Lara Kudayisi Don-Momoh is a Certified Cognitive Behavioural Therapist and Family Life Coach popularly known as DearCoachLara. She specialises in healing, family life and mind reprogramming. A practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), an Eriksonian Hypnosis expert, a neurological repatterning coach, performance consultant, family life coach, Emotional Intelligence coach, anger management advisor, fear mastery coach and a cognitive behavioural therapist, she helps people heal from childhood dysfunctions and emotional traumas through her programme, the Healing School. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Lara Kudayisi International and the author of four books, ‘Dear Lara What do I do’; ‘What Is Wrong With My Taste In Men’; ‘How the Matchmaker’s Marriage Failed’; and ‘The 31 Days Healing Plan’. She owns and presents her own show called HOW THEY HEALED on Africa Magic Family and has produced a TV series called Dear Coach Lara that can be watched on her YouTube Channel. In this interview with GERALDINE AKUTU, she speaks on helping women reprogramme their minds and heal from traumas.

Take us through your journey into behavioural therapy and family life coaching.
My journey started 12 years ago when I went on Facebook to share my story of being a mother at 19, having 14 heartbreaks and 15 abortions. I got a divine instruction to share my story so that I could prevent people from going through what I went through and help the ones that are going through what I did heal. I shared my story throughout July and the responses of people who were in emotional pain were overwhelming. This made me go on a journey to acquire training, certifications and tools to help these people heal from trauma and give them a fulfilling and whole life.

At what point did you decide to make it a profession?
When I saw the level of emotional pain, childhood dysfunctions and trauma that people were going through, I was overwhelmed with empathy and I wanted to help all of them. I took a lot of certification courses like Neuro Linguistic Programming, Hypnotherapy, Performance Consultancy, Anger Management, Emotional Intelligence, Fear Mastery, Family Systems Engineering and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to mention a few. I realised that the topic of therapy wasn’t popular in Nigeria and I decided to make sure I spread the gospel as much as possible, especially because I also benefited from going through healing and having a completely new lease on life. I just wanted a lot of people, women especially, to feel the freedom and peace I felt at the time.

You have brought different sides of coaching into your core – healing, family life and mind reprogramming. How are you able to manage the different sides and how can you link these different sides of expertise?
There are no different sides. All these things are one because they are all focused on the soul of a human being. To heal as an individual from your childhood dysfunctions, emotional pain and trauma, the first step is to heal from your wrong wiring and programming as a child that is causing you to malfunction in your life, marriage and society as a whole. The second step is to understand your identity and acquire the self-esteem and confidence to live it. The third step is to reprogramme your mind and fill it with empowering thoughts and emotions that can make you excel in life.

⁠In our society today where times are changing and the economy is becoming tougher, how are you helping people reprogramme their minds?
The first thing is to always think from the half-full cup instead of the half-empty perspective. A lot of people allow themselves to internalise this economic crunch we are going through and that can cripple your creative ability. Don’t get me wrong; I know that things are really bad right now but the mind functions creatively better when there is adversity. That is when innovations spring up. This is why I created a programme, ‘The School of The Mind’, an eight-week therapy programme that helps to reshape your mind and helps focus your attention on the powerful abilities of your mind such that it helps you smash your goals.

The family unit is a vital part of society. How are you driving change through your work?
The family is a very key unit of society because that’s where we all come from. Whatever the family produces is what society has. This is why I make sure we have couples therapy, family therapy and children’s programmes so that we can have a well-balanced family.

Women stand at the core of your activities. How much of an impact would you say your activities have had on women?
Ninety per cent of my clients are women. When I started originally, my target audience was women because I realised how a lot of women are stuck and perform below their potential because of trauma and emotional pain. However, as time went on, the women started introducing their husbands and partners for therapy and I realised that we have to expand our audience because these are the people that will still go back to affect the women for good or bad even after they have been healed. Women are emotional beings and most times when they are dealing with hurt and emotional pain, they tend to be stuck in life. They become incapacitated and can’t function for the purpose that they are created. This is one of the reasons I take particular interest in them because they are already disadvantaged by hormones and nature as regards childbearing and other stuff. Becoming unfulfilled and broken on top of that just shuts that woman down for life.

What is your message to women struggling to get hold of their careers and live fulfilled lives?
Get a good support system that is full of people who cheer you on and help you achieve your goals. You can never do it alone; you would be worn out. Go to therapy. There are limitations and traumas that you have inherited from your family just by being born into it. You have to heal from those so that you can be free from all the limitations that are holding you down. If you are going to date or get married, make sure you do everything you can to choose a loving, caring and supportive partner. If you have made the mistake of choosing otherwise, invite them to therapy so that you both can work on it. If that doesn’t work, make sure you free yourself from any relationship that strips away your self-worth, confidence and dignity as this singular decision can define the rest of your life.