Explore The Power of Self-Discovery With Wendy Frado

Discover how a former actor found their true calling in helping others unlock their potential. This inspiring story explores the power of life coaching and EFT, revealing how one woman’s personal journey led to a fulfilling career dedicated to empowering others.

I have a degree in musical theatre, and my first career was as an actor and singer.  After focusing on that for roughly ten years, I began to feel that I wanted to do something that was a bit more within my own control–when I had those jobs, it was incredibly fun and rewarding, but the process of getting the job was, well, less fun, and that’s very much an understatement!  I inventoried my skills and interests, and found that the things I liked best outside of performing were teaching and coaching.  At the time, though, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to center these skills around, as I was feeling burned out on theatre.

Just prior to this, I had developed some chronic back pain that was not easily explained, and over the course of years, I tried many things to try to improve the situation, but got little meaningful relief.  Finally, I got an e-mail about a new (to me) modality called EFT or Tapping, which is a type of meridian tapping.  Once I understood that it was based on the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine, I was intrigued, because I had utilized acupuncture over the years and found it to be very helpful.

I attended a lecture about how to use Tapping, and while it was interesting, in trying it out during that presentation, I didn’t personally feel much.  I kind of wrote it off for the time being, but I kept seeing little blurbs here and there about how much it was helping a lot of people.  Eventually, still in a lot of pain, I decided to just try doing some every day for two weeks and just see what might happen.  For maybe a week of this exercise, I still didn’t really feel much, but I kept at it.  And then, there was a day on which I had a pretty magical experience.  I wish I had kept a journal as I worked, because now the details are fuzzy, but what I can tell you is that in the few minutes of Tapping I did that day, the differential between the starting and ending point was remarkable.  So much so that I was really floored, and I felt a moment of absolute clarity that this was it, this was the thing around which I wanted to center my teaching and coaching.  I felt like a new future was opening up around this idea.  Anyone who has had a profound “aha” moment knows that it’s very hard to put it all into words, but I was excited and immediately started planning for my new endeavor.

I got a life coaching certification, a certification in Neuro-linguistic Programming (another modality I’d been interested in) and a certification as an EFT practitioner.  Since then, I’ve added other skills to my mix, but Tapping has been life changing for me and tremendously helpful to my clients as they plot their paths towards their goals and deal with resistance to the actions they need to take to reach them.

I currently offer EFT sessions and executive coaching sessions, which can be scheduled for whatever length of time best suits my client’s needs.

Built on the knowledge base that underlies the five pillars of Traditional Chinese Medicine developed over thousands of years, it substitutes tapping lightly on acupuncture points for needling (which is far more complex and takes a lot of training to do competently).  This is done in a simple sequence that can be easily learned and used as a self-help technique that is gentle and quite enjoyable, or at least helpful in moving us more quickly and easily through difficult feelings or physical discomfort.

It measurably reduces the chemicals involved in the fight/flight/freeze stress response, like cortisol; because of this and other effects, it enables rapid shifts and insights that can be pretty amazing.  There is a growing body of well-constructed studies showing how effective it can be on a variety of issues.  It may not always work on everything, but it’s worth trying on many things!

Being a life coach means that you are educated in a variety of techniques to help clients clearly define goals they want, goals that inspire and motivate, and then make a plan regarding how to work toward those goals in the most effective ways possible for that person.  It’s a peer-to-peer experience, so the life coach is your partner in your process, but what your goals and your plan will be remains entirely up to you.  The coach isn’t there to solve your problems, but to help and support you as you draw on your own experience, skills and wisdom to solve them.

If the person needs help with goals and strategy, we might work through life coaching/executive coaching frameworks to create and update plans during each session as needed based on what the client has accomplished and where they may have gotten stuck since the last session.  If they want to remove conscious or unconscious blocks by delving a bit deeper, we might do EFT sessions; these are non-linear and often quite surprising, but usually they really help the person leap forward to a new clarity and sense of calm so that they can continue moving expediently toward their overall goals.

I love helping my clients to bring the best of themselves to their lives.  It’s so gratifying to be part of a positive, supportive process that helps someone reimagine and reshape their lives to create more fulfillment!  I love doing that through EFT, which is such an amazing set of tools for anything from stress relief to thorough personal transformation.  I also love doing that through a more linear, strategic conversation where we get to the nitty-gritty of exactly how to get from here to there in a very practical way.  I am definitely a lifelong learner myself, and working with clients who are willing to keep learning and growing throughout their time on this planet is one of my very favorite things.

Thanks so much to MysticMag for allowing me to share my enthusiasm for coaching and EFT with so many thoughtful readers!