Feature Image Photographer: Marika T Styhr
Meet Lena Johansson, a remarkable coach who integrates her faith into her coaching practice, bringing a unique perspective to the transformative power of coaching. Lena firmly believes that her connection with God plays a vital role in her work, allowing her to go beyond conventional methods and tap into the wisdom and insights needed for lasting change. Through prayer and a deep spiritual connection, Lena has witnessed remarkable transformations in her clients, helping them break free from burdens and traumas and empowering them to walk in victory.
Lena’s coaching journey is characterized by her ability to tailor each client’s experience to their individual needs and circumstances. By actively listening and asking the right questions, she guides her clients to uncover their true purpose and potential. Drawing upon her certifications as a Gender Intelligence coach and a John Maxwell coach, Lena utilizes gender intelligence and powerful questioning techniques to provoke transformative insights. Her holistic approach, informed by her background as a physiotherapist, pastor, teacher, and family counsellor, ensures that clients’ physical and mental well-being are given due consideration. With a strong foundation of trust and genuine care, Lena creates coaching relationships that enable clients to thrive and embrace a balanced life, faith, and business. [ez-toc]How has your faith played a role in your coaching practice? How would you say you have personally seen God work through your coaching sessions?
My faith is essential in my work as a coach. If I didn’t have God, I would be all by myself and rely only on my own wisdom and knowledge. With God, I have the “person” who created my client on my side. He knows everything about my client. Also, the things that are hidden both for me and the things hidden in the subconscious of my client. And when I have the possibility to pray for my client, God can reveal hidden memories to her or him but also give me as a coach or counsellor thoughts and ideas that are just what is needed in the situation, so I can ask the right questions. With common psychology or coaching and counselling, you can reach a lot, but not the final freedom and deliverance that is needed to walk away completely free from all old burdens, shames, traumas, or abuses, if that is what has been the problem. But also, in common coaching sessions where you want to come further in life and grow your LifePower, the wisdom of God is a good “tool” to find new paths. When people recognize who they are in God, that what God says about them is more important than what people say or what they themselves say, the client just becomes a new self, with a new dignity and a new LifePower to cope with the challenges ahead. First, it is good to take care of old garbage, but then the focus is to be able to walk in victory in the future and get the tools to be able to stand tall in the storm of life that will come. I especially like to coach young women who just began their journey to find and walk in their LifePower. To give them the possibility to live a whole long life in victory.You mentioned that you are fully living your purpose when exercising a passionate love and drive to help people find their purpose. What have been some of the most rewarding moments of working with clients?
It is when a person comes in frustrated, defeated with no direction in life. Perhaps they have been abused and full of shame and then see the transformation during our coaching. How they can be freed from the burden of shame and cut off the soul ties to the abuser, be aware of what God put in them from the beginning, their true self, see them start taking steps toward a life in LifePower, start to dream again and take action. When I see the glow in their eyes coming back and when I hear reports on how they are coping with life in a whole new way full of LifePower, reaching new goals. I am especially thinking of a young girl with a terrible past in every way and how she now is a transformed woman who makes good decisions and growing as a person every day, able to say NO!!! And who glows in a way that people stop and ask her why she is so happy. Or a middle-aged woman working as a nurse aid. Who started making reality of her dreams, educated herself and now is working as a teacher for nurse aids. She had a dream and with help of my coaching, she saw the possibilities instead of the hurdles and took action. Step by step and finally reached her goal feeling proud of herself and full of LifePower.How do you help clients stay motivated and accountable for reaching their goals?
I often tell the clients to make a dream board at the beginning of our time together. Cut and paste pictures and quotes from newspapers or draw and put in photos of who they want to be, what they want to achieve and most important WHY? You have to have a why that makes you cry. And when they have put that together, I can always go back to the dream board to motivate them.
Given that God, the creator, has given us life and put us here for a purpose, how do you ensure that each client’s coaching journey is tailored to their individual needs and circumstances?
Well, I have to be a good listener and listen both to what they say and what they don’t say. I am not the one that tailors their life journey. They are. I am just facilitating what they want and desire. I am the one asking questions that reveal what is inside of them. And many times, our main purpose here on earth may not show until later in life and all the decisions you have made and all the knowledge and wisdom you have earned, all the challenges you have gone through is just what is needed for you to be able to take on that task. Many young people think that they will accomplish their life purpose before they are 25. And with the right coaching, maybe you will. But I have noticed that many times life itself is what makes you ready to step into your purpose at a ripe age. That doesn’t mean that you haven’t fulfilled your purpose during your life travel as well, but many great people made the most impact in later age. Just think of Moses in the Bible who started his life mission with 80 years and what he accomplished. Or Mandela, all he had done previously in life funnelled down in being a deliverer for many and the first chosen president by all the inhabitants of South Africa at the age of 76 after both good and bad decisions. Or Florence Nightingale who reformed the nursing trade, started a nursing school, and became the health advisor for the Ministry of war in her middle age. But there was a life before, where they had laid the foundation, and that life travel is as important as the end product. We have to learn how to enjoy the different faces of our life journey and see everything as we do as something important and work on it as if we are doing the most important work on earth. And myself, I always at the beginning of every year pray and fast to let God lead me in what I am supposed to do this year. Where are my skills and my personality most needed right now? And that is what I try to implement in my clients too. Where are you needed the most right now? Given the obstacles that can sometimes prove stubborn, what techniques do you use to assist clients in achieving their desired outcomes? As a certified Gender Intelligent coach and a John Maxwell coach, I teach my clients about gender intelligence (The science behind how the differences in brain and hormones affect the differences in how men and women behave, make decisions, react to stress, do business, etc.) and how it can be useful both in family, every relation, and business but also as every coach asks the right questions that will trigger something in my client. And of course, my secret weapon – prayer. As a physiotherapist, I am also aware of what your physical health means to your mental welfare and your overall LifePower. As a physiotherapist, pastor, teacher, coach, and family counsellor, I have a holistic approach to people. For example, not everyone knows what great impact your fatty acid balance makes in your LifePower. Both for the body and also for your psychological well-being. So, in my LifePower coaching package, I also give the possibility to make a blood test and analyse what can be done by adding different nutritional supplements. And the most important thing is to prevent things in life. Both health and life coaching are best used as a prevention to be able to cope with what lies ahead of you. Not just to take care of old rubbish from earlier years. When that is done, you have to look forward to the future. What do you need to grow your LifePower?How do you develop trust and rapport with clients, and are there any secrets to building rapport that you can share?
Listen to people’s stories, find common ground, talk about that. Show that you really care, and smile (when it is proper). I think that the eyes really are the mirror of the soul. Look at your client with love, affection, integrity, and interest, and sincerity.What advice would you give someone who is trying to find a balance between life, faith, and business?
Build first on your faith. Take time to get to know your creator and saviour. Read the Bible, it is the best book in personal development, and many good quotes that the personal development gurus use, without knowing it, are from the Bible. And there are so many stories of people of all sorts, about their struggles and mistakes and success in life that you can learn from. Take time in prayer and ask God to reveal what you need to change or keep, in life and in business. He can give you directions just by giving you a good idea or that a name suddenly comes to mind that you should contact. If you take time for this, your life will be much easier to handle. Always prioritize your family and close relations. If you have built on that and put time into that, they will be your safety net even if things happen in life and perhaps your business doesn’t go as well as you hoped for. Business is something we have to do to survive and hopefully also something we are passionate about and that gives us energy and that will help mankind in some area of life. Money is not everything, but it has a calming effect on the nervous system as Hallgeir Toften used to say. But do not let business come in the way of a healthy family life. A strong, secure, and loving family is the backbone of a strong and secure society.Where do you see the life, faith, and business coaching of LifePower standing out in the future?
I can see the LifePower Institute being a true holistic business, helping people to reach a new level in life, family, faith, health, and business as I do now. Providing a coaching package for the whole person spirit, soul, and body that not many can do. Being a lighthouse in the jungle of offer propositions regarding health, wealth, and a balanced lifestyle.
