I Completed the Soul Coaching Book by Denise Linn. Here’s What Happened.

Soul Coaching by Denise Linn is a generally well-reviewed book. It averages just under 5 stars on Goodreads and Amazon. Its description says:

“If you could really hear a message from your soul, what would it be telling you?

Soul Coaching is a four-week program dedicated to an in-depth clearing and cleansing of the different aspects of your life: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. If not now, when? By following the practical, carefully crafted steps presented here, you’ll find that you’re able to uncover your authentic self.”

Alright, I’m down. I am well convinced that my “authentic self” is just a giant flaming bag of garbage, but I decided to take the 28-day plunge to find out for sure.

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A few things to note about Soul Coaching:

1. The book goes in week-long sprints according to the elements. We start with Air and end with Earth.
2. At the end of the book, a two-week “quest” is recommended to further the book’s results. I kind of did the quest but not really.
3. If you want to skip to my results or recommendations, scroll all the way to the bottom.

If you’re reading (or finished) Soul Coaching, let me know!

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My Process Journal for ‘Soul Coaching’

I debated about posting my whole journal here, but I think most of it is just long and boring to anyone who doesn’t know me. I’ll summarize each week and the process here:

Soul Coaching Week 1 – Air

We start the book with an honest look at our lives. When I started this, I was working 2 jobs in a pandemic and living with the world’s messiest, most inconsiderate roommate. All of those things are still currently true, but I oddly feel better about them? I don’t know, maybe I’ve just grown used to them a little more.

We then had to commit to taking one “empowering action” daily. Honestly, I did try but kept forgetting. I never really got into the flow of this and that’s my fault.

One critique: It was VERY tough to work full time and have time to do some of the things in this book. I would suggest that if you’re going to do it, don’t beat yourself up for missing a day or taking more than a day for some tasks.

I would say this week was split 50/50 into re-framing negative emotions and clearing clutter. Either of those would be a lot on their own, but together they were overwhelming at times.

Re-framing Emotions

This was surprisingly helpful. We would do things like “write down all negative thoughts you have about yourself, then turn them into a positive.” So, for example, I wrote that I am a pushover. I changed that into “A peace-maker who lets small things go to avoid conflict.” Sounds way better that way, doesn’t it?

I did struggle with some of this, though. There are certain dark periods in my life that I have a hard time framing positively. I am sure I’m not alone in this. If you struggle to do it, I would just suggest that you not spend more time on it than necessary. If you can’t re-frame it, just move onto the next thing.

Clearing Clutter

Luckily, I’m naturally a pretty clutter-free person. Unluckily, my roommate is an absolute slob hoarder so while my ‘half’ of the house is clean and tidy, theirs is unspeakably gross. I can’t get them to do anything about it (believe me, I’ve tried) and I really couldn’t find a way to re-frame this positively. What possible benefit could I have from that? I still don’t know.

Soul Coaching Week 2 – Water

Water week was said to be dedicated to emotions, but we started it with another re-framing exercise. We had to write down pivotal moments in our lives and what we learned from them.

The second day we made a “Spirit Stick.” This was a really fun exercise! Here was mine:

The colors and elements added are supposed to represent your life from birth to now. Mine starts out dark (except for a ruby I tied into it, which was my grandma’s birthstone). The top, or current, is an explosion of colors, feathers and sequins which is how I would LIKE my current reality to be. It is sadly not always that, but such is life I guess.

We had to identify “energy zappers” and “energy juicers” and commit to removing one of the former and increasing one of the latter. Honestly, my living situation is my biggest energy zapper, which sucks also because I work from home. I also hate the cold and it’s cold here 10 months a year, so moving should probably be a priority for me. A juicer I said I would increase was hiking, and I did that.

During this week, I dealt with HEAVY emotions. I ended up putting the book down for a few days but when I picked it up, it said this was common during this week. It also said a lot of the recurring/negative emotions would resurface in order to break those patterns.

Another critique: The book posits that we “choose our parents” and we have to look into why we might have done that. This was very tough for me and I’m sure it would be for others also. My best guess is that I did something terrible in a former life and have to atone for it, but I would rather just reject the question.

Soul Coaching Week 3 – Fire

We started Fire Week with a list of our fears. Shocking to no one, my list was long. We then had to pick one fear and commit to taking a small action on it. One of my biggest fears is negative comments for some reason, so I filmed a video for my YouTube channel. Take that, haters.

A lot of this week was about having fun and breaking bad habits. We also got into some heavy topics, like our sexual history and our views on death. This is the entire spectrum of my views on death:

via GIPHY

I’m mostly cool with it I guess. I don’t know what to think about it and therefore I don’t, haha.

The last part of Fire Week was closing our eyes and drawing. It was kind of like letting Spirit take over and sending you a message.

When I finished, I was shocked at how little of the paper I had used. I thought I was using the whole thing and I had stayed in a small corner of each page. I think this is Spirit telling me I have way more room to grow than I think, and I need to expand my horizons a lot more than even I thought possible. It’s time to stop playing small. 

That’s fine, but I don’t know how to do that or where to start, haha. I know I need to meditate, maybe I’ll do that? I always forget and/or don’t want to, but I know I would benefit from it. 

Soul Coaching Week 4 – Earth

Earth Week was a focus on the physical body. Honestly, this week was kind of a weird week to end on, IMO. We had very little writing to do since it was mostly physical, but then there were no earth-shattering insights like in previous weeks.

The biggest thing I did this week was get a new tattoo. I thought it would be fitting since it was body week. This is my second one and I designed it myself:

Honestly, some of the book’s activities this week were just strange. There was a day we had to go out in nature and “lean against a tree.” We also had another day of house cleaning and creating an altar.

I guess I was just hoping that something *big* would happen; I don’t know what but maybe I land a lucrative job or something great happens that would change my life.

I know, I expected too much. No book can make changes like that happen, they must occur over time (I guess? But I swear this book pretty much said something like that would happen).

I do believe in intentions and manifesting (to an extent), and I do think that coincidences can occur to change the whole course of your life. I really thought that the combination of me reading this, plus doing everything correctly, would lead to something massive. I got my hopes up I guess. I don’t know. 

I guess my biggest confusion was the order of the book. If we did them in weekly segments, why make Earth (the segment with the least amount of work and the least amount of writing) last?

At the end of the book, the author suggests taking “a quest” for several weeks, including meditating and journaling daily.

I didn’t really do that, but some time over the last 2 weeks I had the idea to start this blog. I’m always trying new self-help books, crystals, etc to see what they can do for me, so I thought it might help some people to read honest reviews of those things.

Overall Thoughts on Soul Coaching

I think I got my hopes up way too high, but that was my fault. I did create this website as an end result of the book, so that is something I guess.

Here are my biggest tips to get the most out of this book:

1. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for missing days. It took me over 2 months to do what was supposed to be 28 days, haha. It didn’t affect the outcome, and I wish I had been kinder to myself throughout.
2. Take your time. Some of these activities are just not possible to get done in a day. It’s worth it to make one day spread over a weekend or even a week if it means you finish the activity.
3. I don’t recommend moving on without completing all of the tasks. I tried that and started over. You can do it any way you want, of course, but to get the most out of it I recommend doing each task.
4. Journal every single day, even on days you don’t have to. This will allow you to monitor your thoughts and feelings over the course of the book.

I’m curious: Have you read Soul Coaching? How did you like it? Do you plan on reading it? Let me know in the comments below!