Who am I?

Who is Jan Marchant? It’s not an easy question to answer, because I can only give you my version of who I am. Everyone who either knows me has worked with me or met me at one time or another will have their version of who I am.

First I come from a family of seven, being Mum, Dad, 2 sisters and 2 brothers. I appeared 4th in the hierarchy. I’m lucky. I have only good memories of my childhood. Sure there were the usual ups and downs as we squabbled, sometimes it all got to Mum and she blew her top, but nothing kept her mad for long.

She should have been a professional singer, but her parents didn’t consider that a proper vocation for nice girls. The world’s loss was our gain. She sung whenever the opportunity arose, so there was always music in our home.

Funny enough, although Dad didn’t sing, he played a mean piano. He was completely self taught so must have had a great ear for music. When I got married there was a gap before the disco started, so he went up on the stage, lifted the lid of the upright piano and started playing honky tonk music. It was magical.

I left school at 16. I didn’t have the option to stay on longer because, the only criterion was find a decent job and work your way up. Further education was seen as a luxury beyond our means. I had no idea that I could have a career, which is a good thing; because you don’t miss what you don’t know.

Lucky for me, at that time you could move from company to company with no problems. So I worked at Unilever, a bacon importing company, SOGAT – a newspaper union to name just a few!

Moving from East Street, South London to Bedford my husband and I were the first in our families (and that included all the uncles, aunts and cousins!) to purchase, not rent a house. We were given all sorts of terrible warnings about getting into debt and our parents never failed to visit without a food parcel, convinced we were on our uppers!

Suffice to say that nowadays, the opposite is true and most are living in and buying homes themselves. Those years in Bedford hold many happy memories with lots of great friends. Picnics, get together’s, parties, workshops – which included spiritualism, tarot cards and healing.  This was the start of my real education.

A midnight picnic at Glastonbury for the summer solstice stands out in my mind. In those days there was an invisible line that separated us from the music festival. You could see where it started by the smoke and the smell of wacky baccy.

I used to make most of my daughters clothes as money was tight, but the pleasure of seeing her in my creations was very fulfilling. I also made the 3 tier cake for my sister when she got married.  I’ve always been creative and enjoyed the rush of starting to the thrill of completion.

I’ve always tried to be a good friend and someone who could be relied on for help. I’m not so sure it was welcome when my mum was in Guy’s hospital. I gathered up all the false teeth belonging to the elderly ladies in the ward with the intention of cleaning them.

Unfortunately, I forgot to keep them separate and didn’t know who to return them to.  The nurses put me on tea trolly duty after that!

Now let’s include some fabulous workshops/courses into the mix. Stuart Wilde, Fiona Harrold, Denise Lynn, Lynne Franks plus many, many more and you can see I was having a ball.

So you see I have lived an ordinary, but also an extra-ordinary life, flowing along with a little exploration here and there. Then my darling elder sister Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 39.

Deafness in one ear caused by childhood measles meant she was often in hospital, at a time when experimenting with drugs on patients was quite common. But the cancer was something else altogether.

I felt completely helpless and so, my journey to try to find a way to help began. Reiki was my first port of call. Being able to help her to relieve her pain was something I’ll always be grateful for.

I was lucky enough to be sitting, holding my sister’s hand when she died and it’s always been a blessing that I was there to witness her talking to our departed mum, as she came from heaven to take her back. Just like that, the room was empty.

A friend Zenna returned from the US after completing a course with Louise Hay.  She gave me a gift, which was the book ‘You can heal your life’ and this became my healing bible. I still have that copy despite it being a big dog eared these days.

A few years down the line I moved from Bedford to Southminster in Essex. My first job was local, helping out in the kitchens of one of the pubs in Burnham on Crouch. I only mention it, because who could forget me after I tripped on the carpet and covered the local bank manager from head to foot with his Christmas Dinner.

I loved that job. But I had a vision of getting old and still being there, getting pennies for hard graft. It was my first experience of seeing how owning a business had to be better than slaving in it. And I chose that word deliberately!

So I found myself working in investment banking in London for 10 years before ending up at Bradwell Power Station – a local job, albeit a step back into the past, where the men were men and the women were there to serve them! I still wasn’t brave enough to venture out on my own, but the best thing that those two positions gave me was a substantial pension which had my freedom written all over it.

Fast forward to the closure of Bradwell and I the chance to be retrained. I had been studying counselling and had already completed 3 years work. That’s where I thought my future lay, but I was wrong.

A chance encounter with an advert for Life Coaching saw me change tracks to a different career. I trained with the Coaching Academy in their first flush of success. Heady, wild days that fulfilled me more than I thought could be possible.

They were so generous with their training, which included extra workshops, and ongoing help. I decided that I would also train with Newcastle College, just because I could and my aim was to be the best Life Coach ever.  (This is a common goal for Life Coaches!)

Next came my years with the Healthy Living Centre in Southminster, where I was able to share Reiki, Indian Head Massage, Crystal Healing, running Life Coaching courses, as well as face to face Life Enhancing Coaching.  It’s one of the most rewarding times in my life.

In the 10 years or so that I have been training and/or exploring Life Coaching, I have added NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), Adult Teacher Training, Human Givens with Ivan Tyrell and Joe Griffith, Michael Neill, Jamie Smart, the 3 Principles of Sydney Banks plus a year of workshops with The Money Gym.  Being the best included wanting to learn all the different ways that money works, but of course it was so much more than that.

Each and every piece of my learning jigsaw completed another piece of me.  Nowadays I don’t really do a lot of one-to-one Life Coaching.  I prefer to work online, sharing what I’ve learned with others, and I love it.

I’ve just completed a children’s book which came to me in a dream.  It kept nibbling away at my consciousness until finally I committed it to paper.   I’m currently looking into ways of getting it published. Primarily it’s my legacy to my two wonderful grandchildren.

Am I lucky? I’ve always thought so and maybe, that’s why miracles appear whichever way I look. It works for me and my wish is that it will work for you too.

Learn more about me by visiting www.jmcoaching.com (http://www NULL.jmcoaching NULL.com)