About
Brenda Sleva,
Author, Life Coach, Facilitator/Speaker
Welcome! Luminous Life Ministries is an enterprise made up of inspiring coaching, empowering books, enlightening facilitation and healing ministry work.
Divine sparks of glory are mirrored everywhere in creation – across majestic vistas, in tiny details of nature and emergent within each of us! As we seek the Lord’s presence for intimate and life-changing encounter, we can observe our outer world shift to reflect more Kingdom beauty, splendour, abundance and amazing grace! When our step springs from love, peace and joy, we know that we are walking in the Spirit of divine overflow, the nature of God which is goodness and glory!
As a faith-based life coach, I co-creatively partner with you and act as your mirror, observer and growth catalyst, stretching you at times, always uplifting and encouraging you to explore in spacious and sacred awareness. Our coaching alliance is designed to evoke inner guidance, uncover blind spots, create momentum, and empower you to be healed, whole and at choice in your life according to your faith. In this confidential and safe space, you are the discover of your own unique possibilities, with potential to access your inherent gifts, to seek new horizons and goals, and to recognize and overcome obstacles while building more capacity. You are led to envision and explore, closing the gap between where you’re at to where you want and need to be. You can opt to learn how to align your values and integrate them with your daily life – including discovering your divine design. You can use this roadmap to get clarity and unlock your potential while releasing more passion, purpose and power in your life to live vibrantly alive!
Why settle for struggle when you can LIVE LUMINOUS?! This is no time to shrink wrap yourself or let others determine your identity and future. Don’t dim your light! Remember, your history is not your destiny. Mountains are meant to be moved. Giants are meant to be slayed. Adversity is a great teacher, because in the centre of chaos always lies opportunity! You were made to shine bold and bright! You’re an influencer, not a reactor! Time to live in luminous overflow!
If you’re considering embarking on a life coaching journey, I’m so excited for you! Embracing a growth mindset and navigating new avenues of thought is a dynamic developmental and transformative process towards a fulfilling life! A better you is a better brighter world! Here’s more about life coaching to help your decision!
Coaching with Christ
Christian coaching offers all of the professional and ethical best practices that secular coaches offer. However, faith-based coaching is a special niche, able to add a foundation of faith into the coaching conversation as requested by the client. This allows you to draw spiritual strength from the foundational and familiar, tailored to your own comfort and spiritual beliefs. This can include an opportunity to bring prayer and scripture verses into the coaching environment. Or it could mean inviting the Holy Spirit to enter into the coaching conversation for wisdom, guidance or as a conduit to access awareness of spiritual gifting or a chosen calling.
It must be emphasized that these ‘extras’ will be introduced only if those coaching pathways are requested by the client and that it is the client who is doing the work and seeking. The coach serves fundamentally as a mirror, illuminating and reflecting with observations and thought-provoking questions. A good coach will always employ the best coaching practices, ethics, standards, and structure, displaying solid core competencies, regardless of the coaching speciality. As well, it is critical that the coaching agreement anchor and support client safety and confidentiality, with agreeance beforehand on how the client would like to embrace their faith in the coaching conversation, whatever their focus or agenda may be that particular day.
Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is a coach?
A coach is a trained professional and advocate who can help you to create and maintain forward momentum in your life. Coaching time together should be positive, inspiring and uplifting! A coach is an encourager and supporter who can challenge you at times to help you shift your mindset. She can help to create clarity and awareness as you move toward fulfilment of your personal and professional life goals. Good coaches cultivate and create a safe, trusted and confidential coaching atmosphere where their presence helps you to feel comfortable with an air of enjoyment, sincerity and progression. Your coach is also there as a spotlight to see the possibility even when you can’t and to help you envision and applaud your wins!
How do I find the right
coach for me?
A coach may have a special niche or not, but be in sync with you. Many coaches have accreditation through a professional association such as the International Coaching Federation (ICF) or are trained through a professional coaching institution. Ensure that you feel comfortable with your coach’s credentials and personality. When searching for the right fit for a coach, websites are good resources as are testimonials. Once you decide that you’d like to try out a coaching session, a coach will set up a convenient phone call or Zoom appointment of 45 minutes to one hour. You’ll also receive an initial coaching agreement and request for basic client information beforehand. Once the commitment is made, be prepared for a refreshing journey of personal discovery and development! You might even wonder what took you so long!
What is a coaching conversation?
Unlike therapy sessions focused on the past or a specific problem, where advice is dispensed, coaching is a collaborative and co-creative alliance focused on forward movement in your life. You set the focus and agenda. Your coach is your mirror. She will be doing a lot of listening and observing for cues to help you determine where you want and need to go in the session. You'll also be asked powerful questions that can evoke awareness and create those aha moments that inspire growth and closing the gap on fulfilling your dreams and divine purpose. Coaching conversations have the potential to help you uncover rich discoveries about yourself with the ability to help you generate innovative ideas and chart bold horizons. Your coach is your expert guide, always with your best interests at heart! Ongoing coaching conversations incorporate active listening, powerful questioning, visioning, and perspective sharing. A qualified coach can help you to create measures of success and accountability along with helping you to set up supportive resources to facilitate growth and ensure success. This can produce impactful results over time, shifting your mindset to embrace better ways of being and doing life, but it is up to you to do the work and follow through! Your coach can help you to stay on track though the results are ultimately up to you because you’re leading your life.
What are best practices
in coaching?
The best coaching approach is based on a holistic or whole-person perspective to promote overall balance while focusing on key areas which affect all of us, from health and wellbeing to relationships, finances and career, for example. Again, the agenda is up to you. Always, the individual is coached and never the problem. However, a coach does have assessment tools to help you to analyze where you are on your journey while creating points in the coaching conversation to help you to envision ‘what’s possible’ in your future.
How do I know if I
need a coach
Life is rhythmic with ups and downs. You may be stuck, on your way, or needing to accelerate your progress. One of the greatest benefits of working with a coach is thepotential to help evoke awareness to help you gain greater clarity and a clear direction. A coach can help you to uncover blind spots, reveal new opportunities, or help you to access hidden gifts and talents. A coach can help you to discern where you want to go with life design tools to help you discover how to live on purpose and be at choice. That’s one of the greatest gifts a coach can potentially offer, sharing the vision of you waking up energized and engaged, because you’re suddenly seeing ‘your best life’ as a real possibility!
How long should I plan to
work with a coach?
With a commitment to regular coaching for a 12-week period, positive growth seeds can be sewn to reap a healthy harvest of personal or professional development toward fruition. While that’s optimistic, again, the results are all up to you, but you will have a rich storehouse of tools along with the focused presence and empathetic ear of a dedicated professional truly committed to your growth. A coach knows that the best you is going to bring forth the best in your family, workplace, community, and world at large. Working with a coach is a win/win proposition, however you look at it! Remember that a coach can shine light on blind spots, while also having the ability to reflect and help draw out your deep inherent values and needs. A coach can help you to find ways and agree to new habits so you can feel more confident, empowered and equipped to access your potential more easily and stay in the flow. Above all, a coach is there to evoke your awareness, to help you move more consciously toward your own definition of success and personal fulfillment or wellbeing.
