About Your Personal Coach

Hi. I'm Bennett Barouch. Welcome to Zen-ish Space, a Zen-ish center for reducing stress and anxiety.

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees and professional work experience in psychology, and have been licensed in psychiatric nursing. I've taught at the elementary school and college level, and have been an assistant dean of students. I have been certified in massage, and as a teacher of meditation and of yoga. I am currently studying personal fitness training, despite a lifetime of hating to exercise. I've been a student of biology, psychology, philosophy, religion, and ethics my whole life. The massage, yoga, and personal trainer bits have been prompted by decades of chronic pain. The humanities and science bits have helped me assist people with everything from ordinary challenges to truly devastating experiences.

In the software industry, I have been a hands-on engineer, manager, executive, and consultant, in startups and in Fortune 500 companies. I led work that landed in the Smithsonian. I authored a patent at the intersection of integrated circuit manufacturing and international espionage. Like many people, my life has included being married, raising children, being divorced, remarried, and having step-children. I wrote a play that was produced off-Broadway, and I've authored a book that presents the perspective I will bring to working with you. You may find things in it that you want to take to heart whether we work together in person or not.

The point of presenting the unusual breadth of my experience is to show that I have a lot to draw upon in order to understand the issues that you bring into our discussions. I've been in good and bad jobs, good and bad relationships, good and bad circumstances. Even the good ones present numerous challenges. Even the bad ones have something to teach us. I've been smart and I've been dumb. I've accomplished things, and I've screwed things up. I can bear compassionate witness to whatever you need to share, and I can say with compassion whatever I think you need to hear.

I am honored that family, friends, and clients have entrusted me with hearing them out, and sharing my observations and understandings in a way that helps them develop theirs. I hope to be of similar assistance to you, either through personal coaching, or through my book, Eat The Strawberries. Eat The Strawberries expresses the foundation of my personal coaching practice, and readers have found it useful in its own right, whether or not they opt for live coaching.

If you want to talk, set up a video call so we can see if we are a fit.

About The Logo & Mission

The blue oval represents a pond, which itself represents one's life. The lotus flower is one of the main symbols of Zen, or more generally of the peace of mind Buddhist teachings are collectively aimed at helping us achieve, right in the midst of a real life.

People admire the lotus for its ability to thrive in challenging environments. Like you, its seeds can survive for many years even in harsh conditions. The lotus germinates and grows in murky water yet emerges from the mud below to produce clean and beautiful flowers. Thus for many people the lotus symbolizes purity, hope, perseverance, strength, and resilience.

The expression "no mud, no lotus" paraphrases the Buddhist teaching that there is no life that is free of suffering. If you are going to be alive, there is going to be some suffering. People want the lotus but not the mud, but the lotus does not exist in a mud-free world, and neither do we. Like the lotus, for us to bloom we must escape being mired within the mud, yet we also must not sever our connection to it.

A lotus cut free from its mud soon dies. Our flowering beauty also turns lifeless and ugly if we lose connection with our mud (understanding our own good and bad history, development, and dependencies), or if we lose compassion for the mud in other people's lives, or the ability to see their beauty. Rising above our personal mud doesn't mean denying it or pretending it is merely something in the past. Like the lotus again, it literally requires making the most of whatever value we can extract from the mud that can nurture us, and anchor us. No mud, no lotus. Also, when there is mud, there can be a lotus.

The red swoosh on the left suggests a heart. Heart, love, compassion – among life's most important forms of beauty, and a great treasure for us to nurture and protect, especially because of all the mud it will help us slog through.

The figure of a person is in the yoga pose known as "Warrior II". It is also nearly identical to an often-depicted posture from Kung Fu, a martial art created by pre-Zen Buddhist monks in the Henan province of China around the beginning of the 6th century. We must sometimes be strong and courageous to vigorously develop, defend, and share life's treasures, and not fall back into the mud by being passive or defeated.

You're going to have struggles. Life ensures this. Why not get really good at handling them? You are going to have joys and accomplishments too, but these do not spontaneously arise as frequently as struggles do. We must get better at generating these positive experiences, and learn to both share them and internalize them more fully.