It was a Friday afternoon and I was thrilled to be meeting up with Sandra Geitz. I walked through the city streets remembering the last time I briefly met her. She was hosting a Zen Coaching workshop about surrendering to the here and now, and what an enlightening workshop it was. I came away learning how to study my mind in more depth than before and I realised that my task in that moment was to toy with what I saw. I’m sure I’m not a robot and that my thoughts submerge from subtle energies within and around me, and Sandra offered us some excellent insights about understanding it so that we could see ourselves more clearly by reconnecting with the present moment. Inevitably I wanted to learn more so we agreed to meet at a favourite about town, a coffee shop called Cosmo.

She lifted her head from an interesting book about the power of love and greeted me with a genuine smile. Our embrace was decadent and we connected immediately. I handed her a lucky charm I found that day as a gesture of my gratitude and she touched my arm to symbolize her gentle nature. I knew she had some great wisdoms to share about life so I took her back to the beginning and our conversation went like this:

Anneka: I’m so pleased there are amazing people like you around the city. I see that you’re not a local, what are you doing here in Barcelona?

Sandra: I actually came here for love. I was ready to settle so I followed my partner here. In fact it represents what’s happening within me. I’m feeling settled within and that manifested itself on the outside too.

Anneka: It’s admirable what people do for love in the end. Are you glad he happened to live in Barcelona?

Sandra: Yes, it’s the perfect place for me. It’s very alive and open. I come from the countryside in Sweden and I always grew up knowing there was more to life on the horizon. I have been traveling for years all the way from Europe to Brazil, Australia, Asia and New Zealand to Tanzania and I’ve lived in both New York, Paris and Oslo. Now I’m living here in the city that’s always changing and I love it for that.

Anneka: Well thanks for being here with your loving presence. Was it here that you discovered Zen Coaching?

Sandra: I lived in an alternative community in Sweden that held courses and festivals. I was working as a volontair when I first met my teacher. I attended one of his workshops (inquiring into truth) and something within me resonated deeply with the teachings. It was like, for the first time coming home. So I decided to follow my intuition and do the coaching training which turned out to be the most important decision I made in my life.

Anneka: It’s true that our teachers in life seem to appear when we need them the most. How did you know he was the right teacher for you?

Sandra: I loved that he lived what he practiced. For this I felt very connected and intrigued by him. And he inspired me to do the same.

Anneka: So now you walk your truth everyday?

Sandra: Well thanks to the training I’ve applied to my life, I spend a lot of my day practicing principles of Zen Coaching. I watch how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking in the moment. I never try to change what I see. I’m just curious about it and I give those thoughts and feelings some space.

Sandra by this point spoke with such compassion and understanding that she made me look at my own thoughts again so I diverted her to ask why I sometimes had thoughts that I didn’t like or thoughts that happened to be transformed or disfigured at times.

With a state of calm, as if she’d mastered her own ways, she continued to tell me that the more present you are, the more in contact you are with yourself and your resources.  And when we are in contact with ourselves we can catch ourselves out when we try to divert back to certain thoughts. And if we can do that then that is when the enrichment and fulfillment of life happens.

Anneka: I guess we are all subject to old patterns of thought to some degree. Thoughts are part of us and sometimes they are damn right blissful and other times they are damn right harmful. At least that’s what I’ve experienced at certain times. How can we deal with suffering or negative thoughts and emotions?

Sandra: Suffering is caused by resisting the emotion.  Just experience the emotion such as sadness and say yes to the sadness. This will allow what is true and the pain can be transformative. Experience each emotion fully and allow it and feel it with awareness and it will naturally transform itself.

Anneka: In what other ways can Zen coaching help guide us better in our lives?

Sandra: Well, Zen Coaching helps us to strengthen our connection with ourselves and others through empathetic listening and powerful questioning. It focusses on reconnecting back to the present moment and learning to be ok with it. Traditional coaching techniques tend to mostly work with the future and the attainment of goals, but in Zen Coaching the present moment is the focus. The reason for this is that the mind tells us that we need to fix something outside of us to feel different but in fact it’s always the inner work that we need to do. The result of this work shows itself naturally in all areas of our lives such as relationships, working success, health and personal development. And I want to just clarify that we can have dreams and goals but in Zen Coaching we learn to work through the process rather than focus on the end results.

At this point our conversation shifted to the types of sessions Sandra holds space for and then she touched on romantic/intimate relationships. I couldn’t really hold that thought much longer, I had to jump right in and begin questioning her some more. After all, these are some of the most interesting relationships we face in our lives and I was yearning for more.

Anneka: Ok stop right there. This is interesting. Tell me, what exactly is it that makes these relationships so important?

Sandra: (Laughs before she responds) Actually an intimate relationship can be one fast way to enlightenment. If you and your partner are willing to be open and explore yourself and your patterns, projections, fears, ideas and so on in an intimate relationship, it is a beautiful practice and support to go deep and live from an authentic place. That is my intention with an intimate relationship, to support each other in living with presence and awareness. We all have to find our own purpose.

Anneka: Do you see many couples coming to you for this sort of guidance?

Sandra: Actually, even though it’s very alive in most people’s lives, it can unfortunatly be a bit of taboo to seek support from the outside, for example of a coach. It can be a beautiful opportunity if both partners are open for it and in my experience very supportive in seeing each other and ourselves in relation to our lover clearly.

Anneka: I suppose that requires courage in any relationship. What can a couple expect from a coaching session?

Sandra: We work on nonviolent communication, being aware of needs, understanding development of attachments, looking at triggers and then together the couple develops practices to build awareness to connect back to themselves and each other.

Anneka: It’s a lot of work eh! Why do you think people have such trouble finding peaceful and loving relationships?

Sandra: One of the most important things is to find the purpose of the relationship. A couple needs to establish what the focus is and whether it meets them. There is no right and wrong answer but interestingly people rarely ask themselves the question or even understand what it is they are longing for. There is always a tension between the need for autonomy and the need for intimicy in a relationship. We want to be close and to connect, and we want to have space and be free. A lot of fear is often involved in this.

Anneka: It must be very rewarding to see how a partnership can be cultivated in this way.

Sandra: It’s been a massive part of the journey I’ve had with my own partner and although it can be a challenge it’s also been a beautiful process. It’s become the way we live within the relationship and I’ve been able to see how building an intimate relationship can help me connect back to myself.

By the way, we talked for some time on this topic and I decided that the best way to share more of her wisdoms with you for now was to inform you about her upcoming couples workshops she will be holding in Barcelona. You can check out the flyer below or contact Sandra for more info. But be prepared to see some home truths if you dare enter 🙂

Anneka: What is the best transformation you’ve ever seen?

Sandra: Myself. I’ve been in the process for so long now and although huge changes can be instantaneous, it’s also an ongoing process. I’ve learned that loving the process is the process.

Anneka: In the end we are indeed the alchemists of our minds and our lives and if we want to live our dreams then we need to be prepared to put in the groundwork. Aside from those tricky romances, what other things do people come to you for help with?

Sandra: Anything that creates awareness like the inner critic, the inner child, perfectionism, longing, non-violent communication and mindfulness.

I duly spent the next moments quibbling with why we humans were created to have to spent all this effort on transforming our lives at all. Can’t it all be paradise every step of the way? And as usual Sandra came back with a truth to take me home. She told me that the ultimate fight is always with God and then sent me packing with another powerful quote….

‘Will you hold me now if I surrender universe?’ 

I made it my mission to try just that and wait to see what magic falls into my lap.

And with that, I thanked Sandra for her incredible insights and wishes and made a pact to see her again. And if you would wish to do the same you can find her through her webpage www.geitz.com here or by dropping her an email on zencoaching@geitz.com. Alternatively she can be found around Barcelona holding many workshops and classes and if you do in fact need some helpful guidance in various areas of your life then her coaching might just save the day. She holds one on one sessions in person or online.

As usual, we at Farmacia Barcelona are pleased to share with you all the great work happening around the city and how our community continually encourages each other to live with health and wellness in all aspects of their lives.

For now, we wish you well
Anneka, Sandra and the team at Farmacia Barcelona