MEET CLARA LUCIA
For Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier, life is more about the journey than the destination. Who she is today is due to the experiences she has had, the choices she made, the relationships she pursued, and the risks she has taken to this point.
The ups and downs have all been a part of the journey and contribute to personal betterment and reaching one’s potential. Clara Lucia discovered that the journey itself is powerful as she learned to be more kind to herself and to love herself every day, with all her mistakes, flaws, and imperfections.
The key, she says, is to embrace it all, to remind ourselves of our imperfect humanity and the beauty of it. She believes igniting curiosity is enlightening. What do you see beyond the obstacle, the barrier you have in front of you? What can you learn? How could it transform who you are? What is the gift and the opportunity of that circumstance?
Clara Lucia’s journey began in her home country of Colombia. Born premature, fighting for life inside an incubator for months, she has resilience and hope etched into her soul. In 1999, she immigrated to the U.S., became a proud Colombian American, and founded Breaking Through Consulting & Coaching. Through this, she has served and supported thousands of people to transform their lives as they work to reach their full potential and begin to thrive.
She has also integrated 20+ years of corporate experience as a strategist, communicator, marketer, and journalist into her coaching and consulting work. This invaluable experience with for-profits and non-profits has helped her impact countless businesses to become stronger brands by elevating their purpose, developing clear messaging, and determining strategic priorities.
Along the way, Clara Lucia overcame many challenges and barriers, personally and professionally. She spent decades trying to fit in the marketplace and in Corporate America. She also struggled with perfecting, performing, and pleasing as a means to find belonging.
Once she discovered her passion and talent for creating belonging and uplifting others who are going through life and career transitions, Clara Lucia earned a Master of Arts in transformational leadership and coaching. She is also an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Professional Certified Coach (PCC), earned a badge from the Graduate School Alliance for Education in Coaching, and holds various certificates in emotional intelligence, human emerging empowerment technologies, and transformational coaching.
Her mission is to guide people and organizations to awaken their purpose so they can break through, advance, increase their impact, and become better human beings and true agents for positive change.
Clara Lucia has been certified by prestigious educational coaching organizations to have exemplary skills, including:
- Active Listening
- Building Trust
- Communicating Effectively
- Creating Awareness
- Establishing Agreements
- Maintaining Presence
- Meeting Ethical Guidelines
- Partnering With Clients
- Powerful Questioning
- Setting Goals
- Demonstrated Coaching Capabilities
- Effective Coaching Practice and Mindset
- Facilitating Client Growth, Learning, and Performance
- Knowledge of Coaching Approaches
- Relationship Co-Creation
- Research-Informed Methodology
- Understanding of Coaching Theory
A SHORT STORY BY CLARA LUCIA.
Coming Full Circle, a Journey of Self-Love and Transformation
When I was four years old, I was interviewed by the psychologist of a bilingual school that my mom wanted me to attend. She asked me to draw something. So, I drew a picture of my mom, dad, and little sister. When she looked at it, she asked me, how come none of these people in the picture have arms?
I told her it was because my dad never hugged me.
From that moment on, I associated my inability to be loved, affirmed, and accepted as my fault. There had to be something wrong with me…
As a result, I realized that I had to strive to be a good girl. I had to work hard to deserve to be loved, and that became my focus. I became an A student and was someone people would look to for support. I was the responsible child.
I developed beliefs around how I’d better be the perfect child. I’d better obey and follow the rules so that one day I would be deserving of the love and affection, not only of my dad but of everyone else in the world. I associated love and affirmation with how much I could do and how much perfectionism I could achieve.
The other piece that goes with that is—we grew up as Catholics. There was this hovering notion of giving. It was always about what other people needed and how I could help others, but there was no talk about the importance of self-care and pursuing your dreams.
It wasn’t until I enrolled in a self-learning and developmental program about social-emotional intelligence that I began to discover another way of living and being. I learned that underneath my desire to help, I was creating codependency.
This realization was eye-opening. I was spending all of this time, effort, energy, and resources doing things for people instead of being with them, empowering them, and providing the tools for them to do it themselves. I was fishing for them, instead of teaching them how to fish for themselves.
Through the master’s program for transformational leadership and coaching that I endured, I learned that self-care is not something that we should only be given by our parents when we are little, but it’s something that we can pursue now as adults.
I can become my own mother. I can be sweet to myself. I can ask myself, how are you feeling? I can be kind and patient. I don’t have to be doing, striving, and serving all the time. I can pause and practice, little by little, to love, appreciate, and affirm myself. And when I want those things from other people, I can simply ask for them.
Today, I teach others how to practice this way of being. In the process, it’s my goal that they would feel seen, heard, and appreciated, and have a different and more loving perception of themselves. Seeing that fills me with pure joy!
