Why Coaching?

We come to a point in our lives when we realise that things aren’t quite as they should be. We may be happily married, have a good job, enough money to get by and some more. We may have good enough relationships with our parents and siblings, have an OK social life but there is an underlying tension in us, in our bodies and minds. We seemingly have everything but could we say that we’re really happy and content.

Some of us don’t have that sort of ‘idyllic life’. Quite the opposite in fact. We know we’re not happy and actually we’re downright miserable but hey that’s life isn’t it. It just sucks sometimes - at least I have a roof over my head and a job etc.

The lucky ones come to a point where they stop and admit that things are not really that good and they need a bit of support and help, to understand why and get some tools to help them. Some come willingly and some are dragged because life really is shit and they’re not coping at all.

And it’s at this point, this juncture in our lives, this deep, inner cry from the soul for help that the coach or therapist comes along to gently guide and support you to ‘make the unconscious conscious’ so that it stops controlling your life.

Through this deep, reflective work you will come to understand your behaviours and patterns, beliefs and values and see where they come from and whose voice they really are. As you start to notice these things and unravel them - not difficult but sometimes painful - you are well on the way, in your healing journey, to becoming the person you were always meant to be. And from that flows a more balanced and content life and the stress, tension and unhappiness melts away. A willingness to see, to understand and to shift is all that is required. A coach is there to show you how you’re sabotaging your life and why, give you tools to make changes, to walk alongside you, guide you, hold your hand in many cases and believe in you when you can’t. It’s the support you need at this most important time of your metamorphosis.

We start by going back to the roots from which our ‘not quite happy life’ sprang forth. We learn that we may not have been parented correctly ie the way our parents loved us and treated us. We see when and how trauma and traumatic events affected us and when our life experiences added insult to injury. We start to understand that when love is conditional and there have been unrealistic expectations placed upon us, we develop feelings of worthlessness and we start to form a personality that isn’t the real us. It’s a reaction and response to our environment plus what we may have inherited. In my therapeutic journey it helped me to see it as a (computer) virus that was put in us so that we go through life with this corrupted way of behaving and seeing ourselves and others. Thus we behave in ways that are detrimental to us because we’re looking to be loved and accepted and have some value. These patterns become ingrained and affect our health - mental and physical, our relationships, and our bodies and we find ourselves in less than healthy dynamics at home and at work. We work longer hours than are necessary, find it hard to say no to people, we drink a bit too much, our self talk and self care is less than adequate. We push down our feelings, stay in unhealthy relationships and allow people to treat us badly.

In coaching we look at these things and more. We start to realise that our partner’s behaviour is very similar to one of our parents, that we have made them our mother or father. We see that we might be in an abusive relationship and so was our mum. We see that we might be enabling our own demise or are in denial about the true nature of our life and relationships.

None of this is ever to blame or vilify our parents but to understand where most of our behaviours and programming come from. It has been shown that by the age of seven we have inherited these from our primary caregiver who is usually our mother and she inherited them from hers. It’s time now to change this and stop that pattern in ourselves and from going any further. And this is totally possible with the right sort of help.

Coaching differs from therapy in that we do not delve deep into these areas to pull them apart and explore them. In coaching we look at our patterns of behaviour and understand them. We see where they come from and take active steps to change them. Some do this whilst undergoing therapy others not. Either way is fine.

We may start by looking at where our programming actually comes from, giving us an insight into what is really ours and what has been ‘put’ into us, therefore giving us an understanding of our conscious and subconscious behaviours. This is deep and very profound as we start to see how these are both in conflict with each other. On my own journey I was shocked to realise that though I was an angry and rebellious teenager fighting cultural norms (I’m from an Asian background) the subconscious programming over-rode almost everything my conscious brain didn’t want and I ended up, in many ways, just replicating my mother’s life! Looking at your life through this lens will already start to make a lot of sense.

As the weeks go by we will look at work/life balance and see why we do more of one thing and less of the others and how to change that. We will look at how we often sabotage our relationships. How to identify emotional triggers and deal with them. We will look to see if we need to prune our lives and how to do that. Boundaries - what are they and why they’re essential. We will learn about projecting those undesirable feelings and emotions onto others rather than dealing with them in ourselves. How we gain from avoiding being our best selves and how perfection paralysis is hurting us and stopping us. We will look to re-framing our stories and see how gratitude and journaling helps us on this journey.

Coaching offers a safe space to open up, to understand yourself, to see what works and does not work in your life, to reflect and to ultimately make changes. It’s never about blame but about acceptance of where you are and why. It’s about seeing the programming, letting it go and making moves to live your best life.