Coach of the Month: Anna Berkelmans
In this Coach of the Month episode, Cate chats with Yoga Health Coaching mentor, Anna Berkelmans. Anna is a mother of three children, a yoga studio owner and teacher, a registered nurse and a yoga health coach. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, so connecting with the Yogahealer tribe often means waking at 4 am for conference calls. Her success in Yoga Health Coaching is due to her prioritization of connecting with the tribe as well as with implementing systems that support her family, her yoga studio, and her nursing career. While her vata constitution can often send her spinning off course, Yoga Health Coaching has taught Anna to focus first on on the people in her life and in her courses who need her help and knowledge.
In the Yoga Health Coaching evolution, we sometimes experience breakdowns. But those breakdowns are necessary in order to make way for new ways of being. They’re followed by breakthroughs. The YHC community provides the support and connection we need to see our way through the breakdowns. Anna’s activity on the YHC forum has become a keystone habit for that reason.
Anna’s advice to people in YHC is to practice good time management by investing time in learning and setting up systems, such as an annual calendar.
What you’ll get out of tuning in:
- How to succeed in Yoga Health Coaching
- How the YHC community provides the support and connection we need to see our way through the breakdowns.
- How connection can be a keystone habit
Links Mentioned in Episode:
Show Highlights:
- 1:00 – Anna lives in Melbourne, Australia, so connecting with the Yogahealer tribe often means waking at 4 am for conference calls. Her success in Yoga Health Coaching is due to her prioritization of connecting with the tribe as well as with implementing systems that support her family, her yoga studio, and her nursing career. Family meetings are key for her as are her practice of the habits.
- 6:50 – Yoga Health Coaching isn’t a cookie-cutter system. Coaches design their courses and systems based on their existing strengths, assets, and knowledge. For Anna, her nursing career and her own personal health struggles brought to light how disempowering the medical system is for patients while providing her with her own unique wisdom.
- 10:25 – While her vata constitution can often send her spinning off course, Yoga Health Coaching has taught Anna to focus first on on the people in her life and in her courses who need her help and knowledge.
- 13:20 – In the Yoga Health Coaching evolution, we sometimes experience breakdowns. But those breakdowns are necessary in order to make way for new ways of being. They’re followed by breakthroughs. The YHC community provides the support and connection we need to see our way through the breakdowns. Anna’s activity on the YHC forum has become a keystone habit for that reason.
- 17:00 – One of the biggest breakthroughs for Anna has been understanding the laws of nature. Breakdowns happen cyclically with the change of seasons, so adherence to the habits is particularly important during those times. It becomes a choice to align with nature, to align with thrive.
- 19:30 – Anna was able to connect recently with her YHC Mastery mastermind group in Australia. Their shared language and context made it seem like they’d always known each other, even though it was the first time they’d ever met in person. Connection with others in YHC is part of our skill building. We learn how to slow time down and deeply listen.
- 24:40 – Anna’s advice to people in YHC is to practice good time management by investing time in learning and setting up systems, such as an annual calendar. That was a growing edge for her that she had to kaizen her way into. Another lesson for Anna was learning what to let go of in order do the things she loved to do most.
Favorite Quotes:
- “When we really start to get that our habits aren’t our own, it becomes so important to model habits, knowing that then it actually starts to build the structure for us to falter. It builds the structure for us to have our times of going inward, our times of falling apart, of breaking down old systems and old identities so that a greater, deeper identity that’s more true and more evolved can emerge.” — Cate Stillman
- “We all are going to go through breakdowns because it’s an old pattern that is breaking down to make way for the new.” — Cate Stillman
Guest BIO:
People who connect with me often say that they enjoy an immediate sense of calm when we begin talking. As a Yoga Health Coach I enjoy the experience of deeply listening and affecting change in people. I cultivate the process of uncovering the root causes of feeling “out of control” with functional daily tasks or managing physical/emotional symptoms. I help people experience a daily rhythm with an easeful approach to time management and to strengthen connection in relationship to self, community and nature. Check Anna’s website and facebook page.
