Coaching To Help Mental Wellbeing #1
Knowing Who You Truly Are
This is the first in a set of blogs about mental health to mark World Mental Health Day. Outlining how we can struggle to be open to ourselves and others, despite the positive changes in public attitudes to mental health. Coaching has much to offer to help mental wellbeing. It creates a positive space for us to explore who we truly are.
Changes in attitudes
Psychology in the 1980s and 1990s taught us that mental health was something that happened to other people. The perceived wisdom was that a third of us were ‘fine’ with no mental health issues; a third had occasional episodes of poor mental health; and a third would be forever affected by enduring mental health issues. The related stigma meant that many people who needed help were reluctant to ask for it, fearing judgemental attitudes and labelling.
How times have changed! After decades of mental health campaigns, there is a now a greater understanding and acceptance of mental health. Public attitudes and behaviour are generally much improved, evident both at work and in our personal lives. And those hard, permanent labels of people either being ‘well’ or ‘unwell’ have been challenged as too rigid. It’s generally accepted now that all of us need to look after our own mental health. And to ask for support or help at an early stage, when we need it. If royal princes and celebrities can open up and be vulnerable about their own mental health, we all can too!
But even now, some of us can be reluctant to share openly, even with those closest to us. When people ask us how we are, our knee-jerk response can be, “yes, I’m fine!”, even when we’re not. Of course, there’s always the judgement of whether to be vulnerable. It depends on who we’re talking to, the situation we’re in, and whether the person is genuinely interested in us, or just making polite small-talk!
Mental health campaigns have unquestionably had positive impacts in terms of the openness of people to discuss this and coming forward when they’re struggling. Sadly, this hasn’t been matched with an equivalent increase in the provision of mental health services, with long waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment.
Coaching can help mental wellbeing
I’ve supported and counselled people with diagnosed mental health problems previously. So, I’ve been comfortable supporting them as a coach now, as long as we agree that this is a suitable, stable time to do so.
But coaching is not counselling, and it’s important to be clear about this. Counselling is problem-focused and discusses problems, often at length which can be really important for someone. In contrast, coaching generally doesn’t focus on the problem, but helps us to look to our future goals and how to get there.
Some people have come to be coached, clearly stating their mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression, and we can work on their coaching goals. Sometimes this happens alongside them having a therapist or counsellor too. But many others come for other reasons and after a few sessions, they start to focus on improving their mental well-being as well.
Living a healthy, happy life with balanced health and wellbeing is something most of us want to do. But this can be different for each of us and can be hard to clearly define. It can be easier to see you’re out of balance, than to know the reasons and to put things right. When people start to step into mental and emotional wellness, they discover a more healthy and honest way to relate to themselves and others. This can lead to big leaps forward.
Changing your patterns of thinking
In coaching, you’re treated as the special, unique person you are. It provides a safe space where you can stop and think. And through deep listening and questions from the coach, you discover your truths and direction and start to transform. There is no-one better than you to decide what will make you happy and fulfilled!
But many of us grow up with a wrong view of ourselves influenced by others – and we’ve believed it at some level. Or sometimes we put pressure on ourselves by unfairly comparing ourselves to others, feeling that we have to live up to their ideals.
Here are two patterns of thinking that some coaching clients start to discover and change as they progress. They may be helpful for you to reflect on, and whether they affect you?…
1. Finding out where you’re really at
In the course of conversations, people can start to realise how much others had influenced their view of themselves. Or that they’d simply been kidding themselves about the truth of their situation. With these realisations they start to see things more clearly. This can be an important part of coaching sometimes. Because before you know where you’re going, and how to get there, you have to really know where you’re at in the first place!
One person, I’ll call her Debbie, came for coaching for several reasons. One area was to address one of the biggest obstacles in her life - of not knowing what she really wanted. She said when she’d started to know then she’d start doubting and judging herself, tying herself up in knots. And even when she did decide what she wanted, she’d find it hard to express this and go get it. She said that this completely overshadowed how she lived, with a few notable exceptions. By exploring these exceptions she found out what really mattered to her. Then Debbie started to find her voice in lots of areas. She realised that both from growing up, and from a failed relationship, that she’d been told what she should want. Within three sessions, Debbie realised that she really did know what she wanted – but needed the time and space to find this out and accept it. Then she was able to push forward and achieve her goals.
2. Changing your ‘limiting beliefs’
Coaching focuses on the positive, using exercises to imagine what it would be like if good changes happened. By doing this, coaching can quickly help you to bypass blocks, and work on the positive alternatives.
But when someone feels very stuck during coaching sessions, they can be resistant to change. This can be shown in the language they use. Phrases like, “I could never do that,” or “I’m always like this,” often come in response to ideas they’d had about positive changes. Or they can have strong reactions to other people’s comments or judgements of them.
After three sessions, Debbie was feeling amazing and lots of changes were already happening. She’d started to work out who she is and her calling in life, and went on to define her unique values that make her who she is. Her work and personal life were going well. But then several sessions later, she shared that she’d had a difficult phone conversation with her Mum, who’d made a couple of negative comments about her, completely at odds with her own new perception of herself. It was like being pulled back into the past and had really troubled Debbie. Her Mother’s negativity about parts of her life had been mentioned before.
Debbie took time in the session to explore her Mum’s limiting beliefs about her, that had upset her. She quickly defined exactly what the words were that affected her. Then next, she worked out the different ways in the past she’d interpreted these statements and applied them to herself, almost going along with her Mum’s words. Then finally I explained that she could come up with phrases that were the opposite of her Mum’s limiting beliefs over her, and the opposite of her own interpretations. She ended up with statements that were the ‘antidote’ to those critical comments.
When she next spoke to her Mum, she was able to interrupt her criticism mid-flow and correct her with the ‘antidote statement.’ She said that her Mum was stunned and listened intently. It gave her an opportunity to also share what she had learnt about her identity, her values and her new direction in her life. This was transformational for them both.
Next steps
Could you benefit from exploring where you’re heading in life, and how you might get there? To do this, you may need to locate where you’re at in the first place!
Are you held back by limiting beliefs? Comments and judgements from others that you’ve internalised and made real? If so, you can start to find out the truth about yourself, and allow yourself to break free.
Spend some time reflecting on these. For help with this, contact me for a free initial discussion here
Could life coaching help you? Take these two simple self-assessments here
Watch out for my next blog – Coaching To Help Mental Wellbeing #2
‘Avoiding the perfectionism trap’
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