The Mind in Whole Self Coaching
Our minds are powerful. They do amazing things, and they also lie to us. They require the right balance of stimulation and downtime. They send signals to the rest of our body via the spine which together, comprise our central nervous system. They control virtually everything from our breathing and motor skills, to emotions and thoughts.
Early days, my mind convinced me I was unintelligent, but over the years it’s reassured me I was far off base. My mind has changed. It’s helped me accomplish some pretty fantastic things like building and pivoting careers (more than once). It has protected me, it’s enabled me to solve complex problems, and make a lot of positive changes over the years.
Like most things, mind’s have that sensational duality of contributing to difficult life experiences, as well as facilitating survival, success and joy. Sometimes it betrays us, sometimes it empowers us. The Mind plays an integral role in our well-being, and personal growth, and so it shows up a lot in my coaching work. Nerd alert! Here are some of the Mind oriented focuses and topics that come up regularly.
Self Talk & Thinking Patterns
This really is a series of posts on their own. In short, we say all kinds of things to ourselves, and often they’re negative, untrue, or a means of self-protection (that is often unnecessary). Our minds fall into cognitive thinking traps. They form beliefs, narratives, and patterns based on our lived experiences. Those stories are things we say to ourselves out loud, in our heads, and other times without our awareness, and they inform how we view ourselves. Thoughts impact emotions and actions, for better or worse. For a few years recently, I had a series of personally traumatic events that led me to rehash some very negative stories and thoughts about myself. My view of myself was unrecognizable to me. When I started with my most recent coach, I came to her saying a relaunch of my coaching business was impossible and pointless (these were the kinder of the things I said to myself BTW). A big part of coaching work is identifying and challenging these patterns, so you can reconstruct them! Speaking kinder, and more positively to ourselves is key too. Do all that, and you feel better and take new actions. You’ll change your life.
Adopting a Learning Mindset
For many reasons and for a long time, I believed that all mistakes were bad, and that failure was a resignation into a life of misery. I believed we had one shot to get our entire lives right. “Be perfect, be small, play safe” was my inner dialogue. It was my expectation and my success metric for a life well-lived. Wrong. That was unsustainable, and I felt crappy ALL the time even when doing interesting and joyful things. Nonetheless, I was able to take a fair amount of risks because I was naturally curious, and through coaching and certainly, through working in tech, I gradually adopted a learning mindset that completely changed my outlook on everything. You become more confident, and you are bolder with that new inner dialogue. You start to focus more on what you can gain (or gained) from any experience vs. the outcome. This leads to innovation, a more centered and relaxed state, intellectual curiosity, intellectual stimulation, and so much more.
Communication
How many times did you wish you hadn’t yelled at your partner or felt paralyzed during that presentation you were giving? How about struggling to articulate your feelings about someone or something because your heart was racing, or have said something you regretted? What we feel, what we think, and how we act are the three distinct components that make up the Cognitive Triangle. The triangle is important, because all three points influence each other, affecting our communication with ourselves first and foremost, and then with others. This process happens in a flash. Oftentimes, a thought can lead you to feel something, or do something (these all work in a non-linear fashion) constructive, or unhelpful. Oftentimes, we can't separate the three because we’re flooded in the moment. How can we do or say the right thing, if that’s all happening in the blink of an eye? Well, we slow things down. We build self-awareness around them, and we deconstruct them, so we can positively reconstruct, and affect them. In working on understanding what’s happening in your nervous system, you can develop the ability to influence all three for the better.
Neurodivergence or Clinical Diagnoses
As someone who is ND, who works with a lot of ND peeps, and in our highly stressful world, I’d be remiss not to mention PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, Autism, and other clinical diagnoses that simply make us operate differently. There are a number of ways our nervous system handles information that is different from neurotypical folks. So while I dislike labels, and think they can grossly over-simplify a person’s complexity, sometimes they can be helpful. If you have a clinical diagnosis of some kind and feel comfortable discussing it (or even behaviors/symptoms that fall under these labels), it’s great and rich coaching context to have. For example, for a long time, I didn’t understand that anxiety caused brain fog - or that my C-PTSD sometimes triggered full-body “shutdowns”, so I just thought I was crazy, incapable, and weak (even though my body was just doing what it was supposed to do to protect me). I’m not a therapist, but acknowledging, validating, and taking your ND or diagnoses into consideration is fundamental in coaching! You are unique, your experiences are valid, and that context informs our pace, the tools, and approaches in our work.
Mastery & Pleasure Habits
On some days or some phases of life, doing anything more than brushing our teeth, and going to work can seem impossible. But making incremental, small changes to our lives snowball to improve our lives. Mastery & pleasure habits are the combination of performing small and achievable repetitive tasks or activities that together, improve mood, build self-esteem, and decrease stress. Mastery gives you a sense of accomplishment and improves your self-confidence. The pleasure activities relax you, and routine and structure pull these together, decreasing anxiety. Individually, these are all good. Together, they are great! Sustainable change is methodical and is also incremental. These small experimental tasks lead to habits, and habits lead to more and more healthy habits over time.
Are you ready to dive into matters of the mind? Click the link below to setup your free discovery call to learn how I can help!