We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Glenn Weissel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Glenn, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
By working through and releasing/healing childhood traumas that plagued me throughout my life. This was primarily achieved as a student in the Touched by a Horse® Equine Gestalt Coaching Certification Program.
In order to be the best coach for our clients each student works with the founder and senior students who facilitate working with horses throughout the 2-year program. We were masterfully led through deep processing to discover life events that caused trauma and then working with an equine coach we were able to release as much as possible to begin self-healing.
Working with human and equine coaches allowed me to slowly build confidence in myself by making better choices than I did in the past and that build self-esteem that continues to grow over a lifetime.
I am a certified Master Gestaltist having attended and graduated two separate 2-year programs which is equivalent to a Master’s degree.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My first passion is art and my primary method is creating landscape and close-up photographic images. My first camera was a Kodak Brownie given to me when I was quite young. Over the years after taking a number of classes I began to see the world in a very different way. The light beckons and invites me to see intimate details through a lens. Whatever I look at becomes art in my mind’s eye and it becomes a living creative process.
A very close second passion is coaching people to help them create their best lives. Life is impermanent and constantly changing. Everything about us changes so let’s create opportunities to live fully each and every moment.
Our company is Harmony’s Heart Coaching and one of our brand programs is The Enlightened Squirrel Healing Arts Center.
This program include art as a therapeutic modality to help people discover what’s happening within themselves. We created this as one of a couple of entry points into the overarching Equine Gestalt Coaching Method. The Enlightened Squirrel is more than a physical place where people come to play. We like to say The Enlightened Squirrel is whimsical, fun, and a mindset of how life can be.
Another new program we are launching this year (2024) is an equine-assisted corporate leadership development program. There are eighteen different experiences with horses that we choose from. Over the course of a day we’ll create a learning event for 10-12 people who want to level-up their leadership skills. As we like to say, “You’ll never forget being with a 1200 lb coach!”
We also write two blogs, one for the Animal Relationships & Communication aspect of our business which is my wife’s passion, and the other is about life, the Universe, and almost everything that I write.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
First is identifying and living my values: integrity, truth, service, compassion, and creativity are my top five. When we live according to our values we honor ourselves and the people around us. This is one of the most positive and empowering enablers in our lives.
Second is having the attitude of accepting who I am and finding ways to shine light on the darker side of life. We all live with the ‘ups and downs’ of our emotional bodies. Embrace those emotions and understand they are also transitory, meaning, they’ll change. Let’s also understand that we react from past unresolved traumas. When we look at what triggers us, that is, reacting to external circumstances, we can begin to explore root causes and be empowered to do something to heal the past.
Third is always move forward. Stated another way: Never quit. Never surrender. So many people come within inches of attaining a goal and they stop. Why? Because of their belief system. Whatever internal gremlin is talking to them you know it’s going to stop them in their tracks. I’ve seen it and I’ve done it myself over the years. As children, teens, and young adults when we constantly hear, “you’re no good”, “you’ll never amount to much”, “you’re a loser” we take that crap in, swallow it whole and believe it. It takes intestinal fortitude to silence those messengers and replace them with positive messages.
As far as advice goes: do everything within yourself to establish a solid foundation and build on that. Ask for help when you need it. Find a really good mentor you can work with. Consume positive messaging. Read good books! Volunteer to help others less fortunate than yourself. Live in the present moment.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal client is the person who acknowledges that they might be dealing some things that appear as obstacles preventing them from moving forward in life. They also are willing to ‘do the work’ with a coach who has worked through their own stuff and can absolutely see their client as whole (not broken). The client could use some fine tuning.
The best clients are co-active partners with their coach to dig in, be real with themselves and their coach, and take every imaginable step to ‘shine up their being’. All it takes is being honest, do the work, and be willing to engage with life.
That and a bit of polish.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.harmonysheartcoaching.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarmonysHeartCoaching
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harmony’s-heart-coaching
Image Credits
Image of Glenn and Ashara by Sonora Photography
Images of clients by Glenn Weissel
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
