What is Holistic Life Coaching?

A supportive space to be heard and listened to

We sometimes just need a supportive and safe space to talk, to get things off our chest, to be listened to and heard. The simple but powerful act of talking and sharing can in itself make you feel so much better.

Coaching gives you the time and space to do this. But it is so much more. It is a guided, friendly and powerful conversation that allows you to reflect and explore new insights into yourself. It allows you to be truly heard but it is an opportunity to listen to yourself too. Something we often forget to do.

A life coach is a facilitator, a catalyst, someone who supports and guides you through a process of change, using a range of evidence-based and tried and tested psychological tools.

They do not instruct, define or dictate what you “should” do, but rather through a process of careful and stimulating questioning, attentive listening and practical suggestions, they enable you to initiate and sustain change, to confidently see a personal goal through to fruition.

A coach helps you to actively step back from your problem, to become more self-aware and in the process move confidently from problem to solution. To see it in a new light, perhaps differently, with a fresh perspective.

Developing self-awareness

The emphasis is on you developing and increasing your self-awareness, developing life-long skills to devise solutions to problems, always enabled by the expertise, support and guidance of the coach, who provides knowledge, information, skills development, and support within a safe and confidential space. Encouragement but also challenge and accountability.

Coaching is about allowing yourself to be gently challenged to prompt new ways of thinking, doing and being. You must be willing, open, and ready to commit to making changes in your life.

For example, a coach may help you to recognise your patterns of stress, discomfort, your (negative) self-narratives, (negative) habit formation, (negative) thought processes, your limiting beliefs – the things that might be holding you back and blocking change. Some conscious, some subconscious.

You are then shown and empowered to use powerful tools and techniques to counteract, disrupt and address them and to move forwards in a way that is nourishing, fulfilling, balanced and realistic. It’s about rediscovering and tapping into your own strengths to find a way to a more satisfying and fulfilled life.

Focuses on all parts of your life and your being

Holistic Coaching goes beyond just supporting and enabling you to confidently see a personal goal through to fruition. It’s not only about the end outcome – the goal achievement.  It’s about ensuring that change can be sustained over time and the longer term. In order to do that we need to view all aspects of your life as equally important and as interrelated. We need to look at you holistically.

A Holistic approach recognises that humans are multi-layered and that there is an important connection between all levels of our being – mental, physical, emotional and spiritual (meaning our connection to the world and our deeper sense of purpose).

And often if there is an imbalance or block in one part of our being, it will have a knock-on effect on one or all of our other areas. There is a ripple effect. There is a powerful mind-body connection that determines how we think and feel and therefore behave and act, which in turn influences how we experience and manage physical, emotional and mental stress in our daily lives.

Creating meaningful & sustained change

Therefore, if we are trying to sustain meaningful change, to sustain new ‘healthy and fulfilling’ habits, there is a need to ensure that all aspects of our being have been considered, that we have understood the mind-body connection, that we are being holistic in our approach to change.

While an important part of a holistic coaching approach is to understand where the current ‘problem’ or ‘block’ comes from (past trauma/experiences) and what supports or perpetuates it (beliefs/conditioning) , it differs from other helping, therapeutic approaches in that it is not necessary to go through and unpack past experiences in detail as counselling might, rather it is about acknowledging the root, but then challenging the conditioning that supports it, thereby helping you to move forwards, rather than revisiting the same self-story.

Give it a go

If you are curious to try life coaching, I offer everyone a complimentary coaching session where you can ask questions and gauge whether it is right for you. Don’t hesitate to get in touch!