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COACHING & THERAPY

COACHING

A coach is an individual trained in the art and science of supporting a person’s progress in obtaining specific identified goals that will position that person for success. They provide services in one-to-one setting, groups and in organizations.  Many Coaches are certified in the area that they are coaching. Some Coaches are also Credentialed by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) which is the “Gold Standard” for coaches. Such a coach is bound by the ethical codes and core competencies of Coaching in order to be credentialed by the ICF. The focus is on assisting people in reaching their personal and professional and utilize specific questioning techniques, the use of assessment tools, and the ability to listen and respond to their clients.

Therapy often looks how the past impacts the present; or facilitating insight into how the mind and emotions work with and may emphasize a cognitive behavioral therapy or psychodynamic approach. Whereas, a coach will focus on specifically on understanding the present and making changes for the future. With Coaching a client is assisted in clarifying and setting specific goals, which may be professional or personal, and then developing a strategy to achieve those goals.

A coaching client will receive feedback to support an identified outcome during confidential sessions. A good coach will challenge the client to look for patterns in his or her behavior and then capitalize on strengths and what is working while making changes to avoid things that are not effective in achieving their goals.

Whereas a therapist is invited into a person’s world to assist in healing; a Coach is invited into a person’s life for strategic planning, transformation, and the realization of a person’s Vision, or Goals. A coach will facilitate the process of clarifying those visions and goals. The Coach facilitates the client’s awareness of one’s own answers and of mapping out their own action steps. A therapist often diagnoses’ an individual’s mental, emotional, psychological, and situational conditions and while facilitating a patient’s ability to find their own answers and to “get into the driver’s seat “; the therapist utilizes their specific evidence-based interventions to assist in decreasing suffering from mental, emotional, psychological and situational stressors. When coaching is applied outside of therapy, clinical interventions are not utilized, and the focus is not in mental, emotional, psychological, or situational health. If a client finds that such interventions would be useful, then finding a good therapist might become a client’s goal and the client would take an action step toward that end.

Coaches provide minimal advice and consultation. The Coach assumes that the client is the EXPERT in the client’s own life and vocation. There are occasions when a Coach might ask the client for permission to share ideas or possibilities; but it is understood that the client is taking on Coaching sessions for structure, accountability, and facilitation of one’s own inner generated process and transformation.

As a champion or cheerleader for the client, a coach supports the client’s self-identified progress and the positive changes in achieving both milestones and big goals. You might seek out coaching when you are frustrated; feel there are barriers to your success, or you have an intuition or passion that you just know you need to manifest into a reality.

Although coaches do not apply clinical applications; many are experienced and knowledgeable about a variety of psychological approaches. Often, you will see Positive Psychology approaches being integrated into Coaching. Think of coaching like this: You have a dream, or a vision, or want to get unstuck; or you know there is something inside you that needs to manifest- A good coach will draw all of this out of you, and facilitate your process of making it happen. 

PSYCHOTHERAPY

Psychotherapists also work one-on-one or in groups with clients, and they also use assessment, questioning and discussion. However, the role of a therapist is very different than that of a coach.  A psychotherapist is licensed by a governing board and provides evidence-based interventions for psychological, emotional, or situational distress. They often diagnose and develop treatment plans with their patients. The focus of therapy is to reduce suffering, explore and identify the underlying causes of this distress and apply interventions that are known to be effective in alleviating such suffering. With that in mind, there is often time spend on exploring and healing the past and developing and strengthening coping skills to manage the present. Though this is the primary focus of a psychotherapist, as treatment progresses, using a coaching approach after stability has been reached is common; and psychotherapists do move with their patients toward identifying what is most meaningful and will bring value to them in the future. In many cases treatment is transformed into coaching and a therapist trained in coaching may likely integrate specific questioning techniques and specific goal setting that is commonly used in Coaching. During a psychotherapist session, a person might receive consultation, coaching, and recommendations while engaging with the therapist in a clinical process. Psychotherapist provide a wide variety of treatments. They may be inclined to use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment therapy, Emotion based therapies, Person Centered therapies, Humanistic therapies, Faith based therapies, Psychodynamic therapies; solution focused therapies, attachment therapies, EMDR for Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome; and therapy to address addictions, etc. Many therapists have an integrated approach as they have learned and used interventions from a variety of the endless therapies that are available. Psychotherapist treat mental illness such as bi-polar, schizophrenia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety, Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Grief, Addictions, and more. However, they also provide services for people who are not diagnosed with a septic mental disorder, but who are struggling and suffering from emotional and psychological pain. Depending on the type of therapy, a therapy experience might include processing, unpacking, increasing awareness of dysfunctional thinking and behaviors, and identifying unconscious experiences, issues, or unresolved conflicts that with active work can resolved, increase understanding of current dysfunctional thought process and behaviors, and free the person to start moving toward a more content life and toward the things that they value in life. One main objective of therapy is to improve quality of life. Although a Coach may not provide therapy, a therapist may provide coaching during the therapeutic process. Note however, that if your coach is also a therapist, once you enter into a coaching relationship that is entered into as Coaching; and you then identify that you also would benefit from therapy; you will want to find a therapist separate from the coaching. Once a pure Coaching relationship is established; it is better to separate the process. It is also recommended that you let your therapist know if you are engaging in coaching. This will help you and your therapist drill down on what interventions and approaches to utilize during therapy.

When to Find a Coach

When you want help staying on track

When you want to clarify your vision, goals, pivots, strategies, personal and/or professional goals.

When you want help with identifying your purpose

When you want help to unlock the answers that are inside you

When you want help Increasing your motivation

When you want an accountability partner

When you want to gain personal insight, and a better understanding about yourself and your relationship to others and the world

When to Find a Therapist

When you are feeling depressed and want to alleviate this suffering

When you are feeling anxious and want to alleviate this suffering

When you are experiencing relationship problems that you feel are beyond your ability to resolve at this time

When you are struggling emotionally or psychologically with a life transition

When you need help with a grief process

When you are experiencing a behavioral pattern that you need help changing and that behavioral pattern is causing you to experience problems in work, relationships, or personal self-worth (anger management; addictions; etc.)

When you need couples or marriage counseling to work though issues that are causing you to feel distressed related to your experience as a couple.

When you have an identified mental illness and want psychological support for managing the mental illness and healing from any fall out that may have occurred as a result of the mental illness.

When you are suffering from emotional, psychological, mental, or situational stress, challenges, or issues.

STOP REFOCUS RESET EASY AS ABC

Do you suffer from “Not Good Enough Itis?”  Or have  a case of “What ifitis?”.  When you write your “to Do List” in your head, promising yourself that you will write it down as soon as you get home as you are driving, multitasking on you hands free phone; only to find upon arriving home that a “very important chore must be attended to now, immediately, before the sky falls!? The, when you finally get settled enough to write that to do list, (if you remembered to do it after completely all the must do chores), you may have difficulty preauthorizing, and OMG, sisters BDAY is next week!   Are you ever overwhelmed, or worried about uncertainties, or oversensitive to what you perceive as criticism by a loved one, or feel on edge? How does feeling this way affect your day?  With that said, what is the purpose of all of your goal setting, and actions, and list writing, and multi-tasking, and, and, and, and, anyway,  If not to  co-create with your higher power , or your own inner creative energy, in cooperation with the forces that are motivating you in the first place something absolutely awesome?  May I suggest that if this is the path you are on, could it possibly benefit you and your progress if you enjoyed your journey and all of the discoveries that you find about yourself and the world both inside you and outside you along the way? If this sounds good to you, lets find a comfy spot that feels good, settle in, and just take in the moment.

Creative, Innovative Achievers and Entrepreneurs are not always understood by mainstream normies. I get that-trust me; I’m an expert!  It’s more than being a “type A” That’s a label; some are, that’s true- but “type A” got a bad, and somewhat unfair rap also. I do not endorse any such idea as “over achievement”.  Let’s reframe the entire paradigm.  We are created to live, to breath, to move and express the being that we are. If that means achieving something, then that is our energy; if that means creating something, then that is our energy; if that means providing something, or serving others; or whatever it is that is our mission-  it is in allowing our life purpose to unfold and staying true to that subtle essence- that is Inside us, that essence that is inside each of us but is expressed through us in a distinctly unique way, much like each has a different finger print- it is in this, by this, and through this process that we fulfill our true destiny for which we are here- so we dance our truth. Once our “type A” friend connects with the perfections that is inside her, she will relax and allow that perfection to unfold rather than worry about how to force it to manifest.

There is so much content to cover, and there is much, much more. Some already completed, and much more to come over time dedicated to my brothers and sisters who live with the unique challenge of being ruled by such strong forces within that they must dance to an inner song, whose warmth and passion is a flame within which is an endless and vast world that was born and shaped from another land whose source is eternity , who’s intuition really does know best, and can benefit from learning some tools and tricks of the trade related to keeping it all together.

Below is simply one of those tools- something you can acquire, master and use in a couple of weeks of easy practice.  It will become automatic to you and will serve you well when you feel overwhelmed by your own misguided belief that the sky is falling.  Besides, if the sky really is falling, you probably can’t hold it up by yourself anyway, and we can would want a new one anyway. Remember, by allowing the world to go around, we allow the sun and moon to do their part in all of this as well. It isn’t all about me, nor am I in this alone. When I breath, and et the world turn, allot of what I worry about takes care of itself.

 

What are we doing here?

Picture your brain as the hardware to an operating system.  It is so perfectly crafted that it can accept, learn, acquire, master, use and automate any software program that you choose to put into it!  So, how in the world did it end up with the one that is activated now, the one that is not making you happy?  Well, that is something for another day.  Here we will talk about changing out one response program (habitual way of reacting to perceived stress) that is not creating the results for you that you want for a different, more efficient, more effective program that will create more calm,  a sense of efficacy, and overall satisfaction with your life experience.  I really like the metaphor of Operating system for the fixed process that your mind uses in order to enable your schemas and narratives, those beliefs and automatic systems that are “built” into your unconscious and subconscious mind.  And I truly love the metaphor of software program for those schemas and “narratives”, “false beliefs” “Negative thought patterns”, etc. that seem so often to become barriers to our achieving the life experience that we desire. So, those are the metaphors that I am using as I write these “instructions”.

Learn, Acquire, Master, Use, Automate

What we are really doing here is learning, acquiring, mastering, using, and automating skills. You have likely heard the analogy of learning how to drive.  How many micro skills are involved in that?  All very simple, but they need to be strung together, practiced, put to memory, put into the subconscious, and automated before a person can be considered a good driver.  The same goes for most of the things we do in life!  Cooking, cleaning, dancing, conversing etc.   The same goes for our responses to stress.  Anger is a common response to stress.  It is a software program. Yes, there may be predisposing to why a person ends up with one software program instead of another, but it is still a software program and can be overridden! The same can be said for despondency, or racing thoughts, or giving up, or giving in, or over eating etc.  So, when you see these step broken up into micro, micro, micro steps, it is for this very reason.  If you want to reach the level of automation, which is the equal of a reactionary response, much like what most of us experience when we find ourselves uncontrollably yelling, or snapping, or falling into a funk, then we must re-program the software, bit, by bit, by bit.  How many times were you told to look both ways before you cross the street?  I bet you automatically do that now. Not a difficult task. But I bet you were told over, and over until you learned that you were supposed to do that, then acquired the skill, then mastered it (remembered to do it when you were supposed to without anyone telling you to do it), then used it regularly, and only after all that, did this behavior become automatic. So, do take the time to teach yourself well, be your own best parent, friend, and computer programmer!

Creating Software Programs for your Operating System

  1. Segment #1: Sync a cognitive (thought) segment with a behavioral segment- (a segment is one part of the overall “program”)  This first program will be your “STOP Program” it will help you to STOP what you are doing- it is the intervention to use when you are overwhelmed. This program will be designed to automatically trigger when you are about to “loose it” to prevent you from feeling defeated, from giving up; from sinking into negativity and or long periods of “despair”.   However, this segment will be the first skill to learn,

 

 

 

acquire, master and use.  It will Stop your racing thoughts and be your precursor to redirecting you to reset and refocus.

  1. Practice imagining a stop sign- vivid red stop sign- hold that in your mind. Practice this until it becomes easy for you- Practice seeing the words STOP- Once this is Easy- practice shouting in your mind (silently to yourself), STOP! Practice this several times throughout the day.
  2. Once this is natural and easy for you- add REFOCUS! So, it goes like this: See the Stop Sign (STOP) Shout STOP, REFOCUS!
  1. Segment #2: Practice deep breathing. Practice belling breathing- breath in through your nose for 6 seconds, and out through your mouth for 6 seconds.  Do this 3 times 3 times per day for 3 weeks.
  2. Combine segment 1 and 2: As soon as it feels natural and easy for you to do so, combine (sync) STOP, REFOCUS! With taking one to 3 deep breaths. This will happen simultaneously (and automatically when you become stressed after you teach your body and mind to automatically use it).
  3. Segment #3: This is the Reset and Refocus “Ritual”/Routine segment of this program.  On page 3 you will see a variety of tool sets, skills, and activities to choose from to use.  You will also see example for a 10-15-minute reset, a 30-minute reset, and a 60-minute reset as well as some other examples.   You will want to select a set of three activities to integrate into a “ritual” that you will use for your Reset/Refocus segment.  Start with the 10 minutes. (attached are some additional work sheets for on the spot calm downs, stress management tools, and systematic relaxation techniques to try if you find them interesting or useful).  The idea is to practice this reset/refocus “ritual” every day about 3 weeks. Practice this when you are not upset, not overwhelmed.  Play with it, tweak it, and develop a reset/refocus “ritual” that is pleasant, refreshing, and regenerating for you.  If you do this for 3 weeks, it will turn into a routine and you will feel something is absent without it. Ten minutes a day!
  4. Combine Segment 1,2 and 3: During your three week “programming process” as you settle into your routine of reset/refocus; practice your visualization of the STOP Sign with your Shouting STOP! And then say RESET! (silently to yourself).   While you are “cementing the segments” of this program, practice the visualization whenever you are feeling tense, overwhelmed etc.  Attached is a worksheet to use to enhance your visualization experience to include visualizing the level of distress that you are feeling and determining a level for reset/refocus.  For example, if you use a thermometer that goes from blue to red; STOP and RESET at Orange.
  5. Segment 4: Add an affirmation set to the verbal STOP, RESET! Memorize your Affirmation. Say your Affirmation morning and evening (3 times per day is even better!)  Write it on 3X5 cards and place them in a location where you know you can read them easily. Put them on your bathroom mirror, or next to your coffee.  Write them over and over.  Say them over and over. Do this for about three weeks until it is easy, easy, easy.

 

  1. Combine Segment 1,2 ,3 and 4: Attach the affirmations to STOP RESET! Take a DEEP BREATH (6 seconds in, 6 seconds out-check to see if you need a 2nd and 3rd), and say the affirmation string- now go and RESET/REFOCUS! This entire process will take less than 15 minutes total for a 10-minute RESET/REFOCUS.  18 seconds for breathing, 1 second for visualization and shouting STOP! RESET! 2-4 minutes to get to where you need to go to Reset/Refocus!

By taking the time to break this down into small segments and burning this into your subconscious brain, you are turning a great skill into an automatic response.  This automatic response will replace your old automatic response and will serve you well.

BEGIN RESET MAIN RESET ACTIVITY CLOSE RESET
     
Opening Affirmation Drink a beverage Closing affirmation
Simple as making the tea! Stretch/Yoga/Qigong Simple as Namaste!
Meditate on a favorite symbol Listen to a favorite play set of 3 songs Meditate on a favorite symbol
30 second Positive Jingle Face Book a Friend-Send a MEME 30 second Positive Jingle
Smell your flowers Mini meditation Smell your flowers
Water your plants Mini walk Ring a bell-Hit a gong!
Light some incense Darts  
Grab a cookie Solitaire  
Ring a bell-Hit a gong! Have a Puzzle going- work on the puzzle  
  Kitting/craft-work on your project  
  Sit in a back massager  
     

 

When lengthening to 30 minutes- either increase the time or add activities.  Likewise, when lengthening to 60 minutes, do the same.  Learning how to gage the time you need for Reset is yet another skill/program.  This will be sent shortly. Like this one, it is simple.  Just like crossing the street is simple.  However, it is best to follow the learn, acquire, master, use, automate process so that it becomes an integral part of your life experience!

SUMMARY DO IT LIKE THIS:

A: STOP!

STOP! (Tell yourself “STOP” and Visualize Stop Sign)

B: REFOCUS!

Tell yourself “Refocus!”  and take 3 Deep Breaths (In count 1,2,3 – out 1,2,3  OR in count 1,2,3,4,5,6-out 1,2,3,4,5,6) (however many seconds is comfortable)

C: RESET!

Personal Ritual: 10-15 minutes; 30 minutes; 60 minutes depending-Use your affirmations!