My story of joining the Cannabis Coaching Institute to become a Cannabis Coach starts with feelings of anger and frustration. You see, after suffering through months of debilitating depression and trying everything under the sun to get better, my mom gave me a bag of weed for Christmas and told me she thought it might help.
Help was an understatement. Cannabis changed my life.
That first night, my husband Sean and I were so nervous. We had both consumed cannabis earlier in our lives, but it had been years. We even had to bust out YouTube to show us how to roll a joint. We felt like naughty teenagers sneaking around and I distinctly remember wondering if my neighbours could smell the pot from their place.
Everything changed for me with the first puff. It was like the clouds parted and I remembered that I was inside. Andrea. Me. The one I used to be. I suddenly remembered what it was like to not carry around crushing emotions all the time. I laughed! I hadn’t laughed in soooo long. It was an amazing, life-changing experience and I was so relieved that I’d finally found a solution.
Except, I hadn’t.
It turns out that it was way harder to control my depression with cannabis than I had anticipated. I obviously couldn’t walk around high all day, so how was I going to use this amazing plant to make me feel good, not stoned? Sometimes I got too high and other times it didn’t seem to touch the sadness. I tried different doses, different ways of taking it and many, many, MANY different kinds of cannabis. I actually shudder to think back on how much money I spent just trying to find some peace.
During this time, I was Googling my brains out. It didn’t take too long to realize that EVERYONE has their own idea about what is the best and all these ideas seemed in constant conflict with one another. How was I supposed to know who to trust?
So, I headed to my family doctor. I told her I was getting relief with THC, but I didn’t really know how I could make it work for me long-term. She immediately started lecturing me on the evils of cannabis and offered to write me not one, but TWO additional prescriptions for anti-depressants. That’s where the anger came in. I was now NOT a suicidal mother in bed crying, I was getting better, but she wanted me to take more meds instead. WHAT???
Spurred into action, I made an appointment with a Cannabis Clinic behind my doctor’s back. Surely they would be able to help. I explained to the cannabis doctor that THC was working, but I needed to figure out how to be able to parent my children, be there for my husband and to get back to work. He ignored all that, wrote me a prescription and told me that the Cannabis Educator would answer all my questions.
Ha! If only she had, I'd never be writing this post.
What the Cannabis Educator DID do was sign me up with a cannabis grower who would give the clinic a kickback every time I ordered through them. She told me to start with “just a little bit” of oil and just keep adding more until I felt better. She also pointed an old Crock-Pot in the corner of her office and told me that it was really easy to make weed brownies and I’d find recipes on the internet.
WTF??? For real? That’s all you’ve got?
I was furious that there was literally no one who would teach me how to use the plant to just feel better. Wasn’t that someone’s JOB? A quick Google search told me that in fact, Cannabis Coaching was a career and it could be MY career if I wanted it.
I did.
I joined the Cannabis Coaching Institute in February of 2018. The experience was WAY more than I bargained for. I thought I would learn about cannabis and how it worked in the body and that happened. But beyond that I learned about mindset work, coaching work and all the steps it takes to start a successful business. I made life-long friendships and am now surrounded by colleagues in the industry who are all striving for the same thing - to help the world feel better with the power of the plant.
I’ve been running Reveal Cannabis for three years now and in the process, I’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people, for real! It sometimes gives me shivers when I think of all the ways that teaching about healthy cannabis use may have impacted people around the world. It is incredibly rewarding to get notes in my inbox and on my socials telling me that with just a little bit of support and education, people were able to go on and live better lives.
Over those same three years, I’ve been working with Corinne and Niki, the founders of the Cannabis Coaching Institute to bump up the amount of cannabis science content in the class. In February 2021, we launched CCI version 2.0. It now includes a robust 7-week Cannabis Education curriculum, as well as plenty of mindset work, business-building support, coaching foundations and a done-for-you eight-week coaching program that you can offer to your clients. I’ll walk you through your journey as a Cannabis Coach in the next post and I'll also let you know what some of our awesome grads have been doing with their certifications.
I sometimes sit back and remember the night I decided to join CCI and wonder what would have happened if I didn’t. How would my life and the lives of my friends, family and community have been different if I didn’t hit the “buy” button?
If this speaks to you in some way, come check out the Cannabis Coaching Institute. You can join our 3-Step Challenge, book a discovery call with a faculty member or just sign right up. Use code: revealcannabis for $500 off your tuition. I can’t wait to see you there.