I assigned a lot of categories to this post because last night’s party at my fellow friend and Coach colleague, Priya was quite an event.

Even though I live here and call it home, I was raised in an international setting, meeting people from different countries and cultures. Last night’s party reminded me of my past. It was in downtown LA and the setting reminded me of our New York years and my youth spent in international school in Paris, fun, fun and rich. There was an incredible assortment of people, Americans, Europeans, South Americans and Asians. I had a blast and felt so at home. I forgot how much I missed engaging in talks with people from all walks of life.

Somehow, on my way over I knew I was in no mood for trivial conversations. The weather wasn’t going to cut it. And all I had were one conversation after another, all deep and juicy. In fact, I even neglected my party duties to mingle and take pictures. My first talk was with an interesting couple who also have been together for ten years. We talked about arts, traveling and different cultures. Slowly the conversation turned more subtle and they were telling me about climbing the Sun Pyramid in Mexico City. And after telling them I was a Reiki Master and practiced healings, the flood gate opened to what seemed like hours of deep talks. It was followed by yet another person and eventually we were talking ancient Celtic mythology and visions were popping up in our minds.

I ended the talk with another person, half Brazilian, half Japanese. It was an interesting conversation because those two cultures are so different but blended together offer a great “package”. We got into a pretty deep conversation defining what is mind, what are religions, what is Truth, etc.

All in all, I had a very stimulating evening. The first person I spoke to hears things, the second saw and the third person is a listener. I feel and sense things. It was a loop of sorts. We each contributed something to our communal knowledge and wisdom. I will keep in touch with these people. It was an interesting evening.

It also reminded me that coaching is in everything we do and certainly has become an integral part of me. I wasn’t coaching, per se, but coaching techniques helped me dig deeper into conversations. It also made me understand another layer of coaching, a deeper “wholistic” approach to listening to people, to give them the space and permission to talk about such things. I found that people still hesitate to talk about their “visions” and still fear being ridiculed. I found most people I am meeting are very deep human beings with very rich and fulfilling experiences. I found people had a lot of depth and certainly weren’t taken in by the cheap talk of modern politics. Everyone either dismissed the current political scene as pathetic or raised their eyebrows talking about the candidates.

It was a wonderful evening and it certainly has given me much to think about and what direction to take the next steps of my coaching practice. More on that later…