Written by: Nick Palladino-King, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you read my blog, then you know that I offer techniques, tools, and frameworks for creating more consciousness in your life and the world.
This means you also probably know that I am a coach whom people hire for help with fixing their bodies, minds, and lives.
But what you may not know is that I can’t help you. I especially can’t fix you.
Because you can’t be helped. You can’t be fixed.
And you don’t need to “Unfuck Yourself,” unlike the bestselling coaching book suggests.
Reading this post won’t help you either. It even may lead you to the realization that you never should hire me as your coach. And that would fulfill my mission.
You are unfixable because you are already perfect. You are whole. You are complete.
Your false reality of imperfection resides in the forgetfulness of your perfection. And it’s time for remembrance!
Remembrance requires dismantling the biggest lie that ever has been told and sold to humanity: We are not whole, complete, and perfect as we are.
Current Coaching Paradigm
Many coaching programs are preying on your lack of self-acceptance, self-confidence, and self-love. Even more so, they’re financially relying on it.
They push and pull on your desire to feel better, to fit in, and to get more of whatever it is that you think you need to regain your wholeness.
Instagram “business coaches” who sell and resell sales systems instead of actually coaching clients promise to make you six figures in six weeks one of the newest pyramid schemes on the market.
Relationship coaches guarantee to heal your broken heart with a 90-day online course.
Regardless of the type of coaching being offered, the basic program currently dominating the industry follows this script:
You are not whole and complete, which makes you less than others.
You don’t have “X,” which is the reason that you aren’t enough.
To be whole and complete, you need me (the coach) and my program to give you “X” because I am not broken and, therefore, am greater than you and, as a result, can fix you.
Hire me or purchase my program to become whole and complete. This will make you greater than others.
Rinse and repeat. Or, better yet, advance to the next level of my program and pay me more.
It’s the perfect setup in a world filled with people who believe at their core that they are not good enough.
You Can’t Fix What Isn’t Broken
To quote my teacher Jean Mazzei, “Either we are all broken or we are all perfect.”
If we all are broken, then no one can fix someone else. If we all are perfect, then no one needs to be fixed. So, right here and right now, decide for yourself: Are you broken, or are you perfect?
If you decide that you are perfect, then the coaches and programs offering to save you can’t come to the rescue. Only you can.
That’s a big pill to swallow and digest, and that’s OK. Knowing that you are perfect may take some time to get used to. Also all good. Because perfection has no timeline.
Perfectly Perfect
The inspiration to write about your perfection arrived after a recent private session with a student.
In a moment of presence and clarity, I shared the foundation of my coaching philosophy with them: “I do not fix people and I do not help people.”
They looked at me perplexed and then added with a smile: “Interesting. Please tell me more.”
“I serve people,” I responded.
I sit with them, reflect their perfection back to them, and encourage them to make present-moment decisions from their wholeness. I do not decide or judge their choices. I honor all of their decisions or lack of decisions as perfect, whole, and complete. Finally, I do my best to support them in their right actions and to remain unattached to the results that they create.
If I am attached to my students’ actions and results or consider them to be good or bad, then I am in my personality. If I am in my personality, then I can lose the ability to see their perfection and, therefore, to serve them fully.
To consciously coach, teach and lead, we must keep our personalities out of the room and create a nonjudgmental container that empowers others to uncover, listen to, and act upon their own unique truths, not ours.
Holding this type of space requires deep compassion.
Compassion knows that the person is going through exactly what they need to be going through at that moment to learn and to grow. Compassion knows that only they can blaze their path forward.
Yes, I can support them, but I cannot do their work for them. Nor would I want to. Because I would not want my teachers to steal my moments of growth, no matter how hard they may feel.
Throughout a decade of coaching, here is the tip of what I’ve been honored to witness through the compassionate service of my students’ perfection:
The creation of self-love that led to marriage
The discovery of self-love that led to divorce
The awareness required to realize that a partner was cheating
The perspective and perseverance necessary to stay in a painful relationship or career until achieving the growth that they manifested it for
The personal power and confidence to achieve a promotion
The ability to stand up for oneself, which led to being fired
The realization that their dream career slowly was killing them and the development of the skills required to quit and to become an entrepreneur
The decision to choose their health over others’ expectations
The forgiveness of sexual abuse
The decision to live instead of die
The decision to come to peace with death
Yelling, laughing, crying, and loving the good, the bad, and everything in between
Every experience was perfectly perfect. Every experience arrived at the perfect moment in time and space for each individual to learn and to grow and not a moment sooner.
The Perfection Paradigm
We can replace the current coaching model with a new paradigm:
You are perfect. You are whole. You are complete.
You don’t need me as a coach or my program to fix you.
I can’t fix you. I am equal to you.
When you forget this, rinse and repeat.
Enrolling in or offering any program with the goal of improvement is already starting from a losing point. It is an attack on yourself and your clients. Because you are starting from broken, which only will create more material to judge.
How you start also influences how you finish. This is true in all areas of your life. Begin from wholeness, and the result will be wholeness regardless of what manifests on the surface. Once you know that you are complete, then you will begin to know that everything is complete – always and in all ways.
Living in a state of perfection does not mean that you can’t change your reality. It means that you do not judge your reality. You can change it whenever you want, but you do not need to make it wrong to do so.
From wholeness, nothing needs to be done, and you also can do whatever you want. From wholeness, freedom is born. Freedom to change or to maintain your life.
A paradox emerges when you realize that you do not need to do anything to prove your worth or existence. You can have or not have, do or not do, and be equally perfect in both realities.
Recalibration
To begin living in this new paradigm of perfection, stop attacking yourself and start loving yourself – all of yourself. To love yourself fully, you must love who you were, who you are, and who you will become.
When you love who you were in your past moments, then you accept all of yourself at this moment.
When you love yourself at this moment, then you create the version of yourself that you will love in your next moments.
Here are some practices to play with to remember your perfection:
1. Listen
Listen to your language and thoughts. Do your best to remind yourself that you are whole and complete in this moment and every moment.
Are your words and thoughts empowered or disempowered? Are they reflecting someone who believes that they are complete or incomplete?
Usually, I find that, when I speak in the present tense, I am coming from a place of wholeness. When I am speaking in the past tense, I am coming from a place of nonacceptance or regret. When I am speaking in the future tense, I am coming from a place of fear or discontent.
How about you? What does your language tell you about the reality that you are creating?
2. Feel
Pay attention to your feelings. When you feel emotions that indicate you have forgotten you are complete, then pause, breathe deeply, and repeat to yourself: “I am whole. I am complete. I am perfect.”
This will bring you back into the present moment.
3. Check In
Feel complete before you make decisions. The next time that you are going to sign up for a new coaching program (Coaches, you also can do this before making an offer to a potential client) or buy anything, ask yourself: Am I complete?
If you are complete, perfect. Then, decide from there whether you want the program or product. If you do, perfect. If you do not, perfect.
If you do not feel complete, perfect. Then, tune into why you feel that way to uncover the underlying belief that is being triggered or the need that is not being met. From here, treat the cause instead of the effect. Treat the belief or the need, not the emotion.
All humans have three baseline desires: to be acknowledged, validated, and loved. Most of your behaviors come from the need for these desires to be fulfilled. So, ask yourself:
Do you need to be acknowledged? If so, then acknowledge yourself with an affirmation.
Do you need to be validated? If so, then validate yourself with a compliment.
Do you need to be loved? If so, then love yourself with a hug.
Afterward, check back in. Do you feel complete now? If so, then act from this place so that you choose your reality rather than react to it. If not, then repeat the steps above until you can decide on wholeness.
4. Meditate
Use meditation or any self-care practice as a tool to give yourself regularly the acknowledgment, validation, and love that you require.
Practicing self-care daily will lead to self-love, which will create a feeling and eventually a knowingness that you are whole, complete, and perfect.
5. Breathe
Whenever you feel less than, take 10 deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.
The breath is a portal to the present moment, which is a portal to perfection.
Practice these techniques over the next week whenever you need them. You also can keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings to explore your relationship to your perfection.
Getting to know yourself takes time and can be intense, so tread lightly and compassionately as you recalibrate your system toward wholeness. Also give others space to recalibrate toward your wholeness, as it can be even harder for them to handle as you start to shine in your fullness.
If you don’t need a coach but want to create more consciousness in your life and the world, then it would be a privilege to discuss working together. I’m here to serve you until you do not need me to anymore.
Much love,
Nick
Nick Palladino-King, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Nick Palladino-King (IG: @nickpalladinoking) is the Co-founder and CEO of Tribe, a San Francisco based wellness company founded on the holistic health philosophy he calls “Complete Health and Wellness.” Tribe is a leading wellness company in the Bay Area focused on inspiring leadership and health in individuals and companies.
Nick is a conscious coach and mentor, with deep knowledge and understanding of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being. His breath of knowledge in these fields comes from over 15 years of studying and training with master teachers in movement, mindfulness, meditation and yogic philosophy and practices.
Nick is known as a “coaches’ coach” and sought after for his honesty, ability to hold nonjudgmental space, and transformational and healing presence. He coaches world-class athletes, CEOs, wellness entrepreneurs and consciousness leaders worldwide.
