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The Benefits of being (Emotionally) Flexible

We know by now that improving wellness is a complex affair. What do we want to achieve? Why do we want to achieve it? And for heaven’s sake, what’s stopping us?

I have always had a strong interest in this last question as I feel that this is where the richness of health and wellness coaching really comes into play and where we can support people where they need it!

Barriers/obstacles come in all shapes and sizes. what we do, how we live, what we think and what we feel, are the pillar stones of most blocks to our desired life. But how do we go about changing these things?

Coaching can help people in many ways - creating realistic small goals, working towards new automatic behaviours, understanding what needs to be done to make change possible -but the really complex area is helping understand how our automatic emotional responses can get in the way of – let’s say a good life!

The topic of “Emotional Agility” is described in Susan /David’ book of the same name. She neatly reveals a model that can help people stop being “hooked” into rigid negative patterns that have no value in their present-day life.

Advantages of being Emotionally Agile?

Allows you to be in the moment and pay attention to what is actually happening
Allows us to live in accordance with our intentions and values
Helps us recognise the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world – stories that may be quite unreliable!
Prevents us from being hooked into accepting our thought as facts
Enables us to create space between stimulus and our response
Allows us (the thinker) to be in control – not our thoughts

David’s four step approach works like this:

SHOWING UP

In this context, showing up means “facing into our thoughts, emotions and behaviour willingly, with curiousity and kindness”. We know from research that life satisfaction is not about what happens to us - what challenges we face - but how we respond to those challenges. It has also been shown that self-acceptance creates the biggest increase in life fulfillment than any other shift, including helping others!

A few gems from this part of the model include:

“Acceptance is a pre-requisite for change” is a wonderful paradox. Until we accept things the way they are, we cannot begin to change them.

“Self-compassion is the antidote to shame”. Shame is a destructive emotion that focuses in a person’s character and leads to feelings of worthlessness. It is different to guilt that may drive us to make amends and avoid repeating the mistakes. Self-compassion is the difference between the two emotions. Our first step to becoming more emotionally agile is to face up to what torments us with acceptance and compassion.

STEPPING OUT

After facing our thoughts and emotions, we then need to detach from them and observe them, recognising that they are just that – thoughts and emotions – not facts, reality.

We can learn to identify the trickier feelings we are experiencing and learn better ways of reacting. A very powerful tool in processing emotions is to write about them. Studies have shown that by writing about experiences that have cause regret, trauma or sadness can have a significant improvement on wellbeing. Somehow we are able to step away from our experience detach from the charged emotions and take a different perspective. Mindfulness is another very important aspect of this stage and it can prevent us from being “hooked” into those old patterns by creating space and letting go.

WALKING YOUR WHY

Right in line with the coaching model is this important stage. What are our long term values and hopes for the future and how can these inform our “choice points” in daily life? We often make decisions based on influence from outside. Social media, messages from advertisers, our families, our friends can cause us to act under pressure. Making comparisons is a sure-fire way to head down a slippery path, yet the phenomenon called social contagion causes our behaviours to be “caught” from other people. The way round this is to identify our values about what truly matters to us and make decisions based on the way we hope to live – going forward. Values aren’t rules, nor are they about right or wrong. They are freely chosen, can guide us, are active, not set in steel, give us freedom from social comparison and encourage self-acceptance. They are something we use. Acting according to our values can take courage.

“Courage is not an absence of fear; courage is fear walking” is a beautiful description.

MOVING ON

Making small, achievable changes that are in line with our values can create massive difference in our lives. Building new habits by automatic, repeated behaviour will keep us moving in the right direction. Having a growth mindset rather than fixed is an important part of being able to “move on”. “Engaging our autonomy” is a notion that coaches will be all too familiar with – again ,this will help create the change we want. The motivation has to come from a desire to change rather than a feeling of obligation. Stepping out of our comfort zone can take courage but needs to happen if we are to reach our optimal self and be truly alive!

This book is a wonderful source of wisdom. Although many of the concepts are familiar, David brings together so many ideas that result in our being able to step out of old familiar ways of reacting and enter a new life filled with challenges, possibilities and self-acceptance.
I highly recommend adding this book to your library!

Reference:
Emotional Agility. (2016) Susan David. Avery, New York.

http://www.susandavid.com/

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Power of Meaning, Pillar of Belonging Part 2: What creates Meaning in our lives?

Purpose and meaning are often referred to together, however, having a purpose is just part of what can create “meaning” in our lives. So how do we define “purpose”? What does that mean exactly? How can we become more “purposeful”?

Emily Smith (The Power of Meaning) states that having a broad purpose helps us deal with the more “menial aspects of life”. So although we have to spend a lot of our time just doing the mundane tasks of our daily routine, if we have a sense of what is behind that, we will be driven by a stronger sense of meaning and less likely to feel that life, well, is like a treadmill! If we’re not sure why we are doing what we’re doing – it can easily lead into depression.

Purpose needs to be defined. There are two aspects to it:
1) We are working towards a stable and far-reaching goal;
2) Somehow we are contributing to the world, in other words, we have a more meaningful purpose than just to please ourselves.

In order to fully define our purpose, we need to do a lot of self-reflection and have a great deal of self knowledge - because our purpose needs to fit our identity; our sense of who we are, what we value, what our strengths are and what is important to us.

Now don’t misunderstand this. Self knowledge does not come from spending long hours thinking about ourselves. In fact, Dr. Tasha Eurich, in his book “Insight” states that “ the more time the participants in a study spent in introspection, the less self-knowledge they had”. He says we should start by noticing more rather than reflecting. Notice our behaviour and the results. Interestingly, he believes that questions that start with “what” can be more useful than with, “why”. A “What’s going on for me?”, or “What would be a different way of thinking about that?”, might give more productive answers. Self awareness takes time and effort and we never stop learning. We need to avoid assuming that we know everything about ourselves and keep an open mind.

But there is a time and place for “why” questions as we know in coaching.

“Why is this important to me?” is an essential place to start when we are working with anyone around behaviour change. We encourage self reflection and knowledge, particularly around identification of values. This gives a strong sense of purpose around the changes that need to be made to achieve their goals, and setting goals also creates more meaning in our lives!

Back to purpose. When we start to get a good sense of identity, we can then find ways of living with purpose. We may not find a “calling” but if we can find a purpose, we are on the right track. Health and wellness coaching help create meaning in peoples’ lives.

REFERENCES
Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning
Dr. Tasha Eurich, Insight
Eric Barker, Barking up the Wrong Tree

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Power of Meaning, Pillar of Belonging Part 1: Is Happiness What We Really Want?

We often refer to happiness as the holy grail. Surely this is all we would want for our children? If only we could achieve happiness, then it wouldn’t matter about the rest (because the rest would be what was making us happy?) Isn’t this what health and wellness coaching is really all about? Helping people find happiness by living “well”? It’s not quite that simple. Physical and emotional wellness is affected by many factors, but back to the holy grail.

The trouble with happiness is, the more we chase it, the more it will elude us. Although “feeling good” may be better than feeling bad, it does not mean that we are living a “good” life. This question has been researched and debated for many decades and there is now a growing recognition that having a sense of meaning, or choosing to pursue one, ultimately allows us to live fuller – and happier lives! There are times when meaning and happiness can be at odds with each other but the former will sustain us when times are hard.

So where do we get this sense of meaning? The meaning of life has never been revealed but much work has been done to try and establish where people can find meaning. Of course the answers are endless and individual yet, like most complex factors, they fall into broad categories.

Emily Esfahni Smith has written a landmark book called The Power of Meaning and she identifies four “pillars of meaning”. We are going to look at the first:

Belonging – our close relationships which often come from our community are critical for a meaningful life. But not only do our close relationships give us this sense of wellbeing but what has been referred to as “high quality connections” is also important. Sharing short term high quality interactions with people we love gives us a great sense of meaning but it can be just as important to share those moments with friends, acquaintances and possibly strangers. People give value to others and feel valued themselves when their interaction is empathic, caring and showing mutual regard and respect.

Letting people be seen, heard and acknowledged creates bonds. Compassion lies at the centre of the pillar of belonging. Everything we strive for in our coaching practice supports this pillar. Our very conversations can add to our client’s and our own, sense of meaning.

So how else can we use this information to add value to our coaching? By helping and encouraging our clients to seek out opportunities for routines and activities that allow a sense of belonging. By exercising with others, joining groups, group coaching? But also helping them recognize and appreciate where they already “belong”. Often we forget that we have communities around us that if we took the time to acknowledge and promote those communities we would help ourselves, and others!

REFERENCE
Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning.

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Empathy - one size fits all?

Empathy – one size fits all?
Perhaps not.

We all know what empathy means – a few definitions exist.
Here’s one. “The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. Skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions”.
“Ability to read other people’s cues to their emotional and psychological states.”

There are other factors involved:
Although you may be able to see the world through the other’s eyes, you do not necessarily agree with each person’s perspective, or condone the choices they have made, but you do understand.
As coaches, having empathy is an essential skill. It allows us to hear unvoiced questions, to anticipate needs, to help people find the right words and the right phrases to express their feelings. You help give voice to their emotional life.

Sounds straight forward and it’s certainly a desirable strength to have. We also know that empathic people tend to do better in personal and professional relationships and certainly in the helping professions.

What else do we know?

Empathy is closely connected to “sensing” or “intuiting.”

We know that empathy is different from sympathy which can be somewhat dis empowering as the person receiving it can feel, well, in a worse, maybe “weaker” place than the person sympathizing.

So why can empathy still be tricky?
Because too little or too much can cause problems. Some research has shown that there are three distinct types of empathy:
• Emotional empathy
• Cognitive empathy
• Compassion

All three are useful at the right time. Emotional empathy is when our feelings become involved and we often find this happening when someone close to us is experiencing a strong emotion. At times in our coaching, we can verge on being too empathic and our own feelings become a little too strongly present. This can lead to emotional fatigue.

Cognitive empathy is at the other end of the scale – this is when we understand on an intellectual level what someone is feeling. We will often say, “I understand what you are feeling”. (Whether we do or not is sometimes questionable.) This is the kind of empathy that would be appropriate for a health professional who needs to stay a little detached from their client in order to perform their role effectively.

Compassion – is the middle ground. The difference here is that we want to help. Coaching with compassion is our goal. We feel for the person, not with the person. It has the effect of making us want to help but not to be emotionally “impaired” which may prevent us from helping.

So finding the right level of empathy is all important for us as health and wellness coaches. And while we’re at it, self-compassion has its place up there with compassion for others! If we are unkind and judgmental to ourselves, how can we possibly help others with authenticity?

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Coaching and The Brain - Part 2

This is part two of our two part blog on Coaching and the Brain. Click here to read part one.

There are many qualities that make a good coach and many skills that we learn to improve connection with our clients and help them create effective change. While considering the role of the brain in the process, let’s take a look at what happens there and put four important aspects of coaching under the spotlight.

TRUST

We cannot support our clients unless we have trust, and building that trust takes time. Once trust is created, the brain chemical that is released is Oxytocin - likely in both client and coach! This is the chemical that is associated with empathy and connection. What’s interesting about Oxytocin is that it only creates connection with people you closely associate with – your tribe, if you like – and when we are with people we identify as being “our people”, it has the effect of reducing fear and calming the amygdala – positive things in a coaching conversation. However, the same chemical can cause rejection of people who are not seen to be in that “tribe”. Interesting implications? The coach needs to build trust and allow the client to get the full benefit of Oxytocin.

The actual physicality of coaching – either touch or close presence will also increase the release of Oxytocin - under the right circumstances. What isn’t known as clearly is how this works during phone coaching, although there is no doubt that trust can be created in that situation. Some people have a higher level of inherent trust than others and what’s interesting is that it has to start with the relationship with our own bodies. If we don't have that, it is unlikely that we will trust others. This is highly relevant to concept of whole body coaching which fits so well with health and wellness coaching.

LISTENING
There are six types of listening:

Hearing (noise);
Pretending (to listen, often being skilled enough to fake our body language too);
Self-biographic (filtered, self-related);
Selective;
Active – this can be with your mind;
Empathetic listening – this has to always be with your heart.

So how does the brain work when we listen? What we need to understand is that our brain builds up information on incomplete data. We make assumptions about things that may not have been said as we try to make sense of what we are hearing. This is very important for us as coaches to realize as we endeavor to fully understand our clients. Our brains want to make “sense” not necessarily find “truth”! So we fill in the blanks to confirm our own hypotheses. So it is essential that we find out what really is there – what the client’s story is all about, not what we think it is about when we listen ineffectively. We must always strive for the last level of listening.

ASKING QUESTIONS
By asking the right questions, we will help the client share information that is as important to them as to us as coaches. However, if we ask the wrong type of questions, instead of triggering new pathways in the brain that can lead to different outcomes, we can cause the client to become defensive and actually create new barriers.

REFRAMING
Once again, by reframing and showing new perspectives, we open new channels and pathways in the client’s brain which can increase possibilities and solutions!

Knowing how our brains work is important knowledge for any coach. Our work should not be random use of learned skills. We have to be aware of the actual effect that our presence and our choice of words can produce.

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Coaching and The Brain - Part 1

We now know that our coaching conversation can actually light up different parts of our clients’ brains and create an “environment” that makes positive change more likely to happen - or at least be considered! There is a lot about the brain that we still need to understand and the field of neuroscience is rapidly providing this information.

The “split brain theory” refers to the left and right brain which we have known for some time to perform different functions– one being used mainly for linear thinking (left) and the other for creative, holistic thinking (right). Our left brain organizes information and our right brain senses danger, recognizes patterns and creates imagination (amongst other things). We could say the left brain sees the trees and the right brain, the forest! We need both and we are aware of tapping into each side with our work with clients. There are times they need to dream and envisage and times they need to plan and rationalize.

When we make decisions our brain is involved, yet what we may fail to recognize is the part that other organs play in this crucial process.

We need to revisit how our brain was formed.

The brain evolved by layering – as it became more complex it built on the existing structure and the following stages occurred:

Reptilian brain – our primitive brain served three purposes – sustenance, survival and sex! All necessary functions to stay alive and prolong the species!

The next stage of development saw the Paleo-mammal brain – this appears still in horses, apes and certain other mammals.

Then came the sophisticated “hardware”– the Neo Cortex which included the prefrontal cortex responsible for high level learning and thinking that occurs in today’s world.

So that’s three in total. What people aren’t generally aware of is that we have many neurons (brain cells) in two other organs – our heart and our gut. There are over a hundred million neurons in our gut alone. Which makes these additional organs extremely important in decision making. As often happens, when we look back to how our language developed and the expressions we use, we realize that on some level we have always been aware of the role of these body “centres”. Think of the term “heart felt decisions”, or “gut instinct”. We learn something “by heart”. The heart has the most powerful magnetic field in our bodies and many stories are told about heart transplant recipients taking on characteristics and knowledge of the donor. 90% of serotonin, the “feel good’ neurotransmitter is produced in the gut!

We will take a look at what happens in the brain when we coach in our next short article but for now the most important message here is that out of our five “brains”, only one is rationale! We need to use all of them to make decisions but when it comes to the final word, our emotions will win out. And this involves our entire body. It has been said that reasons (thinking) leads to conclusions, but emotions lead to action. A very important awareness for anyone who is trying to help someone with tough changes that may need to be made to improve their health.

This is part one of our two part blog on Coaching and the Brain. Click here to continue to read part two.

Reference: Carlos Davidovich, MD. 2016

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Why Measure Happiness?

We often use the terms wellbeing and life satisfaction in favour of the sometimes wrongly interpreted label of “happiness”, yet there is no getting away from the fact that happier people do better in life – on many fronts! But first, how do we measure happiness? There are two commons ways of measuring “happiness” – firstly, subjective wellbeing – people are asked about the degree of life satisfaction they experience and this is matched with a high level of positive emotions and a low level of negative emotions. This is more about a snapshot at any one time. The second way is of a more enduring measure – how much fulfillment we are getting from our relationships, how much meaning we are experiencing in our life and whether we feel we are developing as a person.

So when we have this “score” what correlating relationships do we then look for? Well, research has shown that happier people experience the following:

Greater productivity at work;
Greater creativity;
Higher earning and better jobs;
More likely to be leaders;
More satisfying relationships;
Better overall health;
More likely to be helpful and generous.

Sonja Lyubomirsky presented at a Coaching conference in September this year and emphasised that the research also showed that happier people tend to be more focused on others, and sadder people more focused on self. We might question which comes first, for example, if we are not experiencing good health, then surely we will be unhappier. However, Sonja described a study which exposed people to the cold virus (after measuring their happiness levels). The virus was actually injected into their nasal passages. And guess what? The happier people were less likely to develop a cold. This gives weight to the notion that happiness is the cause rather than the effect of all these other positive factors.

So we know that around 40% of our overall happiness can be influenced by the activities we do. (The other 60% is either genetically determined – 50%, or linked to our circumstances.) What are those activities? Well there are many but here are a few tried and tested:

Express gratitude;
Be physically active;
Be mindful and savour experiences;
Practice forgiveness;
Set life goals;
Perform acts of kindness (make someone else happier).

The important thing also to note is that the activity needs to be a good “fit” for the individual. It needs to fit your personality, culture, and even strengths and what might work well for one person may not work for another. We need to remember this when working with clients and at times help them find the source of their unhappiness and come up with an activity that will counteract this.

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When Positivity Doesn't Fit with Wellness Coaching

As Wellness Coaches we work with our clients using principles of positive psychology as often as we can. Yet there are times when asking clients to “look on the bright side” is inappropriate and it is of more value to help them explore the not so pleasant emotions they may be feeling. There is a phrase known as “the tyranny of happiness”, which is referring to the potentially harmful habit of always assuming that positive thinking should be the end goal, which may cause us to enter into a trap that ignores the reality of life. Instead, Susan David encourages us to develop emotional agility, which she defines as “the process of being with the fullness of human emotions”. It is anticipated that by 2030, depression will be ranked number one in the list of illnesses. It is essential that we take preventative measures by learning how to manage the sad parts of life.

When faced with dealing with negative emotions it is important to remember that our thoughts and the stories that we tell ourselves, are just that –they are not facts and not who we are.
To help our clients work with their more distressing feelings, we might follow these steps:

SHOW UP

Drop the “should” and “shouldn’t” suggestions about our emotions. We often fall into the trap of thinking, “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”, which adds more pressure and layers further negativity on the situation! Instead, don’t push them away and don’t judge them. Accept them for what they are. Think of them as “data” not “directions”.

STEP OUT

Move away from the emotion itself and step outside, observing them from a distance. Finding a name to describe the feeling is a great way to start this process. Notice what you are feeling and separate them from your sense of self. “I am noticing that …. “, “I am having the thought that….” Hone in on the exact feeling and perhaps look for alternative ways of describing it. Is it stress? Is it frustration? Is it disappointment?

So rather than ruminate on their sadness/anger/distress, we can help our clients to work in a more productive and less destructive way when bad things happen - which is inevitable.

We sometimes talk of counseling as following “the trail of tears” whereas coaching follows “the trail of dreams”. Yet, tears are as important as joy and laughter and can teach us a lot about ourselves.

Reference: Susan David, Emotional Agility

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Reflections on a recent visit to Boston

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Coaching in Medicine and Leadership” was the title of this year’s conference in Boston. I headed over - spurred on my memories of my last visit two years ago when I came away fired up with new ideas and learning. To be honest, I wasn’t sure that my last experience could be topped but I was about to be surprised.

After an informal catch up with the Wellcoaches fraternity I settled in for two days of intense listening and I wasn’t disappointed with the new insights the sessions gave me. Not only does the conference attract some of the best minds in the fields of both coaching and leadership, but also the interesting thing was the way each session seemed to link into the others.

You would think that by their very nature/definition, information on “leadership” might be somewhat different to information on “coaching.” There is a long held belief that leaders are in charge and play a different role form an empowering, collaborative coach. Yet it was clear that times are changing and leadership in today’s world is different from what it was ten years ago.

The main reason for this seems to be the degree of uncertainty surrounding us all – not only in the economic climate but in the speed with which things are changing and developing across all industries. “The rules of the game are changing while the game is still being played” was one memorable comment made.

So although I hope to draw on many of the wonderful sessions I attended and pass on some concepts – or my interpretation of them – in future newsletters, I will summarise what I feel were the main points presented at the conference.

The models for leadership have undergone major re-modeling to take into account the business world of today. The four keystones of sense making, visioning relating and inventing, as presented by Dr. Deborah Ancona were strongly aligned to coaching terminology and indeed, principles.

The importance of emotional intelligence in both coaching and in leadership were emphasized by Daniel Goleman (until now a name that I was familiar with from literature on EQ and whose ground-breaking ideas have long been respected by anyone working with people in coaching and counselling). He presented research that showed that EQ (emotional intelligence – put simply the ability to relate to people) rated far above “skills and knowledge” in making a good leader, an exceptional leader.

The need for, and growing body of, research in health and wellness coaching is central to its growth yet the outcome measures of reduced morbidity will come after a long process of measuring things like confidence level, new behaviours, attainment of individual goals and life satisfaction.

The frightening yet eloquent presentation by David Katz on just how bad the health of the US (and globe brought the room to silence and then to its feet. He brought it home to everyone that there was no such thing as “public”, just you and I and the other individuals affected by the lifestyle illnesses that abound. He gave us hope that we could “sandbag the flood” and eventually turn the tide but it would take enormous and collective effort in changing culture. His speech should have been given for a presidential election campaign. He would have won. The issue he spoke of was one of the biggest problems the USA (and Australia) face.
Neuroscience was a hot topic - not for its own sake but for the information it is giving us about the human brain. The fact that our thinking brain and our feeling brain are so closely intertwined came up time and again as did the notion that we are “wired for empathy” as our motor neurons fire in synch with the people we connect with. And again, those many reminders that the body and how we fuel it, are inextricably linked with better brain power.

The coaching “dance” is now being measured by comparing arousal of the sympathetic nervous system between coach and client as the session takes place. The clients that had the most parallel response to their coach, in physiological response, reported feelings of greater rapport.
So many other great topics and speakers. I came away, if not feeling wiser and more effective by my attendance, with a feeling that I am so very lucky to work in a field that is gradually infiltrating many of the key professional areas. Let’s face it, if the key people in Leadership and Medicine are listening, who else could be?

Attending this conference also concreted my belief and understanding of why the area of wellness coaching is suddenly getting greater attention from the corporate world. In today’s environment, you simply cannot be a good leader without a) learning to coach, and b) taking a long, hard look at your own personal wellness. Gone are the days when the top people managed to ignore growing stress levels and enlarging girth measures; where work ruled and relationships came second. We are all finally speaking the same language.

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