Therapeutic Coaching

When we look at our lives more holistically we may realize that we have overlooked important aspects of it by our strive for survival until we find ourselves no longer fulfilled or healthy as we have lost the contact with our own nature.

This can be the reality of anyone who grew up in a context governed by fear and insecurity rather than by creativity and self-expression. However, when we realize that we are the only ones who can overcome those influences that have "domesticated" our beings we aloud our creativity to flow again.

Through this process we raise awareness about the importance of our consciousness and accept the fact that some of our thoughts, emotions and behaviours are no longer consistent with whom we really are neither with what we really expect from life.

Furthermore, as much as we get to know ourselves we may decided to follow the way back to our essence and starting to pay more attention to our instincts, and it is here when therapeutic coaching emerges to support us to make this transition back to our real self.

Therapeutic coaching is an ongoing partnership of trust, encouragement and support that helps us to acknowledge our strengths, generating new resources for the achievement of our goals in the here-and-now. It is through this process of self-realization that we take the control over our actions to improve the quality of our lives.

In this context therapeutic coaching invites us to know more about ourselves and our values, creating a space where we can explore our goals, plan how we are going to achieve them and finally transform them into reality. Here, the life coach facilitates our personal, professional and transpersonal growth through the contact with our most genuine truth.

After over ten years of evidence based practice coaching differs from other types of therapy because its principle is to help us to explore our potentialities in order to create a healthier and joyful life.

Transforming Our Habits

Have you ever realized how intrinsic our habits can be in our daily life that we don’t even recognize them? And what about the impact that they can have in regarding to living the life that we really want. Are they positive?

Mostly they are familiar and hence give us a ‘sense of control’ in our routine, but have you ever thought that to grow we need to allow ourselves to explore the unknown? And if our habits give us a sense of familiarity, what about to go beyond them? Be aware of what really matters to us means having the choice to open new possibilities.

So, maybe it’s time to think about which contributions those habits bring to the achievement of our aspirations. If they don’t take from us the time that we could be using to act towards our goals that is fine. The problem is when they do stop us to act productively – what happen most of the time.

If we understand the importance of our habits we may realize that we can convert them in our favour. For example, if we know that to be more confident to our next presentation we need to cover a more extensive bibliography but we don’t really have the habit to read, we can try to transform the reading process as an activity that consciously was chosen to benefit us toward our personal or professional success.

On the other hand we don’t need to change our habits from one day to another. The process is gradual but consistent. So, for example, if we realize that the time we spend on the transport could be a good opportunity to read, the challenge would be to make it constant, especially because it will be generating a positive outcome due a conscious choice. However, if reading is still a boring activity we can start from the subjects that most interest us until reading becomes a pleasant habit.

Furthermore, to transform our habits we need to be at the control of our attention and hence of our actions, what allow us to optimize our time to focus in what is important to us, increasing not just our sense of achievement but generating a positive progress towards our dreams, where we can expanding our experiences and hence fulfilling our lives. However, to achieve this desired state of mind we may need personal support and coaching can be seen here as the most unique partnership to help us to make those changes happen.

It is this process of supporting that offer us the opportunity to commit ourselves loud, where we know that someone is there standing for us, helping us to see new perspectives. The coach assists us to design a future path but also helps us to carry out actions in the present, so we are more likely to achieve our desired objectives.

Moving Forward

To move toward our dreams we must have aspirations, and to have aspirations we need to be able to acknowledge what we have done so far and celebrate each step, for more arduous that it has been. To forgive ourselves for not having been able to have done differently is the key for a new positive start, no matter what we have experienced but what we have learnt.

To move forward to the next step we need to think, think for ourselves about changes that must take place no matter how much we have to do. To build a dream takes time and to put the right effort we need to give us space to think, to elaborate the following steeps which will led us to achieve our goals.

The process to think for ourselves is challengeable and most of the time request focus and support. The focus is related to our ability to be fully present, or at least, be able to manage our stress and anxiety in order to free our attention to be positive and productive. However, most of the time to be at the control of our mind request externalization and we do need to have someone who can listens to us.

The support can be finding with a friend capable of listening without interruptions or the rush to conclude our ideas before we think about them. Someone that can listen to us just because they are generous enough to let us think about whatever is important for us at any given time and situation.

However, if there isn’t anyone who can give us this precious space and attention, just because it is so hard to listen without jumping on conclusion or judgments, or because everyone is so busy that doesn’t have time even to listen to themselves, we can count with professionals that chose to be a Life Coach by vocation, by passion in helping us to unlock our potentialities to discover what will be the best next steep to take.

It is wonderful to know that speaking allows us to think better, more clearly and intelligently. While we don’t externalize our thoughts they are just seeds of ideas that need to grow, be developed and flourish. This is why is so important to talk because allows us to think better, to listen to ourselves and realize that what we say make sense.

Choosing Our Freedom

When you are in a situation that you need to take decision and make changes happen, which sort of possibilities pop up automatically in your mind? Can you move from the worse to the best options easily, or you tend to spend lots of time figuring out the difficulties? If we are not able to go beyond our negative pattern thoughts we can spend all our energy fearing step forward instead of acting towards our goals.

Accepting that it is up to us to be aware of our presence here and now - where everything happens - we can start shifting our pattern thoughts and hence our behaviour in a positive way to see the life and its challenge situations as an opportunity to grow and mature our world view. This capacity to be present is such powerful as it is our free will to choose how to respond to any given situation that we need to face.

And how about to use our thoughts as “the waves” that connect us with the life’s script which we want to draw to ourselves? As a frequency of a radio station our thoughts can connect ourselves to the future that we desire, since we are able to be focus in the now, accepting our existence as it is, putting an effort in the small daily actions that can certainly bring us to this state of fulfillment and self-awareness.

The same energy that we spend avoiding what we don’t want or fearing a negative outcome we can use it in the other way around, only to allow ourselves to desire and think what we really want from life, after all, we have nothing to loose by trying a different approach with our reality. The maximum that can happen is to become more conscious about our choices and more aware of our responses to the situations as the only freedom that we really possess.

And here our freedom is reflected in our conscious choices, which come from this awareness that automatically free ourselves to go beyond our self-limited beliefs, allowing us to discover our real purpose in this present time and space. And therefore, our energy will be well spend and it will fulfil ourselves as a human being because we will explore more of our capabilities and hence experience more of our potentialities.

Freedom to Choose

Have you realized that for any given situation which we find ourselves the only real freedom we have is how to respond to those events in our lives, and instead to make conscious choices toward our sense of purpose we tend to flow the collective agenda of catastrophe and misery?

Have you felt any positive influence in your day when, for example, you read one of those free news paper on the train? This kind of media is quite predictable and the facts of the most miserable human condition are just the reflex of our despair and negativity that is presented to us as "news".

To overcome this external influence of negativity is necessary to have a deep understanding of our values and sense of purpose, because be positive is a choice in life and to reach this state we need to challenge our limited beliefs about ourselves.

If you think that the context which you are right now was the result of your conscious choice the chances to be happy and fulfil is much bigger than if you let the situations choose you.

As an example of conscious choice think about your job. Did you choose to be there? If not, what stops you to look for another one which you can see yourself doing with more pleasure? The marketing is competitive but those aware of their choices are always in a better position than those whose don’t believe that we are the reflex of our own choices.

So, if you never ask yourself which future you want for your life, stop your thoughts now and try to feel your breath only. Cheek if you are able to silent your mind for a moment. Try to feel the sensations of your body. Being present for a moment and you’ll be able to free yourself from your past and your internal conflicts. Now, ask yourself, "what makes my heart sings"?

Accept this instinctive voice and observe what you could do to make your hart sings more often, and then you may realize that everything is a matter of choice. As we choose the music that we want to listen or sing, we also can chose the path that we want to follow.

Overcoming Procrastination

Why is so difficult to switch off the television even when we suppose to be doing something else that would led us to achieve our dreams? For sure is more comfortable to keep doing our familiar habits than facing challenges that will bring us to an unknown place. But, what that means to you to postpone your goals just because it seems easier to play safe?

If you fear to be defeated means that may be you’ll never know what is to be victorious. Here, the biggest step is indeed to overcome our procrastination. How? Asking yourself what really depends on you to make the changes happen. However, it is important to consider and accept that what you have done so far was essential to prepare you to the next step.

Raquel’s history is great example of changes can happen when we recognize our courage and acknowledge our self-limited beliefs as opportunities to grow. She came to London two and half years ago without speak a word in English. Her real dream was attend a pos-graduate programme in Cultural Production to explore her passion when she returned to Brazil, which was to spread her local art throughout the whole country.

After more than two years of hard work and focus to learn a foreign language she was still resisting to apply for her place in the pos-graduate programme because she couldn’t see herself good enough to succeed the admission interview in an academic environment. Her thought was “If I make any mistake the tutor will disapprove me immediately and even if they accept me I’m not ready to face an academic level”. With this negative ‘self-talk’ she wasted two opportunities of being accepted and start the course in the following month.

When she came to coaching Raquel was still denying all her achievements, such as of being a foreigner that left all of her relatives to fight for he dreams, where she needed to learn another language and have worked so hard to save the money to pay her long-waited course. She was use to blame herself because she couldn’t get rid of her accent, even if her domain with the language was excellent.

After a short coaching programme Rachel became more self-confident and optimist, reconsidering all of her resources that helped her to overcome her negative ‘self-talk’ and her projection for perfection. She accepted her limited self-beliefs and arranged her first interview as an opportunity to measure her English level. She accept that if she wasn’t approved she would at least identify what she would need to improve. Besides, she would never be able to overcome her procrastination if she hasn’t tried.

Raquel was accepted at her first interview and next February she starts her Pos-graduate programme followed of a Master degree.

Overcoming Anxiety

Have you found yourself thinking and projecting something that is just about to happen but doesn’t depend on you to change the course of its direction? And what about the feelings that this state suggest on you? Have you realized that you can loose the focus on the present because your mind is projecting a future that does not happen yet?

Quite often being anxious is an unconscious state, but if we become aware of how much energy we spend on this state of being we can re-directed our attention for what really matters: the present. And aware of this present, where everything happens, we can take control of our attention to perform what really depend on us to do to achieve a desired goal.

The process isn’t simple but it is possible, and this is the challenge that Coaching intends to support you to overcome. If we do not have control about our thoughts, our mind can bring us to a state of restlessness where we don’t explore the most of our potentialities.

To address your attention for what is really important to you is one of the benefits that a coaching relationship can offer to you. Furthermore, Coaching offers you a space to grow and to reflect about your priorities. By ourselves is quite hard to separate enough time to translate all of our dreams and aspirations into practical action, even because while we don’t express those thoughts they are just ideas in our minds.

To understand more about this phenomenon of self-realization we need to talk, verbalize and share those ideas to allow them to become real possibilities. Therefore, it is this professional interaction that will help you to organize your ideas, considering your reality and available resources to create an action plan that will inspire you to create a positive attitude towards your goals.

Finally you will realise that the same energy that you were spending being anxious you can now spend being productive.