Having successfully changed the trajectory of her own life, after suffering through abuse, self-neglect and addiction, Kali Walters chose to do things differently and to reach out for the guidance she needed. Having worked hard to move forward with positive growth and direction, she is passionate about being a support for other women who have stopped following their hearts and their passions and have lost their spark in life. At Kali Jay Coaching, she guides women to live their lives full of passion and purpose. Here she talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the inspiration behind her business, the challenges she has overcome along the way, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
I lived a life where I was in a state of cycling between self neglect, abuse, and in earlier days drug usage, when I started to heal my own issues and cycling states. I was a young mum in the beginning and it took a lot of work to do it on my own. Distrusting the “text book counsellors”, I saw that I needed something different for myself to learn from and shift the way I was living, because even out of the state, the cycles were still present in minor triggers and the way I was reacting.
This led to finding coaching, leadership coaching, empowerment coaching, the space of empowering people, specifically for women. This felt like a space I’d always known was there but I hid from for many years, not feeling like I could give myself permission to dive into myself.
The space kept calling me and I realised a huge thing as I saw my children watching me and the actions I took – especially being a homeschooling family, they saw the tears, the pain and the growth I had made. So the next step was to hear the call and follow the sparks that were lighting up for me to move from learning to being the guide for other women who had stopped following their heart, their passions and their sparks in life.
In short, my life and the spaces I’d moved through were the pieces that inspired me. Then it was a complete intuition and soul-led movement.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
At first I started slowly, getting the spaces of learning and understanding, but I hid for a while behind marketing and dodging the full “I help empower women to lead their lives” space because it was hard for me to claim. But as I started to open up and tell my story, people were drawn to me in that space and I realised that there was no more hiding allowed, so I started slow with individual coaching and then grew from there to group spaces. I followed the desire to help others and kept going, so now I am fully branded and in the space as Kali Jay Coaching.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Oh gosh, the biggest breakthrough was actually owning the space. I truly believe that we are only able to hold the space that we have broken through ourselves, so in business I was holding back when I kept telling myself I couldn’t be that person. This is something I was teaching and guiding, but holding back on myself was that space of actually stepping through the door. It looks different for everyone to be claiming, owning and stepping through that area but ultimately it was looking at the pieces and becoming radically responsible for what I was truly wanting, and then it shifted.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
This is something I get asked a lot. I have 5 children and we homeschool our kids so the combination of that plus being in this space and helping others through their journey is big. Balance doesn’t look like a set of scales for me – far from it – but having loose routines and blocked out times dedicated to certain areas of life helps a lot.
Otherwise the biggest piece for balancing is actually the ability to hold each space and then switch, and being able to completely switch (giving myself permission to do work when the kids are around). But also knowing that sometimes one piece may need to wait when there are big things coming up that need to be worked through.
