KENT COUNTY, Mich. — A new coaching center recently opened in Grand Rapids, and although there are similarities to other centers, you’ll be hard-pressed to find somewhere with the same offerings. The creator, Courtney Bishop, offers advice on everything from fitness and yoga to starting your own business.
“I really feel like the Pursuit of Authenticity is my most pure creative expression of myself,” she said. “I really enjoy kind of being able to study different disciplines and kind of connect all the dots together and see how it all makes sense.”
Bishop has a unique background. The former collegiate athlete is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, which allows her to safely train people in the gym. She’s also a trauma-informed registered yoga teacher.
“As an athlete, it's a lot of like push, push, push, and wanting to get to that next level and be your best, but rest is part of the work,” Bishop said. “So yoga kind of helped me learn to relax, and I learned that high performance is this balance of pushing and scaling back and settling into that place of flow and being your best.”
Each week, she offers a full lineup of services at her office which is connected to Unreal Fitness. Drop-in opportunities include slow flow yoga on Sundays and power yoga on Wednesdays.
“Mondays are my check-ins with my fitness clients,” Bishop said. “They do online check-ins every Monday morning with me, just through email and video chat. Tuesdays are my clients for my business coaching, so kind of helping people step into that most authentic version of what they want to create in their life, whether that's their career, relationship, you name it.”
Thursdays and Fridays are reserved for personal training and podcast recordings, she said, and Saturdays are for rest. Her space just had a grand opening in February, and Bishop said it’s a dream come true to finally be doing what she feels called to do.
“I started to understand that, okay, when I'm doing strength and conditioning, coaching in the gym, the cues and the language, the message, is not any different usually than what that person maybe needed to hear if they were trying to make changes in their career,” she said. “It just all feels right. I don't know how to explain it really, but I feel this sense of at home. It feels authentic and aligned.”
To learn more about the Pursuit of Authenticity, click here.
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