Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Charles West. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Charles, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard?

Like many people, I understand deeply that everything is energy; every touch, taste, word, thought, movement and what we choose to do with our time. They all create vibrations and the quality of those vibrations create the quality of the results in our lives. If we are random and careless with the intake of food, beverage, environment, social network, screen time, thoughts and energy we will most likely not be very satisfied with the outcome of what we are creating in our lives. I began to create my business, Divine Spark Coaching, about 8 years ago. Craniosacral therapy and Sacred Geometry energy healing were the first trainings I put into my Spiritual Toolbox, followed by, certifying as a Life Mastery Consultant with the Brave Thinking Institute while, also, diving into the teachings of Dr. Joe Dispenza and Tony Robbins. I then studied with Deepak Chopra and am a certified Ayurveda teacher and Primordial Sound Meditation teacher with Chopra Global. No two people respond the same to any type of coaching protocols, so I have made it my business to become an expert in many of them so that I could customize the programs that I take each client through.

Right out of the gate, I was blessed to work with quite a few life coaching clients! Then, in the fall of 2017 I had a profound awareness that the clients who I worked with were, indeed, achieving results with our coaching work, but, I could tell that there were aspects of my clients experience that coaching couldn’t touch. I was frustrated because I couldn’t figure out what the solution could be. Then, I heard about Marisa Peer and RTT hypnotherapy. I watched her Ted Talk video and investigated what hypnotherapy is and what it’s used for. A very loud voice in my heart called out, “This is it, Charles! This is what you’ve been wanting to add to your Spiritual Toolbox that can bridge the gap between your clients’ conscious and subconscious minds.”
So, shortly after I studied with Marisa in London, I created a 3-month customized combination of Life Coaching and RTT program for my clients. Immediately the results that my clients received were much deeper and grounded in emotional healing than coaching alone. So, in the world of branding, I am a HypnoCoach and I now have 3, 6, 9 and 12-month customized HypnoCoaching programs that serve my clients extraordinarily..
Within a typical 6-month HypnoCoaching program, each month my clients receive 1 RTT hypnotherapy session with the rest of the sessions incorporating heart-centered coaching trainings and exercises. So, combined, my clients are peeling back decades of negative programming that’s been stashed away in their subconscious mind while, also, empowering them to finally learn who they are without these invisible puppet strings controlling them.
Oh, I want to offer to anyone who might come upon this interview a little insider information about hypnotherapy. What I do is a clinical modality of hypnotherapy that helps to rewire my clients subconscious mind of belief systems and patterns that sabotage their lives, not stage hypnosis.. If you have unresolved trauma, addictive patterns in your life, feel like you’re just not good enough or worthy enough, then I have a system and structure of support that can help you like nothing else can. Go to my website and check out all of the video testimonials of clients’ wonderful transformations.

Charles, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was raised on the north side of Chicago by loving parents. My dad became a prominent pharmaceutical engineer at Abbott Laboratories and my mom, who had a beautiful mezzo-soprano voice, became an administrative leader at Abbott Labs. From an early age, I realized that I loved to sing and it became apparent that I inherited my mom’s singing voice. What I didn’t realize until I started forming my own business was that I also inherited my dad’s scientific mind.
In my 20s I started performing in professional theatrical productions all around the Chicago area. But a fire was lit in my heart when I saw the 1st National Tour of Miss Saigon and I knew that I absolutely had to be in this show. So, I moved to NYC 4 months later, even though I’d never been there before. Within my first year of living in NYC I performed in 2 European tours of West Side Story and even made my Broadway debut in Cyrano-the Musical at the Neil Simon Theatre. And then, then planets aligned for me! I auditioned for and booked the very same tour of Miss Saigon that inspired my move to NYC! So, I joined the tour in LA and performed on the road for 1 1/2 years until it closed in Vancouver.
You might think that I was feeling super confident about how successful I was becoming, but the reality was that it felt like I was lugging around decades of pain and trauma in this invisible backpack and it kept on getting heavier and heavier. The only way I could deal with the crushing frustration was to party with friends and get high. I mean, so many people I knew were going out to the bars and clubs to socialize and get wasted. At those places, at least, I felt like I fit in. But, then on the morning of 9/11 I watched both of the World Trade Towers collapse from the rooftop of the building where I lived in the lower West Village. Let me tell you, there were not enough “party favors” to numb the trauma and fear that I was dealing with and within a coupe of years I ended up in a coma from an overdose. I was, truly, scraping then bottom of the barrel. Where had all of my success gone? Where was the knack at finding myself at the right time at the right place? I was so full of self-loathing that I could not imagine forgiving myself for becoming such a catastrophic mess.
Well, fast forward to today and I am thriving in my life, in my marriage, my business and am coming up on 20 years of sobriety! I have, not only, learned how to forgive myself, but I have learned how to love myself. I know what it feels like to be home within myself and I live my life as an open book.
Everyone who works with me knows that they are in a safe space to dig down deep and do the type of tough healing work that they’ve never had the opportunity to face. My clients know that I don’t just talk the talk, but I walk the walk. Mostly though, my clients will know that they are working with someone who has been through enormous struggles himself and has persevered.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Along the way, I have learned that whenever life presents you with a big challenge; whether it financial, health-wise, relationships or your own levels of self-esteem and self-worth you can always attune your mindset to support you to learn and grow through the process. I can attest to this first hand, as just about 9 months ago I was blessed to receive a liver transplant. That’s right! ! I was on the Transplant List for only 3 days and last December I received a liver transplant. The wonderful doctors and nurses at Mt Sinai Hospital in NYC have proclaimed over and over again that “Sir, it just doesn’t happen like this! We’ve never seen a patient go through a major organ transplant like you have! How did you do it?”
This is what I told them;
“For quite a long time I have been caring for my emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing with a high levels of compassion, self-trust and discipline. I have used prayer to prepare my mind, body and spirit to receive miracles and I allowed myself to enter into this experience, something I never imagined would be a part of my life’s journey, without any fear. I tended to my conscious and subconscious thoughts by making RTT self-hypnosis recordings that I used many times each day. I meditated often (different Dr. Joe Dispenza recordings) and devoured spiritual new-thought books to keep my mindset primed.
I was given clearance to back to the gym after just 2 months post transplant and I know that every prayer I’ve said, every gratitude list I have written, ever time I’ve meditated and called a friend to lend support, I have been making massive deposits into my Spiritual ATM and, thank God, I have been able to make withdrawals that have supported me miraculously in my journey pre and post-transplant.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

This is such a powerful question that I have delved deeply into over the past 2 decades. Reflecting upon the memories of my early childhood, I am keenly aware that when I was perhaps 5 years old, some things took place that created a profound disconnect within me. The framework of one of the belief systems that was imposed upon me was done in the very conservative church I was raised in. My dad was a man of honor and service, so he became an elder at the church, which meant that we rarely missed a Sunday morning, Sunday evening or Wednesday evening service. Along with teaching arts and crafts, my mom’s soprano voice could be heard soaring on hymns like, “How Great Thou Art”, “It is Well” and “Onward Christian Soldier”.
It was a confusing arena for me to make sense of because, although I have some fond memories of the potlucks and summer times at the Youth Camp in Wisconsin, these activities could not override the level of fear that was created inside of me from the fire and brimstone that overflowed at each service. It was, as if, the preacher’s goal was to get the members of the congregation to feel so horrible and lowly about themselves that they had no choice but to crawl their way up to the front of the church at the end of the service and hurl themselves into the baptismal. Messages blasted from the pulpit were “God is an angry, vengeful and punishing God”, “what lost and lowly sinners we are” and “we were born into original sin”. I can remember how petrified Charlie felt when the preacher bellowed that “God killed his only begotten son, Jesus, because of you and your sinfulness”. Charlie interpreted this as, ‘I must be the most horrible little boy on the planet that God killed Jesus because of me! At the core of my being, I am a vile and despicable creature.”
The topic of another pivotal Sunday service was the 7 Plagues of Revelation in which the preacher spun a terrifying web of God’s punishment on people who disobey; “aAll the rivers and oceans of the Earth will be turned to blood and men will become scorched from the sun’s heat and inflicted with loathsome smelly blisters and sores!” I can still see Charlie sitting there, completely horrified, between his mom and dad. In shock, he noticed the heads of other churchgoers nodding in affirmation at what the preacher said.
Later, when the service was finished, it was time for Sunday school class. Charlie nervously approached his teacher and tugged on her blouse. “Ma’am? Excuse me, Ma’am.”
“Yes, Charlie?”
He takes a pause as he struggles to put his feelings into words “Ma’am, why would God make something so scary like the Plagues?”
As if he was a misbehaving cat, “Shh…shh…now, Charlie, you’re a good little Christian soldier boy, aren’t you?”
He looked up at her feeling completely hopeless and confused, “I’m trying to be, Ma’am, but I…”
She sternly folded her arms, “Well, then you don’t ask questions…EVER!” and turned and walked away.
At 5, most kids are learning reading, writing and arithmetic and Charlie did great at those. His good hand-eye coordination guided him to write in cursive like a pro and to become quite proficient on the piano. But, in a very short time, Charlie was, also, taught that, under no circumstance whatsoever, was he to express the truth about what he was feeling, to ask a question about what he was afraid of or reveal that there was anything troubling him from within. “Nope! Hold it in, Charlie, and be a trooper!” was what he was programed to tell himself.
Some people call this type of extreme guilt and shame inflicted upon them during their childhood years Church Hurt. I’ve heard others refer to the damage they experienced as Spiritual Abuse. Both terms resonate with me, but don’t go deep enough to speak to the straitjacket that, literally, strangled the innocence and vulnerability out of Charlie.
I’ll tell you why.
One day, about 19 years ago at one of the support group meetings I attended, some of the folks were talking about something I’d never heard of that really confused me…something called a loving Higher Power. One by one, they each spoke with such reverence about the precious and sacred connection they developed over time with their own version of a loving God. As they continued around the room, I was completely confounded and struggled to make sense of what I was hearing…kind of like how Charlie was trying to make sense of what he heard in church about 35 years earlier. I was new to this group, so I certainly wasn’t going to do what I wanted to do, which was to stand on my chair and yell at everyone, “What are you all talking about? You’ve got it all wrong! There’s no such thing as a loving High Power! He’s an angry, vengeful and punishing God!”
I’m very glad I didn’t do that! Instead, I allowed myself to, not only really listen, but to feel what these people were saying. There were no proselytizing or demeaning words being spoken. Just a depth of wisdom and sincerity that cracked something open inside of me when I got back home later that day.
Throughout the years of my healing journey since 9/11, I have learned to use and apply many different questions of self-discovery that have revealed a lot to me. One question that I silently repeated to myself that day was, “Why do I believe what I believe? Why do I believe what I believe?”
I repeated it again and let it evolve.
“Why do I believe what I believe about God?”
“Why do I believe what I believe about myself and speaking my feelings?”
“Why do I believe what I believe about having to do everything perfectly?”
“Why do I believe what I believe about not ever fitting in or feeling accepted for who I am?”
“What if those people at the meeting today were telling the truth about God and what if all the things I was told when I was a kid were wrong?”
As I repeated and reflected upon what these questions were bringing up inside me, it felt the beginning phase of something unpredictable and scary had just begun. This was my very first moment, at 40 years of age, when I had a clear glimpse inside one of the belief systems that laid the foundation that my entire life was built upon.
I am beyond grateful that the Charles I am today is a deeply spiritual man with resilience and compassion enough to share. Am I perfect? Nope…that is not my goal and I don’t even believe that perfection is attainable. But, I do definitely engage in a sacred and intimate connection with God- the Divine Creative Energy of all that is.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://DivineSparkCoaching.net
• Instagram: CharlesWestDivineSparkCoaching
• Facebook: Charles West and Divine Spark Coaching
• Youtube: Charles West

Image Credits

image 3 is with Marisa Peer
image 4 is with Deepak Chopra
images 6 and 7 are from Dr. Joe’s amazing Leaping to Your Future challenge at Indian Wells, CA
image 8 is when I sang “O, Holy Night” for Marianne Williamson