Are You Called to Guide?

Wisdom Dialogues with Colleen-Joy

Four inspiring lessons from 40 years of guiding, coaching and building Wisdom Wells

An apple-tree doesn’t have a choice about being an apple-tree.

If you have the heart and soul of a guide, coach, or teacher, you have no choice.

You can either be asleep to your nature or step-up and step-in to your role with love. 

At 13, during a dark night of my soul, I was intuitively guided to choose a reason to live that was bigger than the pain of being alive. I chose to live for wisdom.

At 17, I was asked to teach – and I’ve been teaching ever since.

Here are four lessons I’ve learned about how to guide, coach and lead with wisdom.

If your apple-tree purpose is designed to hold space for others, to empower and enlighten, may these lessons serve you and those you serve. 

I’m 53 this year. That’s 40 years since that dark teenage night when I chose to live for wisdom. And I can tell you now, that spending my life in search of this one prize has made this little lifetime a precious gift. I will be forever thankful to my brave 13-year-old self for her courage.

Finding wisdom hasn’t been easy. I looked in all the wrong places, made every mistake and walked the painful razor edge of having both a doubting sharp intellect and a big-bandwidth intuition.

Slowly, clue by clue, learning mostly through failure, I found a reliable way to build my Wisdom Well so that I could draw on it every day. The two most challenging aspects of Wisdom Well building was learning to tell ego apart from clear insight and improving the skills needed to translate silent knowing into words. 

Every time I sent my bucket into my inner Wisdom Well – to ask for help, seek clarity, face an impossible day, solve a problem, or heal an emotion – I saw how wisdom always changed the way it felt to be alive. Like clear spring water, wisdom has the power to transform the dead surface of life into a living, enlightened garden.

Today, my apple-tree lives next to my Wisdom Well and I teach many others to build Wisdom Wells for themselves and those they serve.

Here are four Lessons I’ve learned from wisdom about being a guide.

#1. Being – not giving

In my 20s and 30s, my days were often spent seeing individual clients. By my mid-30s, I was also teaching between 60 and 120 people a week. Keeping my energy levels up became difficult because I always wanted to give more of myself.

One day, wisdom showed me a different way. Here’s the lesson that changed my fundamental approach to serving others:

Wisdom said: 

“Picture two glasses of water. 

“The full glass represents you as a teacher, coach and guide. 

“The second glass, which is emptier, represents your client, who comes to you in search of something they see in you. 

“You try to help by pouring your water into their glass. You feel drained because now you have less, while they walk away with more. 

“There is another way. 

“Whatever you focus your attention on, you tune into intuitively. 

“When you place attention on a tree, the music of that tree intuitively plays through your body. If you focus on someone who is angry, the song of anger plays through you – you might even make the mistake of believing the anger belongs to you. 

“By learning to set your intention purposefully and choose what your attention is on, you can change the ‘radio stations’ of life that you are experiencing. 

“When you guide others, their attention is on you. Beyond your words, they are feeling your ‘music’. The more you claim your wholeness, the fuller your glass of water becomes. By focusing their attention on you, a song of wholeness plays through them, helping their glasses to fill. 

“It doesn’t matter what you’re saying or even if you are silent. 

“You don’t have to give them anything. 

“And now, you don’t have to leave with less to give them more. 

“Work on claiming your wholeness and you will offer a secret gift to all you guide. They will taste their own wholeness. For some, this will be lasting; for others, it will be a glimpse of what it’s like to be whole – leaving a seed that can germinate later for them to reclaim their wholeness. 

“If you are being your true, whole self, there’s no need to give of yourself.” 

When you guide yourself and others, experiment with being your true self instead of trying to give of yourself. 

#2. Depth – not surface

My biggest fear was being visible. 

At age four, a tumour behind my right eye pushed it down, causing people to gasp and point. Even after the tumour was removed, the trauma left scars far deeper than the physical lines on my face. 

I lived with crippling shyness until my late 20s, when inner wisdom helped me heal so I could speak at conferences and talks. One of the most surprising and profound insights I gained was learning to stop tuning into the surface of people. 

Without realisng it, we often place our attention on the surface of people. By ‘surface’ I mean their personality, surface mind and surface emotions. This outer layer is often a song of judgment, fear, irritation, anger, doubt, conflict and shame. 

My big intuitive bandwidth meant I was often overwhelmed by feeling everyone’s feelings. Only solitude gave me rest from the noisy ‘radio stations’ of people. 

This began to change in my 20s when I started experimenting with tuning into the depths of my clients during one-on-one consultations. To my surprise, when I set my silent intention to tune in deeper than their personality, their body and their ‘surface’, I always felt a change in the ‘music’.

Tension and noise turned into relief – as if deeper than the surface, underneath the waves, there was always peaceful, boundless music. My skeptical mind doubted this, questioning whether I was making it all up or deluding myself, but I didn’t care because it made it possible for me to be in the world and love people. 

The first time I tried this with an audience of about 300 people while giving a talk was life-changing. I set my intention to tune intuitively into their depths. Within moments, I felt my body’s tension lift. 

Instead of the audience feeling like hundreds of separate strangers with judging eyes, the walls between us dissolved. There was only peace-filled love. The way I spoke changed. Words flowed – my talk danced between the profound and a new, quirky, mischievous sense of humour. My relationship with people was completely transformed. 

Even today, whether in boardrooms with corporate groups or online, teaching my classes of master coaches, I do my best to tune deeper. I believe people feel this connection. For me, it feels like my heart, mind and body open – strangers become family. 

When you guide yourself and others, experiment with tuning in deeper than the surface. 

# 3. Open – not closed

It’s so easy to be afraid of fear, to be angry at anger, or to be ashamed of shame. 

It’s so easy to close in the presence of a closed heart or mind. 

As space-holders and change agents, we can remind ourselves to tune into the openness that never closes. 

This might sound strange, so please don’t take my word for it – experiment until you discover it for yourself. 

The mind (thinking-perception) can open and close. 

The heart (emotion-feelings) can open and close. 

The gut (body felt-sense) can open and close. 

But your true self never closes. 

Your true self – pure open awareness – is the openness that is always open, even when the mind, heart and gut are closed. 

Wisdom has taught me this: 

• When we tune in to a thought or perception that reflects truth, the mind, heart and gut open.
• When we tune in to a thought or perception that does not reflect truth, the mind, heart and gut close.

We give this openness many names – happiness, peace and love. 

We give this closedness many names – unhappiness, stress and suffering. 

Self-realisation, the recognition of what we truly are – as pure open awareness – helps bring what is closed back to its home in openness. 

When I tune deeply into others, I’ve learned over the decades that this openness is not a state or a quality – it is our shared being. On the surface, we see many separate and different Wisdom Wells, but they all draw from the same water. 

When we rest our attention home in the openness of the self, we find it is the ground of being for everything and everyone. This music, this way of living, is ordinary and natural and it carries the power to heal what it feels like to be human. 

When you guide yourself and others, experiment with tuning in to the open, shared being that never closes. 

#4. Wisdom – not words

I used to think that wisdom was words and knowledge, but I was wrong. 

Wisdom is true seeing and true being. 

This understanding changed the way I guide and teach. Words and knowledge are still gifts – they are important. But words without wisdom can be weaponised. How many times have words spoken by those who could see clearly been misused by those who weren’t seeing? 

Any words can be spoken from a closed heart, mind and gut – or from openness. Any words can be spoken from our holes or our wholeness. 

I can say, “I love you,” from the surface of my needy personality, or from the depth of my whole being. 

When we teach, guide, lead and coach, we can use surface words, or we can share from wholeness and wisdom – from clear, open seeing and being. 

It’s not enough to give people only words of knowledge. It’s more important to help them come home to their true seeing and being, so they can see for themselves. To feel the change from closed to open. To discover their own depths. To build their own Wisdom Wells, instead of depending on the wells of teachers and teachings. 

This wisdom doesn’t need to look ‘spiritual’ because, in this revolution of seeing, all duality collapses. This wisdom does not belong only on bookshelves or in temples – it belongs in hospital wards, boardrooms and daily life. Wisdom laughs and cries with an open heart. Wisdom gives a place of honour to intellect and intuition, to doubt and knowing. This wisdom is fierce grace and gentle nourishment. 

Today, I lead a team of Wisdom Partners and a global community of people who build Wisdom Wells. I feel my 13-year-old self crying with amazement, relief and heart-breaking gratitude. 

It has been a life well spent. 

When you guide yourself and others, bring wisdom to your words – show others how to build their own Wisdom Wells. 

Colleen-Joy is an MCC Master Certified Coach and the creator of InnerLifeSkills. She mentors natural coaches, leaders and guides to become Master Coaches who make a living, making a difference.

COLLEEN-JOY’S FREE COURSES (No sign-in needed):

• Wisdom Well Course: colleen-joy.com/wisdom-well

Four Steps to Being a Life-Changing Life Coach: innerlifeskills.com/coach