We recently connected with Sonia Petecka and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sonia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

One of my favorite success stories this year comes from my soulmate client Lia, who was referred to me in February after experiencing daily panic attacks for 8 months. We worked together and did Subconscious Reprogramming on several stressful situations that happened prior to her getting the panic attacks (this means we bring peace to these situations on a subconscious level).

We also programmed some empowering beliefs that revolved around feeling safe and trusting her body. Lia hasn’t had any panic attacks or experienced intense anxiety since our first session. A few months later, in June, I traveled to Greece to help Lia facilitate her women’s retreat and had the pleasure of doing Subconscious Reprogramming, leading Breathwork, and teaching Kundalini Yoga and Meditation there.

Here is Lia’s testimonial:

“Sonia was referred to me by a friend!

When I reached out to her my goal was to experience relief from my severe anxiety and panic attacks that I had been experiencing on the daily for 8 months straight.

Up until that point I had tried everything to feel better but nothing would last. As an energy healer myself, I had received healing by different people, tried GABA supplements and eliminated caffeine. Nothing would make a difference. My anxiety was incredibly intense and paralyzing.

I showed up to my session with Sonia with an open mind but I told myself “If this works and gets rid of my anxiety, it will truly be a miracle!!”

We had our session which was incredibly fascinating and interesting!! Sonia has an extremely grounding presence and makes you feel very very comfortable. She is also very patient and never rushed me through the process.

I am pleased and shocked to say that it’s been 3 months since that session and my anxiety/panic attacks are COMPLETELY gone!!!!

I am forever grateful because the anxiety I was experiencing was something I would never wish on anyone!! I am now working with Sonia long term, and she is helping me work on different goals including motherhood and business! If you haven’t worked with Sonia yet, I highly recommend that you do. She might be exactly who you’ve been looking for. ”

Lia

For more client success stories, check out the Testimonials section on my website.

Sonia, 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?

It was my own healing journey and successfully overcoming my personal struggles with low self-worth, depression, as well as various health issues that led me to starting my coaching business in 2015. For me the path towards becoming more aware and awake in my life has been a journey from my head and the intellect into my heart and my body.

I’m originally from Poland and I moved to the US when I was 16. In 2020, I moved to Miami.

Ever since I can remember I’ve been interested in how people can overcome fear and live happier and more fulfilled lives. In 2009 (my junior year of college), I was studying abroad in Paris and was feeling pretty lost. My mom sent me Abraham Hicks CDs and I started diving deeper into the Law of Attraction. I tried thinking positively and made lists of things I appreciated in order to create a more fulfilling life experience, but nothing seemed to be working. I didn’t know at the time that I needed to address deeper issues like my beliefs and trauma on a subconscious level before I could manifest my dream life and experience more ease and peace every day.

In undergrad at Tufts University, I studied Biochemistry and French. I was also pre-med and planning to go to medical school, mostly because that’s what my grandparents wanted. I wanted to please my family and I was very disconnected from myself and didn’t really know what I truly wanted at the time. I only knew I wanted to help people in some way and medical school seemed like a good way to do that.

After college I got a job in an immunology research lab at Harvard Medical School/ Brigham and Women’s Hospital so I could get more experience before applying to med school. I was miserable in that role, it didn’t pay much and I worked very long hours. At the same time it was a blessing because I got to work closely with doctors and researchers and realize that I didn’t want that lifestyle and I wasn’t really passionate about science and medicine in the traditional sense.

After deciding medicine was not my path, I decided I needed to move to New York City because that’s what felt like the next aligned action at the time. I started exploring different careers and graduate programs and enrolled in an MBA program at New York University Stern School of Business. After I graduated, I got a job at a large technology company managing client relationships, where I learned a lot but ultimately didn’t feel fulfilled either. I was trying to fit in somewhere where who I authentically was and my gifts weren’t valued. I tried to pretend I was someone I wasn’t and it was exhausting. My intuition was telling me there was a more expansive future possible for me. I’m so glad I eventually listened to myself and decided to take the less conventional route as it was guiding me step by step to my true purpose and soul calling – serving people through my coaching.

While I was getting my MBA in New York City, I went through a crushing break up and I realized I needed to focus on my healing. I started practicing Kundalini Yoga and Meditation daily and eventually, after another tough break up in 2015, I decided to go through Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training. I wasn’t initially intending to teach, I just wanted to feel better (and to become enlightened of course).

In 2015, I also invested close to $40,000 in my personal growth. I didn’t have the money in the bank (actually I had student loans), but I took a risk and put coaching on a 0% credit card, which I was eventually able to pay off. I share this story because often I hear from people that they don’t have money to invest in their personal growth or it’s too expensive. However, when you really want to improve your life, you can find a way even though it might seem scary or irresponsible. I’m not saying that the way I did it is the right way for others, but I have also seen my investments pay off in unexpected ways while others were valuable lessons I needed to learn. I believe intentionally investing in ourselves is the smartest thing we can do and offers the best return on investment.

2015 was also the year I started my coaching business. Little did I know, this was just the beginning of my healing journey. I needed to go through my dark night of the soul and experience deep depression after getting off the birth control pill before I could assist others. These challenging experiences were necessary to inspire me to try many different approaches to healing myself in order to eventually create the life that I wanted to be living. I also needed to go through this difficulty so that I could compassionately hold space for others on their healing journey. Now I am living my dream life, by the beach and serving soulmate clients from all over the world.

In my coaching practice, I guide people through making movement towards their desires more quickly and easily. I’m very proud of the results my clients experience. With my support and unwavering belief in them, they confidently create what it is they want – whether it’s art, a book, a healthy and fit body, a loving relationship or a business. I have helped people heal chronic pain and symptoms, finally start losing weight after trying everything, experience more harmony in their relationships, meet their aligned romantic partners, build their dream business or career as well as welcome more financial abundance. Most importantly, my clients experience more peace and joy and are able to be more present in every moment.

I guide people in creating lives they love through removing anything standing in the way of them achieving their desires, whether it be traumatic events from their past, lack of belief in themselves, stress or whatever else is holding them back. My coaching is personalized so it meets you wherever you are on your growth journey. My work is also a great next step if you’ve been in therapy or you’ve been working on yourself for a while, but haven’t really experienced results or made significant progress. My clients have said that they accomplished more movement towards their goals in the few months that we worked together than they ever did having been in therapy for years.

I also want to celebrate how far I’ve come on my own personal growth journey, how much more present I am and how much more joy I experience every day. I’m also proud of how much fear I was able to let go of and how I was able to heal myself from physical symptoms like chronic fatigue, painful menstrual cramps, digestive issues, acne and many more. I have also created a business on my own terms, in alignment with my intuition and soul-led intentions.

One of the things that sets me apart from other coaches is that I incorporate a unique variety of tools in my practice including Subconscious Reprogramming, Human Design, Breathwork, Kundalini Yoga and Meditation and many more to facilitate a more powerful transformation in a short amount of time. In my coaching, I also use my experiences from my science research days, my MBA, working in the corporate world and all the different programs and trainings I invested in. I combine the down to Earth knowledge with spirituality and intuitive guidance.

I’m always continuing to work on my own growth and evolution so that I can serve my clients even better every day. I just completed my 10 week journey through The Presence Process, which is a book by Michael Brown and a process geared towards integrating old suppressed emotions and trauma from our childhood (we all have it). It involves doing a powerful breathing practice twice a day. I’ve felt such a shift after the process – I’m able to be more present, connected to everyone and everything and respond to life instead of reacting to it. I highly recommend this process to my clients and anyone who wants to experience more peace, however it can bring up a lot of uncomfortable emotions, so I would say it’s beneficial to have support from a coach or someone who has been through the process themselves.

I also help clients determine and address the root cause of their issues (whether physical, mental or emotional), which resides in the subconscious. When we try to transform or improve our lives we often focus on addressing the physical situation – we move, leave a relationship, change jobs or change our eating or exercise habits if we want to lose weight, but as the Presence Process states and as I’ve come to observe, those actions are addressing effects and not the root cause of the issue.

When we want to shift things, we can also change our thoughts about the specific situation, but in my experience our thoughts don’t create our life circumstances. It’s the beliefs and emotions residing in our subconscious that shape our experience. Any changes to our thinking therefore also do not result in a permanent transformation. In order to create lasting change, you need to address the root cause, the emotions, experiences, beliefs and trauma that live in the subconscious.

Carl Jung said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” (the terms subconscious and unconscious are interchangeable here)

The subconscious or unconscious directs 95-99% of our lives while the conscious mind only 1-5%. Most of our subconscious programming happens before we are 7 years old. This is why we can practice affirmations or things we want to believe by repeating them on the conscious level. However if our subconscious mind does not believe them, we will not see a change in our reality.

This is why I use Subconscious Reprogramming in my coaching as a quick way to rewire the brain so it can function more effectively. The goal of PSYCH-K®, which is the Subconscious Reprogramming technique I use, is to bring peace around stressful situations (whether past, present or something we are stressed about in the future), phobias (like the fear of flying or heights) or trauma so that we can respond to life more resourcefully instead of reacting to it based on our past experiences. Using this technique, I can also help people program empowering beliefs that are relevant to their situation, for example “I am confident” on the subconscious level to help them act in a more assertive manner.

Subconscious Reprogramming is the easiest way I’ve discovered to shift things in your life in the direction you desire. It does however require that you bring awareness to the discomfort present in your life. You might need to feel the things that you’ve been suppressing for many years and integrate uncomfortable childhood experiences and emotions before you can experience more peace and joy in every moment.

Another powerful tool that I incorporate in my coaching is Human Design. Human Design, if you haven’t heard of it, is a tool that teaches you how to use your energy optimally so that you can receive things that are right for you while experiencing more ease and flow. It also teaches us how to make the right decisions for ourselves by tuning into our unique flavor of intuition. We often analyze things and try to figure out what makes sense or is the best decision, however our intellect, as much as it pretends to know everything, is limited. Human Design teaches us how to make decisions by listening to the body. For example my intuition flavor is sacral, which means that when I’m making decisions, I’m meant to follow my excitement (even if it doesn’t make logical sense) and the expansive feeling in my body.

Human Design also tells you about your authentic self, your gifts, talents and superpowers, as well as your purpose, basically who you are underneath all the messaging that you picked up from the world about who you should be. It can also tell you how to eat and exercise in a way that is best suited for you. It is the science of differentiation, which tells us that there is no one size fits all advice we need to follow as each of us has a unique path to success and fulfillment. For example some people are meant to have a routine, some are meant to do different things every day, some benefit from planning ahead more, others are meant to focus on the next aligned action.

Human Design helped me to let go of so much judgment about changing directions and my mind in my life and career. I discovered that I am meant to be multi-passionate, non-linear and try many different things in order to create something new out of all of my interests. It also helped me to connect to my intuition and realize I needed to eliminate things that were draining me and say yes to more things that light me up. I incorporate Human Design into my coaching because it gives people permission to follow their unique path instead of listening to what others tell them is the right thing to be or do.

The way I work with clients is unique as well. I do sessions over Zoom and phone, but I also use Voxer, a voice messaging app where I connect with my clients every day to help them stay accountable and keep them moving towards what they want to create. Thanks to Voxer, they can receive coaching, guidance and support in a more real-time way rather than having to wait for a scheduled call. I know when I did coaching or therapy, I would usually already resolve the issue I was struggling with by the time the session came around. I wanted more immediate help and that’s why I now offer this service to my clients.

All my programs and packages are also customized to each person‘s unique needs and desires. I take into account your Human Design and what your preferences are – some of my clients prefer two hour calls every week, some are fine with one hour, some like to connect over Voxer every day, some don’t. All my coaching is tailor made because I believe there’s no one size fits all solution. What works for me won’t necessarily work for someone else, so I help my clients come up with their own unique formula.

When a potential client first comes to me, we start with a 2 hour Life Transformation Consultation over Zoom where we go deep into their goals and desires and why they want what they want. I offer guidance based on the person’s Human Design (for example on how they can hear their intuition more clearly or whether they would benefit from implementing a morning routine) and then we reprogram any stressful situations from the past or present that are holding the person back from living a life where they feel fulfilled. We also reprogram any limiting beliefs (for example “it’s not possible for me to have a happy healthy relationship or successful business”) to empowering ones (like “I am in a loving relationship with a kind, conscious and attractive man” or “I easily make six figures or more per year working with soulmate clients”) on the subconscious level.

We then come up with an action plan that will help them move towards their goals and desires quickly and with ease and grace.

Usually I work with people for at least 3 months since that is the minimum amount of time required  to create meaningful movement. Each week we address another layer of beliefs that are holding them back from their dreams and any obstacles and challenges that come up so that they can consistently move towards their goals.

Have you ever had to pivot?

All of 2020 was one big pivot for me. I was living in Seattle at the beginning of the year and right before the pandemic started, I lost my corporate job. This was shocking yet a blessing at the same time. I was not fulfilled in the job, but was too scared to leave due to my financial fears as well as lack and scarcity programming and beliefs. I didn’t trust myself to be able to support myself with my coaching business. The Universe helped me by removing the job from my life. I knew I wanted to dedicate myself to coaching full time (I had been doing it part time since 2015), but was still very afraid about whether I could make it work. Soon after losing my job, I also realized the romantic relationship I was in was not aligned and eventually somehow I got the courage to leave my partner and Seattle without a plan, trusting my intuitive guidance.

I traveled to New York to visit my family and then Poland, my home country, I thought that maybe I was meant to move back there. After some time in Poland I realized it was not aligned for me to live there. I wanted to come back to the US, but wasn’t sure where to go. I thought about going back to New York, but that didn’t feel expansive for my soul. I had always wanted to live somewhere warm and by the beach. I considered California, but when I surrendered and asked the Universe to guide me, I received a sign to come to Miami. I saw an ecstatic dance event on Instagram, which a few people from my Kundalini Yoga and Meditation Teacher training and another person I was following randomly (through someone I had met at the beach in Southampton, NY) attended. It was a clear synchronicity and I felt the expansive feeling in my body saying “I want to do that!”. I followed my intuition, left Poland before a wedding I was supposed to attend, booked an Airbnb and came to Miami in October 2020. It was true divine timing because a friend was visiting Miami at the time. She brought me to Acro Yoga in South Pointe Park and there I got introduced to the people who would eventually become my soul tribe.

While in Poland I also realized this was the time to commit fully to my coaching business and take the risk of it being my only source of income. It was now or never. Though it was terrifying and not an easy journey, I’m so glad I trusted myself and the Universe. I have been supported and guided to the people who needed what I offer.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

For me the most effective way to grow my clientele has been through reaching out to my network – college and business school classmates, coworkers and people I’ve met throughout my life and inviting people to experience working with me.

Often it’s hard to understand the power of coaching and what I do just by hearing or reading about it, the experience of it is so much more meaningful and impactful.

This is why I reserve 2 hours for a potential longer term client for my initial Life Transformation Consultation. During the consultation we go deep and explore their deepest desires and why they want what they want. I also talk about their Human Design as it relates to getting to their desires. We also do Subconscious Reprogramming on anything that is holding them back from realizing their dreams whether that’s limiting beliefs or any trauma or just emotional patterns of stress and anxiety.

Coaching is an intimate experience so it’s essential to create trust and safety, which are established through conversations. In my experience it takes longer to build that trust through social media.

Referrals have also been key in growing my coaching practice. Once people experience results and share them with people close to them, others are excited to see how I can help them overcome whatever they are struggling with.

Ultimately I believe it’s our energy that draws the right people to us. When we are serving from the heart and doing what we love, we become magnetic to people who need what we have and they find us as if by magic.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.soniapetecka.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soniapetecka
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachingwithsonia
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-petecka
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/soniapetecka
• Other: Tik tok: www.tiktok.com/@soniapetecka
  Booking link: https://app.squarespacescheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=23175995#

Image Credits
Patrick Farrell, Lia Mehmetoglu, Meghan Chadeayne, Alexia Papadopoulou, Jill Fox