Wading Into the Lake of Emotion: a Metaphor for Coaches

Health and Wellness Coaches seek to serve their clients the best they know how. People have been drawn to do this work because they care about people and want to assist them in their journey to living their best life possible. To do this we bring forward our best utilization of coaching competencies, behavioral change theories, evidence-based practices and methodologies. However, as the authors of Co-active Coaching (https://coactive.com/resources/books/coactive-coaching-4th-edition)  remind us “Sometimes the most important change happens at the internal level and may even be necessary before external change can take place.”

To help that internal shift take place coaches must be competent at working with emotions. The perpetual challenge for most coaches whether they have a mental health background or not, is how to do so and ‘stay in the coach lane’ – within their scope of practice as a coach. For fear of straying out of that lane into the fast-lane of counseling and psychotherapy, many coaches shy away from what I will call wading into the lake of emotions. Let me use that phrase to share with you a simple, yet hopefully helpful metaphor.

The Lake of Emotions

Perhaps you’ve experienced wading into a body of water on a nice summer’s day. A calm lake or pond, a shallow and calm part of the ocean, or even a swimming pool. For our metaphor, let’s consider a lake. As you look out in front of you it is easy to see the bottom of the lake, perhaps sandy, perhaps rocky. The water is clear, and you can start to take a few steps into the shallow water confidently.

Further out into the lake the bottom seems to disappear into darkness. You’re not sure how deep it gets.

As your coaching client begins to wade into such a lake of emotion it seems easy enough to wade in with them, to empathize, to reflect the feelings that are being brought forth. Afterall, it is still shallow and clear. You can see and feel the bottom under your bare feet.

As this process of exploring emotion begins, what is happening for you the coach? Are you able to stride forward with your client as they talk more about what they are aware of, about how they feel? When your client expresses those feelings are you able to stay with them as the lake gets deeper? Are you beginning to wonder how deep your client wants and needs to go?

Perhaps you look back to the shore and want to retreat to solid ground, to dry land. You do so by failing to empathize, by asking questions that get your client ‘up in their head’ and away from their feelings. Instead of helping them to connect with the water they are in, and feel and express their feelings, perhaps we begin to backpedal towards the shore and shift the topic to something less wet and emotional.

The thing to remember is that you and your client are standing on the solid bottom of the lake. That lake bottom is the structure and limitations of coaching. You have an agreement that you and your client share that is a coaching agreement – an agreement to wade into the water, and get wet, but not to start swimming in water so deep that it is over your heads.

Keeping our feet on the lake bottom, staying within coaching structure and methodology we can help our clients to get into water that is deeper and learn from their emotions, to help them clarify their feelings, to name those feelings and express them. We can help them achieve insights and utilize them in their lives to help them to be healthy and grow.

Now, your client may keep taking steps into that deeper water, they may want to dive in and start swimming further out into that lake. Perhaps they start going into detail about past experiences like childhood abuse or neglect.   At this point, are you encouraging them to do so? Are you asking questions that seek to resolve old conflicts and wounds of the past? Are you asking them to relive past traumas for the purpose of resolution? Are you wading into that zone where the lake bottom starts to fall away out of your own curiosity?

Perhaps you and your client are starting to realize that for progress to be truly made the client does need to go beyond the depth of coaching. The thing is, coaches are not trained or qualified to ‘swim’ with our clients in water over our heads. To do so, clients need a counselor, a therapist, a trained mental health professional.

So when you get that feeling that the coaching conversation is starting to drift towards more of a clinical conversation, when that lake bottom seems like it’s beyond where you can place your feet safely, you can always step back and lean into the question of resolution versus relevance. Taking that step back first of all occurs in your own mind – am I seeking to help my client towards resolution or is there a way to tie this back to the relevance of what they are working on achieving in coaching?

An Example

Say your client begins to talk about the loss of a dear friend who recently died. You respond with compassion. They go on to talk about how their loss put them in touch with their own mortality and the importance of reaching out to the friends they have and appreciating them. You pick up on the emotion present and reflect it back to your client. Then they also begin talking about what occurred years ago when their father died and how it affected them and their whole family.

This is where you, the coach, can either inquire more about the death of the father, or, perhaps after empathizing about the client’s loss of their father, summarize and ask the client how the client would like to pursue this topic of loss. If the client wants to talk about how their recent loss has put them in touch with their appreciation of their friends and increasing connection with them, we are stepping back onto solid ground for coaching. If we pursue resolving the unfinished emotional business related to their father’s death years ago, we are wading into water out of our scope of practice and getting into to water where we don’t know the potential depth.

Remember, effective coaches work with emotions, they honor their client’s feelings. We can do so safely as long as we stay within the coaching structure and feel the earth beneath our feet.

Learn more about how to coach with emotions and integrate that into your work with your clients. Check out these previous blogs and keep your feet on that lake bottom!

• The Great Utility of Coaching In The Emotional Realm https://realbalancewellness.wordpress.com/2017/06/07/the-great-utility-of-coaching-in-the-emotional-realm
• Process Coaching: Yes, Coaches “Do Emotions” http://wp.me/pUi2y-dL
• Coaching a Client Through to A Mental Health Referral Using The Stages of Change http://wp.me/pUi2y-lp)
• Emotions, Feelings and Healthy Choices: Coaching for Greater Wellness https://realbalancewellness.wordpress.com/2019/09/10/emotions-feelings-and-healthy-choices-coaching-for-greater-wellness/
• Clarity on Scope of Practice: The What, the How and the Why of Lifestyle Improvement https://realbalancewellness.wordpress.com/2022/02/18/clarity-on-scope-of-practice-the-what-the-how-and-the-why-of-lifestyle-improvement/

Michael Arloski, Ph.D., PCC, NBC-HWC is CEO and Founder of Real Balance Global Wellness – a world leader in health and wellness coach training (https://realbalance.com/). Doctor Arloski is a pioneering architect of the field of health and wellness coaching. He and his company have trained thousands of coaches around the world.

The Zone of Compassion: More Thoughts on the Heart of Coaching

How do we allow ourselves to enter the zone of compassion, and what holds us back from going there? How do we keep our “coherent sense of self” that Erik Erikson talked about intact when we connect with the ‘other’? (Allow me to use the term ‘other’ to refer to a person or persons, clients, or otherwise throughout this piece.).

I took on the question of Compassionate Detachment in a previous blog “Compassionate Detachment” (https://realbalancewellness.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/compassionate-detachment/) where I shared a portion of Chapter Five from my book Masterful Health & Wellness Coaching: Deepening Your Craft (https://wholeperson.com/store/masterful-health-and-wellness-coaching.html).

“Compassionate detachment is respecting our client’s power enough to not rescue them while extending loving compassion to them in the present moment. Simultaneously compassionate detachment is also respecting ourselves enough to not take the client’s challenges on as our own and realizing that to do so serves good purpose for no one.”

I also explored this subject in my blog “The Quandary of Closeness And Compassion in Coaching” (https://realbalancewellness.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/the-quandary-of-closeness-and-compassion-in-coaching/ ). These blogs looked at Compassion Fatigue, at how we can move from Depletion to Replenishment as a way to recover from such fatigue, the mindset needed for compassion, and more.

The more I consider this subject though, the deeper it is. There is almost a myth in our thinking about compassion that some people buy into – that entering the zone of compassion is not safe. The danger is to feel too much, to connect too completely with the feelings of the other. It is a myth because it does not have to be true.

My Own Compassionate Center

When I am feeling secure in myself, grounded in who I am, more centered in my life, physically and emotionally, I am more able to be compassionate. When I am not, does it feel like I have more to protect? Will connecting with the other appear like a threat to what I have left? So, to access my compassion, to enter that Zone of Compassion, one of the best things I can do is be compassionate with myself and regularly engage in self-care.

One thing that can hold us out of that Zone is the fear that the burden of the other will become too much for me to bear. The Zone of Compassion is joining the other person as an ally, not as a co-owner of the burden that person feels. Compassionate detachment allows us to be there with the other without taking on the burden with them.

Judgment Separates Us

Judgment can be a defense to avoid connecting with the feelings that know compassion. When we judge we instantly separate ourselves from the other person. We put distance between ourselves and them. We may shudder at the thought of being in the other’s predicament, in living a life like theirs, and so we pull back.

In health and wellness coaching it is often easy to spot the self-defeating behaviors that work against our client’s health and wellbeing. We then can quickly move to judge the person’s character, values, etc.

Making a distinction is not the same as making a judgment. We can distinguish between the person and the person’s behavior. We can distinguish between high-risk health behaviors and behaviors that enhance one’s health. The key is what do we do with our awareness in making that distinction. How do we communicate that awareness to the other?

Sharing an Observation

Trust your client to work with what you share with them. When we see someone engaging in some sort of self-defeating behavior, we might simply share what we are observing without judgment. “As you told me about your weekend, I noticed that you mentioned passing up opportunities to connect with others three times?” Such a sentence must be said without a tone that implies judgement. Judgement can slip into our conversation in very sneaky ways! Just share the observation and let your client work with it. If they don’t, refrain from pushing. The time may not be right to explore it. Remember, we are their ally, not their inquisitor.

Empathy as a Conduit of Compassion

Expressing empathic understanding allows the other to feel like they are not alone facing their burden. Empathy conducts connection which allows compassion to be felt. When empathy is transmitted well and received well, it is like there is an infusion of energy into the person receiving empathic understanding. They light up! And often lighten up. Empathy turns on a light that allows a person to often gain a new perspective very different from the one they experienced when they felt all alone in the darkness.

Far too often we reach for the fix-it tool instead of first connecting with the other through empathy. We really want to help, and we try to make things better.

“Because the truth is, rarely, can a response make things better. What makes things better is connection.” Brené Brown

A key to compassion is to imagine it like an image of two people together, standing, or sitting, side by side. If the person expressing compassion projects an image of being above the other, ‘helping’ them, the attempt at compassion will come across like sympathy, not empathy. Compassion is shoulder to shoulder, side by side, heart to heart.

Michael Arloski, Ph.D., PCC, NBC-HWC is CEO and Founder of Real Balance Global Wellness – a world leader in health and wellness coach training (https://realbalance.com/). Doctor Arloski is a pioneering architect of the field of health and wellness coaching. He and his company have trained thousands of coaches around the world.

Where The Listening Starts

Where Listening Starts

An essential part of any wellness coach training is focusing on developing competency in what the ICF (International Coaching Federation) calls Active Listening – Paraphrase and Restatement; Reflection of Feeling; Request for Clarification; the use of Silence and Intuition; Summarization. Yet the active listening skills that we talk about aren’t really skills about how to listen more effectively. They are critical skills for how we give evidence to our client that we are listening and truly hearing them. They are skills that further the coaching conversation. They are how we respond to our client when we take in their communication. This is the active part of listening: what the coach says and does. But, what allows us to truly listen at a deeper level, to pick up on even more of what is really being communicated?


Deep Listening – “I can hear tears.”

What is it that allows masterful coaches to become aware of things that most people miss in a conversation? How do they tune in to their client in such a way that the coaching conversation becomes rich, productive and even enlightening?

In a class discussion about listening, one of my Real Balance students, who demonstrated she was an already accomplished coach, shared with us the poignant statement “I can hear tears.” She was referring to coaching over the phone where the visual nonverbal cues are absent. She was picking up on both the client’s subtle vocal cues, and to a large degree, the context of the conversation. At such a tender moment, a client may make an effort to be as silent as possible. The vocal cues like a voice that breaks in tone, or speech that stammers are not even there for the coach to perceive during such a silence. The context can certainly tip the coach off that it would be natural for a client to cry upon sharing a painful experience or talking about a profound loss. Yet people react to experience and emotion in many different ways, from hysteria to stoicism. How does a more masterful coach hear tears that silently run down the cheek?

The powers of observation of a more masterful coach are as keen and sharp as a razor. They don’t miss much. They notice. They are mindfulness in action. They also don’t allow judgment to interfere and throw their subsequent observations into a prejudiced direction blinding them to the full picture of what is unfolding. They stay on pace with their client instead of ahead of them. They stay more out of their head. These practices allow them to stay in the present and in touch with all of their senses. Doing so they are not rushing ahead with their own imagined conclusions about where the dialogue is going. By maintaining a coaching mindset, they are able to facilitate the client’s work instead of attempting to do the work for their client like a consultant would do. By not engaging in that headwork (analyzing, deducing, imagining, problem solving, continually thinking of the next question to ask, etc.) they are able to be here now with their client and hear more. This way of being, combined with providing The Facilitative Conditions of Coaching is the very essence of Coaching Presence.

Observing by Scanning

One aspect of effective observation is what I call scanning. If you ever take a nature walk with a trained naturalist, or perhaps the type of experienced hunter who is keenly in touch with the natural world, you realize that they are constantly scanning the landscape as you move through it. I remember reading Barry Lopez’s magnificent book Artic Dreams. https://www.powells.com/book/arctic-dreams-imagination-desire-in-a-northern-landscape-9780375727481?p_isbn&partnerid=35409 He spoke of his time with the Inuit people who were out on a hunting expedition. They walked over the tundra all day, slowly, silently. Then, at night around a campfire they spoke about all of the things they had seen. Lopez, one of America’s greatest nature writers who has developed intense powers of observation himself, was amazed at what these indigenous people had picked up on, down to minute detail of the land and its creatures. They had been constantly scanning both the horizon, the place where they were about to set their feet and everything in between. They had been scanning visually, looking for movement, shifts, changes, anything out of order in shape or color. They had been scanning auditorily hearing birdsong, wind, twigs snapping. They had been scanning olfactorily smelling the scent of whatever flowers, animals, carrion, or people might be in the region. And, they had been doing all of this effortlessly. It was simply how they hunted.

As you coach, are you constantly scanning the horizon and where you are about to set your feet? Are you effortlessly scanning with all of your senses and noticing? Just like our friends in Lopez’s book, we want to be noticing shifts, changes, anything out of the ordinary. While the Inuit hunter might spot the movement of a partridge in a bush, we may notice the shift in our client’s tone of voice, in their posture, in the speed with which they are now talking. When we listen beyond words, beyond content we hear more. The verbal content is important. It’s like the landscape itself; it is the context of the conversation. Yet, what’s important is what is happening on that landscape. What movement is there in the bushes, so to speak? What is the client thinking and feeling regarding that content about which they are speaking?

The novice coach, new to the coaching landscape, may focus mostly on the content of our client’s communication. Yet, they progress in their coaching so much more when they realize that the client is not just speaking to them about a subject, they are communicating! It’s not just what they say, it’s how they are saying it. The content might sound like “I’ve walked only two times this week.” All the while the client is attempting to convey to their coach that they are becoming very worried that they will never get their lung capacity back after their acute heart failure if they don’t exercise more often. Did the coach see the frightened bird that just froze on the tree branch, or were they lost looking at the trees? What is my client communicating?

What Are We Listening For?

Just like the skilled naturalist, or the Inuit people that Lopez observed, the more masterful coach has learned what to look for in our coaching landscape. The novice coach may travel the same landscape and not notice half of what the more masterful coach will pick up on. They have learned how to read the signs, to distinguish a track from a mere depression in the soil. So, to deepen your listening ability what can you tune in to? Within the content of what is being said and beyond the content, what will help our coaching be more productive?


This blog was taken from a chapter in Dr. Arloski’s forthcoming book Masterful Health & Wellness Coaching: Deepening Your Craft, being published soon by Whole Person Associates. https://wholeperson.com/store/masterful-health-and-wellness-coaching.html

Emotions, Feelings and Healthy Choices: Coaching for Greater Wellness

One of the first things we learn about in the fields of Wellness & Health Promotion and Health & Wellness Coaching, is that our lifestyle choices are a primary determinant of our health and wellbeing. It seems straightforward that making the right or healthy choice is a rational process based upon having the best information. We often then address how challenging it is for a person to put that choice into practice by looking at their social support, environmental conditions, etc. Much of the focus for wellness coaching becomes helping our client to create a wellness plan based upon those healthy choices and implementing with support and accountability. Let’s stop and take a closer look at those decisions.

Anyone in the healthcare or wellness fields is keenly aware that clients don’t always opt for the best, or healthiest choice. They also often observe clients changing these choices for no apparent reason. One day our client is convinced to start working towards a largely plant-based diet, and on another day, they show little if any desire to do so. We can explore ambivalence, of course, but what is really going on in our client’s decision-making process?

Applying what we know about the role that emotions play in decision-making can be extremely useful to the wellness coach. Learning how to coach our client in this emotional realm is often critical to their success. (See my previous post: “The Great Utility of Coaching In The Emotional Realm”, https://wp.me/pUi2y-lA)

Emotions and Making Lifestyle Choices

Making lifestyle choices are like any other decision-making process – they are more complex than it seems at first. Understanding how our emotional bias fits into this process may help coaches to be less perplexed by some of the self-defeating lifestyle choices we see that our clients have made and continue to make.

Emotions are a heavily researched area of psychology and it is easy to get lost in its vast literature. In an especially succinct article, Executive Coach Svetlana Whitener synthesizes the work of several key researchers and conveys a useful paradigm to coaches to learn from. (“How Your Emotions Influence Your Decisions”, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/05/09/how-your-emotions-influence-your-decisions/#5eece5313fda)

Emotions emerge as a response to external stimuli, or the recollection of it, or the imagining of it. “That stimulus generates an unfelt emotion in the brain, which causes the body to produce responsive hormones. These hormones enter the bloodstream and create feelings, sometimes negative and sometimes positive… So, to review, it’s stimuli, then emotions, then hormones and, finally, feelings. In other words, your emotions impact your decision-making process by creating certain feelings.” (Whitener, 2018)

 

How we interpret or frame those feelings and how we respond to them results in our choices executed in our behavior.

In this model it is not the emotions that we are aware of, it is the resultant feelings that we feel. When our clients contemplate making lifestyle changes, they often experience a variety of feelings. They may experience positive anticipation or dread. The memory of past failures may bring up the emotion of fear resulting in feelings of embarrassment, regret, shame or guilt. Likewise, a history of more pleasant experiences may lead to positive anticipation. What Stage of Change the client is in may be heavily influenced by the feelings they are experiencing.

Expand Your Emotional Vocabulary

Psychologist Paul Ekman’s research on emotions opened a huge doorway to understanding how people express themselves. A key from his work that can help the coach is to look at how (as in our model above) emotions generate feelings and how those feelings differentiate. Researcher Tiffany Watt Smith has listed 154 different worldwide emotions and feelings. (1). Studying Ekman’s Wheel of Emotions can help a coach to expand their own knowledge and use of emotional terminology. As you coach with your client you can explore more possibilities to help your client clarify exactly what they are feeling.

 

Ekman’s Wheel of Emotions

 

 

 

 

How The Coach Can Help: Coaching With Emotions and Feelings

1. Coaching Presence – Your coaching presence sends an ongoing message that either gives permission to explore feelings or denies it.
2. Notice – Be keenly observant of the emergence of feelings on the part of your client. Be continually scanning not just their words, but how they say them. Hear the changes in tone of voice, volume, rapidity, etc. Notice all of the nonverbal information you can gather.
3. Contact – Help you client to connect with their feelings. Use the Active Listening Skill of Reflection of Feelings. Share observations of patterns you see. “I’m noticing that each time you talk about taking time for self-care you begin speaking about your partner.”
4. Name it – Help you client to name their feelings. As we saw above emotions can generate a wide variety of feelings. Expand your own emotional vocabulary and help your client to drill down to what they are truly experiencing. “Well, it’s not really anger, it’s more like resentment.”
5. F.A.V.E. – First Acknowledge the client’s experience and what they have been through. Then Validate their feelings. It’s okay for them to feel the way they feel about it. (Regardless of how rational or appropriate their feelings may seem.). You absolutely must not judge their feelings. Most importantly Empathize. Show real empathy and compassion and put it into words.
6. Process – Help your client to explore and process their feelings. Allow them to expand and talk about them. Once the initial release has taken place, they will usually start to analyze what is going on for them, looking to make sense (and meaning) out of their feelings.
7. Insight – Is your client able now to gain some insight from what they have learned in this process?
8. Application/Integration – Are they able now to take their insights and turn them into action? Now you can coach your client on ways they can modify their behavior or create experiments in their lives to improve their lifestyle.

Note – If you find that you are answering the questions in items 7 & 8 with the negative, your client may benefit more from counseling instead of (or in addition to) coaching. That is, if they just continue to process feelings, and process feelings without it leading to insight, or if they are unable to put their insights into action, and instead return to processing feelings (and emoting), then begin to explore the alternative of counseling. See my blog on this topic – Coaching a Client Through To A Mental Health Referral Using The Stages of Change (https://wp.me/pUi2y-lp).

A wellness coach may think that it is their job to get their client to make the right lifestyle choices. When coaching deteriorates into convincing or persuading, we are stepping away from the coaching process. We can certainly warn our clients about misinformation they may have about fad diets, or unproven remedies, etc. However, effective coaches honor their client’s autonomy. The reality is that after a coaching session, our clients will go on living their lives doing what they choose to do despite our urging. Trust the coaching process. Help your client to factor in their emotions in a more conscious way so that the lifestyle choices they make are working for them instead of against them.

References
(1) Tiffany Watt Smith. “The Book of Human Emotions: An Encyclopedia of Feeling from Anger to Wanderlust” (PDF). Anarchiveforemotions.com. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
(2) Ekman, Paul (1999), “Basic Emotions”, in Dalgleish, T; Power, M (eds.), Handbook of Cognition and Emotion (PDF), Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

Dr. Michael Arloski

Michael Arloski, Ph.D., PCC, NBC-HWC, is a psychologist, professional coach, author, trainer/educator and CEO and Founder of Real Balance Global Wellness. Follow his blog at https://realbalancewellness.wordpress.com, and his presence on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/michael.d.773), Twitter https://twitter.com/DrMArloski) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/realbalance/).

The Quandary of Closeness And Compassion in Coaching

“Don’t get too close to your clients.” It may have been my junior year of being an undergraduate psychology major when a professor offhandedly gave this warning to me and a couple of other students. There is always this question about ‘therapeutic distance’. Clearly when a therapist allows their own feelings of attraction or repulsion, insensitivity or caring to interfere with the ability to deliver effective therapy, we have a problem. Therapists may wall themselves off from connecting too closely to protect themselves from the pain of their client’s suffering. At the same time, therapists are exhorted to empathize, to connect genuinely, authentically, to allow a therapeutic closeness to grow. They are often left in this ambivalent quandary of just how “close” to be to their client.

The coaching relationship is not intended to be a therapeutic one, even though it may contribute to a client’s own healing. Many experiences are therapeutic and the experience a person has with coaching may be just that. However, our intent is not to heal the old wounds of our client, but to be their assistant in their personal growth. The coach’s quandary is similar to that of the therapist, but also different. Without the ‘therapeutic distance’, it may, in fact, be even more confusing. If we are not delivering treatment with our client, then, are we more like a friend? We will hear stories of suffering. How do we protect ourselves from feeling their pain as our own?

Coaches may start to find themselves becoming more reluctant to truly engage with their clients. They may find themselves pulling back emotionally and fighting the urge to connect more closely. Hearing another story of difficulty, failure, conflict, or even trauma, abuse and neglect, we may react by diminishing the very coaching presence that is essential to helping our client to work through their challenges. The coach may find their ability to concentrate and really listen to our clients becoming reduced. It may show up physically with difficulty sleeping, a drop in our immune response, headaches, digestive issues, and much more. Our ability to be compassionate may be just worn thin.

An ICF published article by Niamh Gaffney (https://coachfederation.org/blog/are-you-tired-of-coaching) defines Compassion Fatigue as “a combination of physical, emotional and spiritual depletion associated with caring for people in significant emotional pain and physical distress.” The term depletion is perfect in this description. Our own well feels like it has gone dry, or soon will. It may feel like our very soul is being drained. The way out of compassion fatigue is the same as preventing it.

 

Operating From A Coach Approach

Failing to recognize the difference between coaching and counseling or therapy leads coaches to delve into an attempt at therapeutic problem solving. We may disguise it to our client and ourselves as “working on stress”, but if we approach stress management by attempting to solve all of the problems that generate stress in our client’s life, we are engaging in an infinite exercise in futility. Not only does it not work, it is exhausting for both client and coach. Your client may sense the futility before you do and leave coaching entirely.

Maintaining a coaching mindset is essential here. Can we help our stressed-out client to learn how to deal with stress, and to recover from stress instead of infinite problem solving? When coaches ask “What issues do you want to work on?” they are inviting the beginning of a therapeutic expedition. When we see ourselves as our client’s ally, not their doctor, healer, priest or therapist, we take a stance of closeness and caring but with less of a feeling of responsibility for their solutions and ‘cure’.

In wellness coaching, instead of operating on a problem du jour model, we work with our clients to help them take stock of their current health and wellness, create a vision of their best life possible and then co-create with them an effective wellness plan. Operating from a plan is totally different than continual problem solving. Certainly, we engage in strategic coaching with them to address barriers, but our job is not to provide solutions. Compassion fatigue, I believe, comes sometimes from the sense of powerlessness that we may feel when we can’t provide the magic solution for our clients that will make their lives better. When we realize that doing so is not our job, we can allow for more of a healthy compassionate detachment to take place.

 

Compassionate Detachment

Twenty-seven years or so of doing psychotherapy with a wide variety of clients had its joys and challenges. Upon hearing the detailed recount of a young woman or man who had been abused sexually by a parent, I couldn’t just go home saying “It’s only a movie.” Clients come needing to tell their stories to a therapist who is not afraid to go absolutely anywhere with them. A really good therapist learns to be a true warrior/warrioress of the heart who is completely fearless. Yet, the only way they can go into battle again, side by side with their client is by learning something about compassionate detachment.

We practice compassionate detachment for the benefit of our client and for our own benefit as well.

Compassionate detachment is respecting our client’s power enough to not rescue them while extending loving compassion to them in the present moment. Simultaneously compassionate detachment is also respecting ourselves enough to not take the client’s challenges on as our own and realizing that to do so serves good purpose for no one.

Compassionate detachment is an honoring of our client’s abilities, resourcefulness and creativity. We remain as an ally at their side helping them to find their own path, their own solutions. We may provide structure, an opportunity to process, a methodology of change and tools to help with planning and accountability, but we don’t rescue. As tempting as it is to offer our suggestions, to correct their errant ways, to steer them toward a program that we know works, we avoid throwing them a rope and allow them to grow as a swimmer. Sure, we are there to back them up if they go under or are heading toward a waterfall. We are ethically bound to do what we can to monitor their safe passage, but we allow them to take every step, to swim every stroke to the best of their ability.

To be compassionate with a client we have to clear our own consciousness and bring forth our nonjudgmental, open and accepting self. We have to honor their experience.

“Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we’re not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.” Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Compassionate detachment is also about giving ourselves permission to protect ourselves. Being in proximity to the pain of others is risky work. There are theories about the high rates of suicide among dentists based on this. Compassionate detachment is also about being detached from outcome. We want the very best for our clients and will give our best toward that goal, but we give up ownership of where and how our client chooses to travel in the process of pursuing a better life. Their outcome is their outcome, not ours.

Compassionate detachment is not about distancing ourselves from our client. It is not about numbing ourselves out mentally, emotionally or physically. It is not about treating our clients impersonally. That is mere detachment alone and more a symptom of burnout than of good work as a coach, therapist or any kind of human helper.

Intimacy is what allows compassion. When we fear closeness, we will hold back. We will be less empathic because we fear connecting with our own feelings. Compassionate detachment is being centered enough in ourselves, at peace enough in our own hearts, to be profoundly present with our clients in their pain and in their joy as well.

 

From Depletion To Replenishment

If compassion fatigue is about feeling depleted, then prevention and recovery is about replenishment. Fatigue comes from the expenditure of energy: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Coaches must ask themselves what they are consciously doing to restore their own energy supplies. Once again, we are talking about the coach’s own Wellness Foundation.

We often think of wellness in terms of exercise and participation in all kinds of wellness activities. To what degree are these activities an expenditure of energy, and to what degree do they provide an energy return and replenishment. While a workout resulting in a “good tired” feeling my fatigue us physically, it may invigorate us mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. Once again it is a matter of balance. Are we engaging in mind/body activities that replenish our energy on multiple levels? Mindfulness practices, meditation, Tai Chi, Xi Gong, Yoga, all share the intent of this kind of replenishment.

Our Wellness Foundation is not just about working out and eating well. What we are looking for here is replenishment on the levels at which we are being depleted: more the emotional, mental and spiritual. Re-filling our well on these levels is more about getting our needs met in these areas. Compassion fatigue can generate feelings of isolation, powerlessness and feeling overwhelmed.

• Are we connecting with meaningful friendships to combat that isolation? Are we expressing ourselves creatively and feeling competent in other areas of our lives?
• Are we consciously engaging in device-free time, in connection with the natural world, simplifying our lives?
• Do we feel like we are truly in charge of our own lives?
• These questions address the three basic human needs that Dicci and Ryan talk about in Self-Determination Theory. (http://selfdeterminationtheory.org)

When we come back to our own center and feel like our needs are getting met, when we feel safe and secure, energized and in balance, we can extend the heart of compassion to our clients and not fear intimacy. We can be the ally they need.  

 

Michael Arloski, Ph.D., PCC, CWP, NBC-HWC – is a psychologist, coach, trainer, author and wellness enthusiast.  CEO and Founder of Real Balance Global Wellness Services, Inc. (https://www.realbalance.com), his company has trained thousands of health and wellness coaches around the world.

Getting Yourself Out Of The Way: The Self-Vigilant Coach – Part One

Self-Mastery in coaching means Self-Vigilance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Getting Yourself Out Of The Way.”  What’s that really mean?  There are many ways in which the coach can interfere in the coaching process and “get in the way” of the client’s own coaching work.  Our own agendas, attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, projections and unfinished emotional business can all impede the coaching process.  In this two part series we’ll increase our awareness of how “our stuff” gets in the way of our client’s progress and look at how to eliminate our blind spots.

The Coach’s Agenda

In wellness coaching it is easy for coaches to subtly promote their own favorite package of dietary, exercise and stress management advice. When I’ve observed this in coaching students it is seldom about their own ego getting in the way, though I’ve seen this a few times, but rather about the zeal the coach feels for certain wellness approaches. They really believe that certain diets, fitness programs, or stress reduction approaches are really fantastic and they want to share this with heart-felt conviction! Coaches also fall into the trap of promoting their own favorite ways to be well because they stray from the coach approach and feel that if they just tell clients what to do it will save so much more time. This can show up in leading questions that manipulate the client to select a course of action that the coach was consciously or unconsciously promoting. Lastly, if coaches are crossing the ethical line into promoting their own money-making products as part of the coaching there is a serious problem.(Consult: https://ichwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Final-Code-of-Ethics-Feb-1-ICHWC-1.pdf)

Convincing & Persuading 

Coaches may get ‘hooked in’ to almost desperately wanting their client to improve their lifestyle because they truly care about the person and hate to see them engaging in so much self-defeating behavior and suffering. Straying from the coach approach they attempt to convince or persuade the client to be well. “If they would only…!”

A well-known Motivational Interviewing trainer often begins his talks by extolling each of the audience to “Give up your job!” He argues, as do I, that holding on to thinking that you can be successful while attempting to convince or persuade people to be well, is about as self-defeating as the client behaviors we are attempting to change! Yet many of us in the wellness and health promotion fields and medical professions find ourselves spending years doing just this. The exasperation that finally comes from this fruitless way of working with clients and patients is often what drives these human-helpers to look for a better way, and what often leads them to coaching. Tired of pushing or pulling people up the mountain of lifestyle improvement, one finally asks “How’s this working for me?” The challenge for the coach is to become aware of their tendency to continue this process of convincing and persuading.

My Way Is The Way

Beginning coaches also have to be vigilant about how their own path to wellness may interfere with their client work. We have trained many wellness coaches who were attracted to the fields of healthcare, human helping, and wellness because they were able to meet and overcome a serious health challenge by, at least in part, improving their own lifestyle. When I’ve trained counselors and psychotherapists I would sometimes come across students who had been through either divorce, alcoholism, or some such experience and deeply believed that what had helped them to get through those experiences was exactly what all their clients had to do as well. This was, of course, an often-disastrous course for their therapy clients attempt to take. In wellness coaching, we come across students, on rare occasion fortunately, who have a similar allegiance to some sort of holistic health path, or wellness formula that helped them and now they feel the need to proselytize.

“Well, what worked for you?” clients often ask. Here the coach has to proceed very carefully. We can use some appropriate self-disclosure, but rather than answer the question directly, the coach might ask, “So what are you hoping to gain by hearing about my experience?” Often that client’s question is coming out of a place of low self-efficacy. They have had little lasting success at lifestyle improvement, so they are looking to you, the expert to show them a better way. We have to determine if this is a time to provide some information/education, make an effective use of self-disclosure, or is it a time to empower the client to continue to seek their own answers. The vigilance comes in when we catch our own tendency to slip into the expert role.

Illuminating Blind Spots

Part of mastering wellness coaching is narrowing down our blind spots as much as possible. Some lack of awareness, even some self-deception may still remain, but out job is to increase our awareness both in retrospect and in the moment. We make great headway with this when we accept responsibility for our own feelings and reactions. The values and lifestyle of our client may be 180 degrees different than our own. We may be appalled at the self-defeating behavior we see the client exhibiting and rush to judgment. Our “Right-ing Reflex” (as the Motivational Interviewing Folks call it) kicks in. We may have a personality that pushes us to “straighten out” a client’s way of operating in this life. Part of our effective vigilance is noticing when we are pressing a client about how they “ought” to live. Can we allow the client to live their life without our “interference”? Coaching should never interfere with someone’s life, unless it is a situation of safety (see below).

When we blend in some wellness/health education, how neutral do we stay when it comes to any of the numerous controversial healthy living debates? “Saturated fat is fine. Enjoy!” “Saturated fat will kill you!” Can we act like a true professional and coach our client to find out their own answers from a variety of trusted, evidence-based sources?

Thoughts To Ponder On The Mastery Path

Experiment with entirely eliminating the phrases
“You need to…”
“Your ought to…”
“I want you to…”
from the way that you coach with people.

 

Distinguishing Between Our Own Agenda And Client Safety

Coaches are not responsible for the choices their clients make. However, if your client is riding his wellness bicycle towards a known cliff, we do have an ethical obligation to share what we know about the landscape ahead. Those who have heard me conduct coach trainings know that I’m fond of presenting this ethical quandary: Let’s say your client says – Hey coach! I’m going to start The Twenty-Seven Grapefruit A Day Diet! All I have to do is eat nothing but 27 grapefruit everyday for a month and the pounds will just drop away like magic! Will you support me in this coach? We love to say that in coaching “The client’s agenda is THE agenda.” This does not mean, however that we can’t operate on one important caveat – the safety of our client. Now, unlike the obvious cliff our grapefruit-dieting client is headed for, most of our clients present more ambiguous situations and questions. For example, there are a number of immensely popular diets out there, which promise extraordinary weight loss results, but have more recently been shown, to present medical risks and/or have an abysmal record of sustainable results. What is the coach to do when the client presents a plan to follow such a diet?

Our first step is to monitor ourselves and ask if our desire to have our client think twice before they launch forth with a potentially self-defeating, if not self-destructive course, is motivated by what we know of the facts, or our own prejudices. Are we aware of evidence that puts their course of action in serious doubt, or are we instead simply favoring some alternative that we are fans of?

The second step would be to inquire what the client knows about this course of action (diet, or whatever wellness/health promoting idea). How did they become aware of it – through what sources? What do they know of the integrity of this action course? Are they aware of contradictory evidence regarding this way of attempting to be well? The coach can strongly recommend that the client check this out with their treatment professionals or trusted educational professionals. The coach can help the client to carefully examine their options. If the client insists on carrying out a course of action the coach truly feels is detrimental to the wellbeing of the client they can directly share that with the client. If the client still persists on moving ahead with their plan, the coach can share with the client that they will not be able to support the client in doing so as part of their coaching together.

Tips For Eliminating Blind Spots

The biggest problem with our blind spots is that, by definition, we are not aware of them. Here are some tips for minimizing these hazards.

• Coach with a tri-fold awareness of what is going on with 1) yourself – emotions, bodily sensations, intuition; 2) your client ¬– keenly observe communication on verbal and nonverbal levels, pick up on emotions not just content; and 3) the coaching relationship itself and process this with your client if needed.
• Record your client sessions (with permission) and listen to them carefully with the ideas from this blog in mind.
• Seek out a mentor to help you grow as a professional skilled coach, and/or work with a supervisor at your workplace if you are in such an employment setting.
• Coach bravely (see my previous blog: “Seven Expressions Of Courageous Coaching” – https://wp.me/pUi2y-ie ) by exploring with your client their satisfaction with the coaching they are receiving. Explore together how it can be improved. Be willing to look at what doesn’t “feel right”.
• Perhaps most importantly, do your own work. That is, continually grow by being willing to work through your own “unfinished business” of an emotional nature.

Part Two

Dr. Michael Arloski

In Part Two of this blog series, we will look at the concept of Projection, in all of its forms, and how it can significantly sabotage our best coaching efforts.

The Great Utility of Coaching In The Emotional Realm

According to Plato: Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

Coaches often cautiously retreat from the affective level with their clients for fear of crossing the line into therapy. Other coaches with a professional mental health background are comfortable going in this direction, but don’t often know how to shift from a therapeutic approach to a coach approach. Unfortunately, we also find coaches who have no professional mental health qualifications who are all too eager to dive deeply into the world of emotions. In two of my previous blog posts I address the critical distinctions between coaching and counseling/psychotherapy, coaching scope of practice, and how to facilitate referrals when needed. (Process Coaching: Yes, Coaches “Do Emotions” http://wp.me/pUi2y-dL) (Coaching a Client Through To A Mental Health Referral Using The Stages of Change http://wp.me/pUi2y-lp)

There is naturally much valuable work written about emotions, from Emotional Intelligence, to Neuroscience, Positive Psychology, and more. In this post let’s focus on how a coach, especially a health and wellness coach, can enhance the coaching process by working effectively with affect.

What the authors of Co-Active Coaching (2012) (Whitworth, et.al) call “process coaching” has been co-opted by a wide variety of writers and practitioners, each with their own disparate definitions. The definition that Whitworth, et.al, provide is worth repeating here: “Process coaching focuses on the internal experience, on what is happening in the moment. The goal of process coaching is to enhance the ability of clients to be aware of the moment and to name it… Sometimes the most important change happens at the internal level and may even be necessary before external change can take place.” Their message here for coaches is that unless we address the affective component, we often struggle to see real progress. When coach and client dance around feelings, the exploration can stay superficial and goal setting, strategies for change, etc., often lack a sufficient motivational driver. An internal barrier to change may still remain. So, how do we work with emotions and stay within our scope of practice as a coach?

A client may speak of any manner of unresolved conflicts, a history of trauma, even abuse that they have experienced. It may be about family of origin issues, or any sort of unfinished emotional business. This does not immediately indicate the need for a referral. The reality is that many, if not most, people carry around their unfinished business such as this and function quite well. The challenge for the coach is not to take the bait of problem solving and coach seeking to resolve these old issues.

Resolution Vs. Relevance

The key here is to seek how the emotions of the client are relevant to the progress they are attempting to achieve in coaching. Perhaps a coach and client create action steps in their wellness plan composed of various self-care activities, yet the client repeatedly holds himself or herself back from engaging in these. As this is discussed in coaching, an internal barrier is identified that traces back to their family of origin. Perhaps a critical parent harshly enforced that all work must be done before one does anything for one’s self. Doing process coaching around this, the savvy coach seeks not the resolution of all of the feelings and unfinished business with that parent (be they dead or alive). Instead, they coach to help their client gain insight regarding how these past learning’s are holding them back today. If the client is able to gain such insight and translate it into action (moving ahead with self-care) then the process coaching is achieving its goal. If the client continues to only process feelings and does not gain insight or does not succeed in shifting their behavior, then, we have probably identified an issue that is significant enough to warrant the encouragement of referral to a counselor or therapist.

Putting It Into Words

Client: You know, I love this idea of taking time for myself to do just what I enjoy, but every time I do I just feel really guilty.
1) Coach: Tell me more about how this guilt shows up.
Client: Well, like last week when I said I would connect with one of my good friends on the weekend and go do something fun. The whole time we were hanging out together I kept thinking about all of the things on my to-do list at home, and how I probably should be doing things for my family instead.
2) Coach: That must have really taken some of the pleasure out of being with your friend and trying to have fun. You sound really disappointed.
Client: Yeah. I am. We were just trying to relax and enjoy the day and I was only about half into it.
3)Coach: Has that happened before, when you’ve been unable to fully enjoy the moment like that?
Client: Definitely! It seems to happen all the time. I keep thinking of what I didn’t get done around the house, and about what is still hanging incomplete at work. It’s almost like I can hear my parents, years ago, always pushing me hard to get all of my work done before I could do anything I wanted to do. They were really strict and on top of that they would forbid me to do most of the things I wanted to do anyway.
4) Coach: It must be extremely frustrating having thoughts like that get in the way today.
Client: Frustrating indeed. When I think about them, and the hard time they gave my siblings and me I really can get upset.
5) Coach: Your tough upbringing was very real. It sounds painful to remember those experiences. Tell me more about how it gets in the way of you giving yourself permission to practice more self-care.
Client: I guess it keeps me from either planning something good for myself, like how I cancelled getting a massage again last week. Or, when I’m finally out there doing something I want to do to relax and unwind, I distract myself thinking of what I ‘should’ be doing.
6) Coach: Are you hearing how you are allowing all of that history to get in your way today, in the present?
Client: Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing.
7) Coach: How can I support you in making your own decisions about what’s good for you?

Looking At The Coaching

In this example our coach begins (1) by requesting clarification in a very neutral way. This allows the client to go further without having to go in the direction a question would have taken them. The coach then (2) responds empathically and reflects feeling. This gives the client permission to go further into the affective level. Attempting to help the client identify a pattern (3) the coach inquires about past experience with the same thing. The coach again (4) expresses empathy and reflects feeling. The coach is conveying to the client that they can handle talking about feelings. This enhances the coaching alliance and builds trust. The coach is also not jumping into problem solving and thereby dampening down the affect. Next (5) the coach validates the client’s reality and empathizes. The coach then requests clarification but does so in a directive way that nudges the client back to relevance to their Wellness Plan. The coach follows the client’s examples (6) by not asking for details, but instead by sharing an observation in a gentle confrontation with the client. Finally (7) the coach empowers the client to own their decision making power and enquires how they can provide support. More coaching would then follow.

Reflection of Feeling

Witnessing coaching being practiced in our Real Balance trainings (https://www.realbalance.com) and listening to hundreds of recordings of our students coaching, I can conclude that there is no doubt what coaching skill shows up the least: Reflection of Feeling. Coaching students, often blindly focus on problem solving and seem to continually make two huge blunders: 1) they forget to express empathic understanding, and 2) they seldom reflect feeling. By not doing these two things they miss tremendous opportunities to enhance the coaching process. When we do express empathy and reflect feeling we open the coaching conversation to the emotional realm. This provides a number of important advantages:

Acknowledging the Affective:

1) Builds trust and builds the coaching alliance. The client knows that they have a true and courageous ally who is not afraid to deal with what the client is feeling. The client doesn’t have to hide, they can be true to themselves. When the feelings of the client are honored and met with unconditional positive regard, instead of judgment, the coaching alliance deepens.
2) Validates what is figural for the client. In the Gestalt sense of awareness, the emotional component, when strong, is often figural (in front, most aware, occupying more of one’s consciousness). If this is avoided, coach and client struggle to focus on the “background”. This is acknowledging what is “real” for the client.
3) Taps into energy! Emotion is often described as energy in motion = E-motion. When the client makes more contact with their emotion, more energy is accessed and can be utilized in the coaching process.
4) Connects with motivation! We move on what we are passionate about. We also can address the fear that often results in lack of movement. Clients are not going to progress towards action when they are frozen with fear. Affect provides the fuel that allows values and priorities to be expressed.
5) Builds self-efficacy. One of Bandura’s four ways to build self-efficacy is termed Physiological States. Emotions, moods, physical reactions and stress levels influence our levels of confidence and our own personal evaluations of our abilities. Anxiety can foster self-doubt thereby lowering self-efficacy. As we help our clients to safely contact feelings and explore their life-relevance, the client learns that they have more control over emotions, and how to interpret and evaluate their emotional states. All of this can have a positive effect on their self-efficacy. As we know, self-efficacy, the degree to which one believes that they can affect change in their life, is pivotal to success in lifestyle improvement.

Reviewing these advantages we can see that when coach and client stick to just goal setting, reporting and accountability, and steer away from the emotional element, the result is a process that diminishes the coaching alliance, focuses on what is less important, lacks energy and motivation and fails to maximally build self-efficacy.

Find out more about coaching with emotions in these recources:

Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P., Whitworth, L. (2011) Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives. 3rd Ed. Nicholas Brealey America.

Williams, P. & Menendez, D. (2015) Becoming a Professional Life Coach: Lessons from the Institute for Life Coach Training, 2nd Ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 202-213.