claim it’s coming from the spirit realm, or people who step across your boundaries and make you uncomfortable.
The coach you’re looking for will be respectful, kind, and open-hearted. You’ll be doing a lot of deep inner work together during your mindfulness practice, so find someone who is deliberate about creating an open and judgment-free space. It’s important that you feel safe and comfortable.
Most importantly, your coach should listen to you. They should be attune to what’s working, what’s not - what areas are off limits, and what areas you need guidance and support.
If you’re booking a meditation coach through Calm Scholar, you can rest assured that we have your back. If you’re out there searching for a single coach, it can be a bit more of an echo chamber - it’s either ‘their way or the highway’.
At Calm Scholar, we offer a wide range of coaching styles and we encourage diversity of thought and opinion, and you can reach out to us anytime for help finding the coach who is right for you.
All of our coaches are unified by professionalism, inclusivity, and our shared mission of focusing on your long term benefit by providing you with tools needed to decrease the stress in your day and improve the quality of your life.
2. Someone who listens and adapts to your needs
A good meditation coach will worry less about trying to get you to practice a specific meditation technique, and more about delivering a deep, meaningful meditation practice that will make a difference in your life. What works best for one client may not work for another.
Your meditation coach should listen to you and adapt their services based on what you need most. A meditation teacher who is experienced in offering one-on-one meditation knows how important it is to remain open and flexible.
Your meditation sessions will look different every week, based on what you’re bringing to the table that day. A good meditation teacher will help you find peace and calm, without getting too hung up on needing it to look a certain way.
One of our coaches, Liam, talked about how he prepares guided visualization scripts as a jumping off point, but the meditations never go the way he has planned.
Hear Liam explain this himself:
‘Sometimes in the very beginning, the first question I ask, their response takes [the meditation] in a completely different direction. Here I am for example, saying ‘you’re walking through a greenhouse, and you see there are plants and flowers all over this environment. How do you feel at this point?’ And they say, ‘I’m here in this house, but it doesn’t feel like a greenhouse, it feels more like an igloo’. I’m like ‘there goes all my warm meditations! Let’s switch it to something cold.’
When a meditation coach has a heart for helping others as opposed to being too attached to one specific practice, they can draw upon everything they know to help you find peace and positively impact your daily life.
3. Experience and credentials
Although there’s no one degree or specific program that makes someone a ‘meditation coach’, any professional in this space should have plenty of experience working one-on-one with clients, and have the credentials to back up their claims.
Many people who are drawn to meditation coaching study a broad variety of tools and techniques over their lifetime, amassing certifications and credentials in programs they’re interested in. For example, our coaches hold degrees in psychology, are board certified in holistic nutrition, health & wellness, positive psychology and wellness coaching, are certified in integrated energy therapy, EFT, HeartMath, Reiki, Yoga, Theta Healing, Herbal Education, and much more…
Be wary of self-proclaimed social media gurus with no credentials and limited experience. Though there are many people who wish to share their knowledge, when it comes to working with heavy emotions, it pays to find someone who is deeply experienced, and has the skills to take care of you in the best possible way.
4. Knowledge of practices that can make a difference for you
When it comes to meditation and mindfulness, there are so many different schools of thought, it can be hard to know where to begin. If you’re simply looking to feel better and relieve stress and anxiety, you may be unsure which types of meditation practices are really going to make a difference.
That’s why searching for coaches one-by-one can be a bit difficult. You could spend months working with someone who teaches transcendental meditation - for example - only to realize later that what you needed was holistic health and wellness coaching, or personalized guided visualizations. Take some time to explore different practices and techniques, so you’re better able to understand what works for you.
Every meditation coach will have a unique combination of techniques, personality, and approach. If you already know what works for you - great! You can search by specific technique to find coaches with that specialty.
And if you're just getting started out, no worries. There’s a couple ways we can help you find what works for you:
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You can schedule a free 30-minute introductory session with any of our meditation coaches, and start meditating right away. This allows you to feel if their personality and techniques are a good fit for you. You can find our coaches here.
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Finally, you can reach out to us for help finding a meditation coach, and we’ll chat with you and recommend which of our professionals would be the best fit based on where you’re at in life. You can reach out to us here, send us an email at connect@calmscholar.com, or reach out via text to 224-479-0444.
5. Trust & Confidentiality
Finally, you should feel comfortable that what happens within your meditation coaching sessions is held in confidentiality. The only times a meditation coach can share what you’re going through is if you express the need for medical help, or they feel you or others are in danger. Apart from those rare cases, your confidentiality is a top priority. At Calm Scholar, we guarantee that your information is never shared or discussed without your consent. That’s the Calm Scholar Meditation Coaching difference: we’re not an online coach, but a safe space to explore a wide range of meditation coaching styles with handpicked professionals.
Thanks for reading - we hope this helped you find a bit more clarity and confidence in what to look for in a meditation coach. We are here for you, and happy to answer any questions you have. Feel free to drop us a line.
Mindfully yours,
Alex, Ben, and the team at Calm Scholar
Calm Scholar makes finding a meditation coach easy. We offer a diverse team of guides and will help you find the guide right for you. All of our sessions are virtual and one-on-one with the guide of your choice.
Your personal guide will take the time to get to know you and why you are looking to meditate in the first place. Whether it is unaddressed trauma, grief, or a sense of disconnection that is causing you to look towards meditation, your guide will use meditation and mindfulness to bring healing and acceptance to the areas you need it most.
