Several floors above Main Street in downtown Harrisonburg, Letitia Bates sits with virtual and in-person clients and taps. It’s called the Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT for short, and it’s one of the mechanisms Bates uses to help her clients work through emotional baggage that hinders them from achieving their potential.
Through her practice, At the Wheel Life Coaching, Bates aims “to evoke inspiration, healing, compassion, and transformation in the world.”
Learn more about EMU’s accelerated degree program.
Bates is a 2016 graduate of EMU’s Accelerated Degree Program. She has been a life coach for five years now, and dove into the practice full-time two years ago, after earning a degree in leadership and organizational management from EMU. Bates says that the program especially helped her develop confidence in writing.
“So much of it was centered on writing that it was like I found my voice again,” Bates said. She has now published a book about self-improvement, and four journals, all available on Amazon.
Students are grouped into cohorts of about 15 who go through the program together. Bates said that this “was conducive to the deeper discussions about the material that we were using.”
Adults who want to return to school can qualify for the program if they hold at least 48 college credits from another institution, a 2.0 cumulative grade point average, and are at least 23 years old. The program meets over four consecutive semesters, one night per week, with about a third of the sessions held online simultaneously.
Building confidence through the Accelerated Degree Program
Bates’ journey to the Accelerated Degree Program began while she was a successful insurance claims professional at Rockingham Insurance in Harrisonburg. Though she was in a leadership position, Bates said she still struggled with feelings of intellectual inferiority.
“I really just didn’t think I was smart enough, and a lot of that was informed by the self esteem issues from my past,” Bates said. She decided to further her education, taking courses at a local community college before transferring to EMU.
One overarching concept from her studies at EMU that has informed her practice is that of “systems fit,” Bates said.
“You can have a forward-thinking concept, but unless you have a system that’s expanding to accommodate that, you’re just going to create conflict and struggle,” she explained. “So that was very powerful for me.”
Life coaching a transformative experience
Bates chose to take her leadership skills into the life coaching field because her own life-changing experiences as a client.
“I had a lot of emotional pain in my history … Everybody told me that time would heal the wounds. Time had not healed the wounds,” Bates explained. Her friend suggested she seek help for the trauma she’d experienced.
“I started therapy, and things started to shift. And then I found myself in an identity crisis, because I didn’t know who I was without my victimhood. So I hired a life coach,” Bates said. “And then everything really changed, because I started to see what my life could be like.”
Her life coach taught her about tapping. After earning a certification to lead EFT tapping, Bates added to her skills and knowledge with a Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) training at EMU, and certifications in hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming.
These techniques “all deal with the subconscious mind. And a lot of what’s driving us or stopping us are experiences in our past that are not readily available to us at the conscious level,” Bates said.
She illustrated this subconscious hindrance with a ubiquitous experience: setting your alarm for a certain time, then not getting up.
“It’s kind of like when the alarm clock goes off, and you hit the snooze button, even though you set an intention to get up at 7 o’clock. Something subconsciously says you don’t want to get up, even though, consciously, you said you wanted to. So we have this dance going on in a lot of areas in our lives,” Bates said.
‘Clearing, clarifying and creating’
Some of her clients know what’s holding them back when they first contact her. Others don’t, but just know they aren’t achieving all they would like to. She works with the client through three main phases.
“Clearing whatever is holding them back” comes first, Bates explained. “The second element is clarifying – let’s get crystal clear on what you want to do. And then that third phase is creating, so having a plan to move forward and execute to get results.”
Many clients take what they learn from these sessions into the workplace. Others, like one named Heidi who shared her story on Bates’ website, have more spiritual goals. Heidi’s infant daughter had died in the neonatal intensive care unit, never having left the hospital. She came to Bates because she still hoped to have a family some day, and didn’t want her grief to haunt her future children.
“Heidi had the foresight of knowing that if she didn’t clear the emotional stuff, that that could transfer into the continuation of her family, and she didn’t want that,” Bates said.
Giving back to the community
Bates is in no way resting easy on her latest accomplishments. She continues to give back through involvement with the Newport News organization Crusading Outreach Ministry, and is a Distinguished Toastmaster in the Harrisonburg chapter of the public speaking and leadership nonprofit Toastmasters International.
For Bates, this lifestyle of service is a natural outpouring.
At the ribbon-cutting event for her life coaching office in 2017, Bates thanked the community for how much they had invested in her – especially her mother.
“Mama, I want to thank you for all the sacrifices that you have made. I want to thank you for the demonstration of courage that you have shown me … and I promise you that I will rise to the highest, best, and fullest expression of the woman you have intended me to be.”