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PSYCHOLOGIST
- LIFE, CAREER & EXECUTIVE COACH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
& BUSINESS COACHING MELBOURNE
Do
you want to:
- release
stress and experience peace and contentment?
-
feel better, gain clarity, make better decisions?
- reach
your full potential?
- build
confidence or creativity?
-
improve business/personal relationships?
- overcomes
significant professional challenges?
- discover
how to meet the people who are exceptionally helpful to
you?
-
learn empowering skills to help you achieve your goals?
-
increase emotional intelligence?
- develop
the attitudes that make executives and professionals effective?
-
receive safe, supportive, encouraging guidance suited to
your unique needs?
- discover
how to access the knowledge and passion you need from within
yourself?
IF
SO, TRY COACHING. COACHING CAN HELP!
What
is Coaching? Why it Works & Would You Benefit?
Using ACT workability
and coaching principles, Linda teaches powerful and effective
self-help techniques for reaching your full potential. She
has considerable experience in helping people to: gain clarity
about career direction; achieve career goals; build confidence,
creativity and better business relationships; and banish anxiety,
conflict, indecision and feelings of inadequacy. By its nature,
her style of coaching facilities an increase in emotional
intelligence.
What is
Coaching?
The term coaching
was first used in the fields of education and sports in the
1830s. It is only since the mid-1990s that it has become widespread.
Today, for example, 90% of 500 UK companies have reported
using coaching.
Depending on whether
the coaching is being offered to professionals, business owners,
corporate executives or for personal or career matters, it
may be called career coaching, business coaching, executive
coaching, emotional intelligence coaching or life coaching
(sometimes known as personal coaching).
Whatever kind
of coaching it is called, the bottom line is that great results
are being achieved and it actually works!
It is a mentoring
process in which a person who has achieved their own life
goals and believes in you:
- helps
you to gain the clarity you need to discover what is rewarding,
fulfilling and satisfying so you can set goals that reflect
your interests, skills, strengths, personal values and temperament
(rather than whims, instant gratification or social/marketing
pressures) and thereby joyfully commit to doing things you
care passionately about
- gives
you 100% support and guidance in the use of empowering tools
which enable you to take steps (such as gaining confidence
and insight, finding direction, developing action plans,
making significant changes and improving relationships)
which unleash your unrealised potential so you can move
forward to live the life you really want to live.
- Assists
you to reach your chosen goals more quickly and with less
stress by reducing learning curves, creating better solutions
and avoiding expensive mistakes.
Why Coaching
Works
Coaching motivates
you to spend time focused on and working toward your goals
so you actually achieve them. It does this by making sure
you've chosen the most rewarding goals for you. It also makes
you accountable to someone else. This accountability dramatically
increases your perseverance and perseverance usually pays
off.
Through wise guidance
from someone who has undergone thousands of hours of personal
development work and succeeded in achieving their own goals,
coaching can save you much time, money and frustration. It
is easy to waste a lot of energy going off on a tangent, taking
on too much too soon or criticizing ourselves. Honest and
open feedback can help us to see blind-spots that it might
take weeks, months or years to discover on our own. Encouragement,
support, validation, inspiration and practical action-oriented
guidance can stretch us to see beyond our limited view of
ourselves to what is possible so that we not only achieve
our goals more quickly but also reap benefits well beyond
our expectations.
Would You
Benefit From Coaching?
If there is any
area of your personal or professional life in which you have
been unable to achieve a high degree of satisfaction
AND
You are ready
to make changes
AND
You are willing
to step beyond your comfort zone
THEN
It is highly likely
that you can benefit from coaching.
Do I Need
a Coach or a Counsellor?
It is often said
that coaching is for people who are basically satisfied with
their lives and that others should seek counselling. However
everyone benefits more from focusing on enhancing skills and
strengths and achieving goals than from focusing on problems.
Thus, regardless of whether you feel that your life is together
or falling apart, life coaching works better than a counselling
style which seeks to explore and understand the roots of problems.
Some people also
believe that if they are bothered by strong emotions, they
should seek counselling or therapy rather than coaching. They
may believe that a life coach would not have the emotional
depth and experience to handle their issues. While this may
sometimes be true, Dr. Linda Edwards is not only a life coach
but also a registered psychologist with counselling experience
dating back to 1976. Her emotional intelligence training techniques
can be very effective in dealing with troublesome feelings
and you can learn to use these techniques yourself so you
don't have to keep going to a coach or a therapist. These
techniques are an important part of her coaching approach.
What Can
I Expect From Coaching?
Coaching begins
with establishing some inspiring goals. From then on, the
focus is on achieving them. While coaching is a catalyst for
amazing change, it is not magic. It does require hard work
and commitment.
Ideally you have
a session one hour per week in person or over the telephone
for an agreed period, often three months. During each session,
you agree to take actions for the following week at which
time you discuss obstacles faced, insights gained, and with
the help of constructive feedback which broadens your perspective,
set new actions for tackling things in a different way.
Some of these
new actions may require you to develop new habits.
Top
Benefits
of Life Coaching including Health Coaching & Relationship
Coaching
Life Coaching
(Personal Coaching) can be applied to every area of your life
- personal and professional. Linda has worked with thousands
of clients over the last fifteen years. The following is a
list of the kinds of personal life benefits she has seen people
receive as a result of the life coaching process.
- more
free time, more fun, more money
- more
effective communication with friends, family and at work
- personal
empowerment
- increased
self-awareness
- more
peace and happiness
- higher
levels of fitness, health, and weight control
- better
concentration and mental function
- enhanced
ability to identify stress factors and release the stress
they cause
- clarity
about what one is passionate about
- love
of one's life as it is
- decision-making
in alignment with one's skills, strengths and personal values
- conflict
resolution
- increased
ability to develop and maintain intimate relationships
- improved
self-confidence, clarity and focus
- better
balance between work and personal life
- more
effective implementation of change in one's personal life
- greater
ability to organize, set boundaries and eliminate clutter
When the client
goals are related to the specific areas of health or relationships,
the coaching is sometimes called Health Coaching or Relationship
Coaching. When a couple seeks coaching for their intimate
relationship, it is sometimes called couples coaching to distinguish
it from the type of couples counselling or therapy that focuses
on problems rather than how to enrich the relationship. See
Couples Coaching
Top
Benefits
of Career, Executive and Business Coaching
Linda has provided
career, executive and business coaching to numerous lawyers,
medical practitioners, dentists, nurses, corporate and public
sector executives (supervisors to CEOs), actors, restaurant
owners, engineers, academics, trainers, researchers, computer
professionals as well as international and national sporting
professionals. Coaching outcomes reported by these people
include:
- enhanced
career performance
- more
free time, fun and income
- more
effective communication with colleagues and business partners
- resolution
of liquidity problems and staff difficulties
- greater
ease working with difficult clients and colleagues
- increased
emotional intelligence, awareness and better decision-making
- significant
stress reduction and prevention of burnout
- increased
calm, creativity, energy and vitality
- improved
concentration and mental function
- identification
of opportunities for success which are aligned with one's
true nature
- successful
career transition
- clarity
about direction and achievement of goals
- goal-setting
in alignment with skills, strengths and personal values
- better
professional and business relationships
- improved
self-confidence, clarity, focus and balance
- more
effective implementation of business and career changes
- improved
ability to set boundaries with clients or customers
Top
Coaching
Professional Coaches (Professional Mentoring)
Professional coaches
can also benefit from coaching. However, in this case, because
they are receiving guidance and support from another more
experienced coach, it is usually referred to as mentoring.
For a coaching psychologist it is called professional supervision,
but it amounts to the same thing. Apart from the benefits
of coaching for anyone including coaches themselves, psychology
and especially psychophysiology research are pointing to some
powerful new tools for making coaching more effective than
previously. For more information on some of these tools, go
to Stress
Prevention, Stress Release & Stress Management
and Research-based
ACT coaching Principles.
Top
Emotional
Intelligence Coaching
The reason that
it is possible to effectively coach people in such diverse
areas of their lives without having all the knowledge and
expertise of all these people is that the emotional intelligence
of some coaches and the Emotional Intelligence Coaching style
and tools that they use are responsible for the effectiveness
of all types of coaching. Because emotional intelligence coaching
is intrinsic to the way Linda guides and supports people,
all the outcomes she has witnessed in all types of coaching
are to varying degrees the result of emotional intelligence
coaching.
For example,
coaching to improved concentration and mental function is
dependent on developing greater emotional intelligence. Why?
Because lack of emotional intelligence is a dysregulation
of the central nervous system (CNS) and recent psychophysiological
research shows that CNS dysregulation is frequently associated
with reduced functioning of our thinking processes. Anxiety
causing the mind to go blank is a classic example.
Emotional intelligence
refers to the ability to perceive and interpret our own and
others' emotions in a way which enables optimal response to
personal and professional situations. Emotions have traditionally
not been welcome in the business world where it is usually
believed that decisions are made rationally. But logic is
inadequate for decision-making. Debating, in which either
side is considered to have an equal opportunity to win, illustrates
this well.
Emotions motivate
us to do things. The word emotion derives from the Latin emovere,
meaning to move out. Every emotion includes a tendency to
action. There are four basic emotions: joy, fear, sadness
and anger. The purpose of these emotions is to provide important
information for decision-making and motivation.
There are a number
of well documented cases of people who have suffered damage
to the emotional (limbic) section of their brain. Such people
have normal intellectual functioning but struggle with making
even simple decisions such as when and how to tie their shoelaces.
People with impaired emotional functioning can think and analyze
perfectly but are unable to act appropriately or make effective
decisions.
The result of
increasing your emotional intelligence is personal empowerment.
This includes:
- increased
understanding, insight and compassion;
- increased
energy level and better health;
- greater
creativity;
- better
decision-making;
- higher
motivation;
- better
personal and business relationships;
- freedom
from self-sabotaging emotional patterns; and
- more
life satisfaction both personally and professionally
Emotional Intelligence
has been recognized as more important than either experience
or normal intelligence (IQ) in determining career success
and the profitability of business organizations depend on
the Emotional Intelligence of their managers. Emotional Intelligence
has also been found to be a good indicator of who will keep
out of the divorce courts.
Most Emotional
Intelligence training programs tell people what Emotional
Intelligence is, why they need to develop it, and what the
optimum responses to situations are. However, intellectual
understanding of optimal responses does not lead to optimal
response or increased emotional intelligence.
For example, traditional
assertiveness training programs teach unassertive people which
words to speak in order to be assertive. Unfortunately the
words usually come out apologetically or aggressively, if
at all. This is because no-one has helped these trainees to
deal with the anxiety which is the real cause of the lack
of assertiveness.
If instead of
intellectually teaching people what the assertive response
is and getting them to practice it, we help them to release
their anxiety, then assertiveness naturally arises without
any intellectual instruction being necessary. It seems that
optimal response is our true nature when we deal with the
emotions which get in the way.
These emotions
which get in the way are 'old' emotions, that is, they are
not relevant to the current situation, even though they feel
that they are. They are actually left over emotions from the
past; emotions we did not fully experience when they originally
happened. They muddy the current situation and detract from
our clarity. It is only the emotions which are relevant to
the present situation which provide important information
for our decision-making and motivation. If we make decisions
based on 'old' emotions, our decisions and motivation will
be less than optimal.
Linda's Version
of Emotional Intelligence Coaching
For this reason,
Emotional Intelligence Training offered by Dr Linda Edwards
is focused on helping people to reach a state where they only
experience the emotions relevant to the present situation.
Such a training is necessarily experiential and the easiest
way to do this is with the assistance of an Emotional Intelligence
coach.
Linda's version
of Emotional Intelligence Coaching involves:
- Learning
how to identify old, inappropriate emotional response patterns
which prevent one from reaching one's full potential, personally
and professionally.
- Learning
how to gently accept the full experience of inappropriate
emotions so that their energy naturally dissipates. These
gentle yet rapid emotional release methods are experiential
and involve the pioneering work of the psychologists Eugene
Gendlin and Fritz Perls as well as the more recent research-based
acceptance and commitment training (ACT) coaching methods.
- Developing
these skills under the direction of a trained coach. Just
as we need a coach for the development of practical skills
such as tennis or dancing or driving a car, we also need
a coach to help us develop the practical life skills which
increase our emotional intelligence. These skills usually
work quickly and effectively and they are easy enough for
most people to eventually learn to do by themselves.
Psychophysiology
research and the work of researchers Stephen Porges, Robert
Scaer, Peter Levine and David Berceli have provided us with
some exciting new ways for rapidly and relatively painlessly
release stress and thereby increase emotional intelligence.
Linda has incorporated these and otehr relatively new methods
into her coaching work with clients who want to improve their
careers, relationships, emotional intelligence or lives in
general. Her approach is both practical and challenging.
Remember! Emotional
intelligence is highly correlated with success in both the
business and professional world and family and personal relationships.
Linda's Version
of Life, Career, Business & Executive Coaching
To develop new
habits, you will need to be willing to step beyond your comfort
zone as you are guided in the use of a wide range of recently
developed empowering techniques based on the latest psychophysiology
research so that you can reach your goals more quickly.
One of the reasons
that Linda is able to offer these relatively new tools is
that she is a coaching psychologist and all Australian coaching
psychologists are required by federal law to undertake regular
and substantial professional supervision (mentoring or coaching)
as well as workshops and/or research to continuously improve
their skills and knowledge so they can offer better services
to their clients.
Do I Need
to Commit to a Three Month Program?
Not necessarily.
That depends on you.
Some of Linda's
clients have experienced profound changes in two to four sessions.
In fact, her emotional intelligence training techniques can,
in many cases, facilitate very significant changes in much
less than three months. It is quite common for people to want
a lot of benefit from a small investment. If you are ready
to step well beyond your comfort zone, you may be one of the
people who can actually do that.
However many people
are quite resistant to putting themselves in uncomfortable
situations. If this is true for you, it may well be realistic
to plan for a longer period of coaching in order to see the
results you are looking for. However the latest research and
Linda's experience so far suggests that our newest method
may prove to enable people to increase emotional intelligence
without having to experience much uncomfortable emotion or
slow progress in breaking habits.
If you would like
to clarify what you want to achieve and how fast you are comfortable
to work toward your goals, call 9836 5721 and book an initial
session. It is not uncommon for individuals to achieve one
or two small goals as a consequence of this first session.
But most importantly, you will be able to make a more informed
decision about the optimal length of time for which you should
engage in Coaching to get the benefits you are looking for.
Linda's Credentials
Linda has a doctorate
from Monash University in psychology and has coached numerous
senior executives and professionals who are international
leaders in their field. She has thousands of hours experience
using her emotional intelligence training techniques and is
convinced that her methods are at the forefront of rapid development
of emotional intelligence. She has also enjoyed an honorary
research associate position in psychology at Monash University
with publications in professional journals and popular magazines.
TOP
New
Stress Management, Stress Release & Stress Prevention
Option for Handling Career, Executive & Busines Stress
The latest
findings in psychophysiology have led Linda to provide an
option of a new self-help stress prevention and release (stress
management) tool in career, executive and business coaching
because she believes it makes the coaching more effective.
The following
paragraphs provide a brief overview of the recent scientific
findings that led to the creation of this new tool and a short
explanation of what is involved and how it is expected to
improve coaching outcomes as well as prevent, release and
manage stress. Please note that this approach is very new
and there is insufficient evidence-based research for it to
be considered as part of professional psychology practice
at this time.
The
Potential for Optimal Functioning According to Neuroscience
The latest
psychophysiology theory backed up by considerable research
(Porges, 1995; 2001) is now telling us that we all have the
potential to be optimally functioning human beings, thus confirming
what people like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Nelsen Mandela, Mother
Teresa and others have told us, that is, we all have the innate
capacity to be loving compassionate human beings even under
conditions of adversity. But how can this be so when we look
around us and see unending war, crime and divorce?
According
to psychophysiology research, animal and human behaviour is
controlled by unconscious physiological processes when under
life-threat. In the case of humans, these processes override
our thinking and social engagement (loving relationship) capability.
Further, if the life-threat is prolonged or a number of threatening
events happen in quick succession before the individual's
physiological processes have had a chance to return to normal,
the central nervous system (CNS) becomes permanently dysregulated
and responds to any stress as a life threat creating the "I'm
bad at handling stress" syndrome in which the person's response
to a challenging situation might be irritation, anger, anxiety,
fear, panic, distancing, low energy, insomnia or various physical
illnesses or diseases. These responses then often lead to
poor personal or work relationships or difficulty developing
or maintaining a rewarding career. None of this is under human
conscious control. In fact, psychophysiological research has
shown that the unconscious mind that we blame for much of
our difficulties is in fact the CNS and the difficulties are
caused by its dysregulation.
How many
of us are seriously affected by this? Unfortunately most of
us. Even if we have been fortunate enough not to be a victim
of war, crime, natural disaster, or childhood neglect, abuse
or abandonment, most of us have experienced, or been close
to someone who experienced, a common life trauma, for example:
accidents, medical procedures, job loss, life-threatening
illness, intense pain, unexpected loss or near-loss of a loved-one
or sudden financial disaster. While some threats are brief
and animals have mechanisms to return their CNS to normal,
this frequently does not occur in humans.
The Benefit
of Neurogenic Tremors
Have you
ever seen a bird flee from a cat, or two ducks fight over
territory? When the bird escapes or the territorial difference
is resolved, these birds briefly shake uncontrollably and
then go about their business totally peacefully as if nothing
happened. The shaking has used up the excess biochemicals
(adrenaline or opiods) and deep muscle tension from the aborted
fight-flight-freeze response (Levine, 1997).
People
sometimes shake or tremor . For example, after a car accident
a person might say, "I shook like a leaf". However tremoring
is seen as a symptom of fear and therefore a sign of weakness.
If it occurs without any obvious threat, it is seen as a sign
of something wrong such as Parkinson's Disease, Epilepsy or
a mental illness. Tremoring is fairly common in children but
adults tend to suppress it so as not to feel out of control,
vulnerable, embarrassed or frighten their children.
As a result
of the prevalence of the belief that tremors indicate something
is wrong with us, the purpose and value of shaking has not
been well researched. However, deeper exploration of involuntary
tremoring commenced in 1997 with the work of stress expert
Dr Peter Levine. The theory behind his Somatic Experiencing
technique says that the body evokes 'neurogenic tremors' to
complete the discharge of our flight-flight-freeze response.
Suppression
of Involuntary Tremoring Causes Impaired Emotional Functioning,
Health and Work Performance
According
to Dr David Berceli (2008), Dr Robert Scaer (2001) and others,
there is now evidence that this suppression of tremoring causes
the CNS to remain on alert so that minor stresses set up a
cycle of unending anxiety and tension build-up which eventually
leads to physical and psychological difficulties. These problems
are wide-ranging and include: difficulty handling stress,
unexplained chronic pain, frequent colds and infections due
to a poor immune system, anxiety disorder, depression, high
blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal troubles,
migraine headaches, asthma, poor circulation, muscle spasms,
chronic fatigue, whiplash after minor accidents, short-term
memory loss, and lack of concentration. Likewise, animals
in captivity (especially those in zoos or laboratories) lose
their resilience because they cannot discharge their freeze
response and they also suffer a variety of physical and psychological
complaints. In addition, Dr Stephen Porges and others have
shown that when the CNS is prepared for threat, the social
engagment system (the vagal nerve) is suppressed interfering
with the person's ability to engage in workable and compassionate
relationships.
The Stress
Prevention, Release and Management Process
While working
with trauma recovery in war-torn countries and natural disaster
zones, clinical social worker and somatic therapist, Dr David
Berceli (2008), developed a self-directed body-based method
of stress and trauma prevention and release, which allows
individuals to process their own stress and trauma, in many
cases, without needing to seek guidance from professionals.
This method consists of a set of gentle physical exercises
which fatigue certain muscle groups in order to activate the
body's innate tremoring response. These exercises can be practised
by young and old alike.
While there
is insufficient research evidence as yet for this very new
procedure to be an accepted strategy for use by psychologists,
these exercises have been shown to reduce stress and anxiety
and some people have reported that the exercises enable them
to handle stressful situations more effectively.
Linda believes
we can use this stress release tool on a regular basis to
deal with all the normal challenges of our lives, for example,
to improve our career prospects or enhance our business and
intimate relationships.
It is recommended
that people receive instruction in doing the exercises at
least once so they can learn how to do them at the right speed
to release stress and tension with little or no physical or
psychological discomfort. A very good way to practise these
exercises initially is as an adjunct to life coaching, career
coaching or business coaching because regular contact with
a coach ensures that people keep doing the exercises for the
21 days required to form a new habit.
Linda suggests
that people might like to practise these exercises throughout
the coaching process because stress reduction is expected
to facilitate achieving goals. Then afterwards, they can be
done as a stress prevention strategy. If you think you might
be interested in including these exercises in your coaching
process, give Linda a call on 9836 5721 and book an initial
session.
Berceli,
D. (2008). The revolutionary trauma release process. Vancouver,
Canada: Namaste Publishing
Levine,
P. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. Berkeley, CA:
North Atlantic Books
Porges,
S. (1995). Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications
of our evolutionary heritage: A polyvagal theory. Psychophysiology,
32, 301-318
Porges,
S.W. (2001). The polyvagal theory: phylogenetic substrates
of a social nervous system. International Journal of Psychophysiology,
42, 123-146
Scaer, R.
(2001). The body bears the burden: Trauma, dissociation and
disease. Binghamton, New York: Hawthorn Press
TOP
Research-based
ACT Coaching & Workability Principles for Career, Executive
& Business Performance & Success
Acceptance
and Commitment Training (ACT) is a brilliant basis for coaching.
As explained earlier, the coaching process involves clarifying
what is rewarding to you and setting goals based on your values.
ACT facilitates this process through the workability principle
and provides tools to recognize whether your actions are workable.
This is important because you will get better results if you
focus on what is workable.
ACT Coaching
Workability Principle: For Better Results Ensure Goals are
Within Your Control
One very
important way that ACT says you should do this is to focus
your actions on things that you can control because if your
actions are directed to change what you can't control, you
are unlikely to have much long term success.
You have
little control over thoughts, feelings, urges, memories and
sensations.
You have
no control over other people.
You have
no control over the world around you.
You can
control your actions and your attention no matter what your
thoughts and feelings are telling you.
You can
do what you value, engage fully in what you are doing, and
pay attention to the effect your actions are having.
ACT provides
us with exercises to help us recognize our unworkable behaviours.
The following exercise is one such example.
ACT Exercise:
Notice Whether Trying to Get Rid of Unwanted Thoughts and
Feelings Works
- The thoughts
and feelings I'd most like to get rid of are … (complete
this)
- Write
a list of everything you've tried in order to avoid, change
or get rid of these unpleasant thoughts and feelings e.g.
avoiding situations, addictions, denial, blaming, therapies,
affirmations, procrastination, talking, keeping busy, indecision
- For each
strategy you tried, ask yourself if it worked in the long
term
- What
did it cost you in time, energy, money, health and vitality?
- Did it
bring you closer to a rich, full and meaningful life?
Recognizing
the behaviours that don't work motivates us to discover what
does work. ACT say that what works to produce a meaningful
life is to behave in ways that are consistent with our values
. Here is an ACT exercise to help you determine your values.
ACT Values
Exercise: Clarifying What is Most Important and Significant
to You in Your Heart
How would
you act differently if painful thoughts and feelings were
not an issue?
In other
words, how would you act differently if you focused on moving
toward what you value rather than avoiding unpleasant thoughts
and feelings?
Imagine
you are 80 years old and looking back on your life. Finish
the following sentences:
- I spent
too much time worrying about….
- I spent
too little time doing things such as….
- If I
could go back in time, I would ….
Having determined
your values, the next step is to use traditional coaching
principles to set goals based on your values and set them
in small achievable steps. This should entail behaving in
ways consistent with your values regardless of how you think
or feel. That's the bit where traditional coaching, in my
opinion, is somewhat limited and coaching psychology can help
with ACT.
The task
at this point is to do what the letters of ACT stand for -
Acceptance and Commitment Training:
Committed
Action (Taking Action in Line with Values to Create a Meaningful
Life
A
Accept your internal experience (use diffusion and expansion
- see below)
C
Choose a valued direction from the list you have made above.
T Take
action, giving it full attention while letting thoughts &
feelings come & go.
Here are
the other ACT tools that help you do this:
ACT Diffusion
Exercise: Allowing Thoughts, Images, Memories to Come and
Go Without Giving Them More Attention Than They Deserve
Instead
of believing thoughts are true, wise or important, see them
as words or stories. "I'm having the thought that…" Name the
story. Take 10 breaths & focus on the breath.
Pay attention
to thoughts only when they are helpful in creating a rich
and meaningful life.
TIP: Any
time you are having trouble doing this, there will be an unpleasant
sensation in your body, so do the second expansion exercise
below. If you can't find it, look in your head. Or is it a
mild tension all over your body?
Focus on
the feelings in your body rather than the story in your mind.
ACT Acceptance
Exercise: Being Willing to Notice & Fully Feel Unpleasant
Feelings, Sensations, Urges
Turn the
'struggle switch' off so you don't have to have bad feelings
about your bad feelings. Breath in a deep and relaxed way
while scanning the body and noticing the worst feeling. Observe
it with curiosity. Notice what shape, size, location and intensity
it is. Notice any special feature such as whether it is pulsating.
Notice any changes in its position or characteristics. Persevere.
If you like, you can actively embrace the feeling by trying
to intensify it with the Somatic Experiencing exercise that
Linda teaches. Just remember that even though the feeling
is likely to dissipate (quickly or slowly) when you do either
technique, the motivation must be to embrace and accept the
full intensity of the feeling rather than to get rid of it.
That is why this exercise is called Acceptance, although some
ACT books (e.g. Dr Russ Harris's books) refer to it as Expansion.
ACT Connection
Exercise: Bringing Full Awareness to Present Experience with
Openness & Interest
Take 10
deep breaths and focus on the sensations of breathing. Focus
on five things you can see, hear, and feel. Notice what you
can smell or taste too. Notice all the details of what you
can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste in carrying out a simple
routine such as combing your hair or brushing your teeth or
doing the washing up. Practise this as many times a day as
you can remember. The more you are fully present in each moment,
the more you will enjoy life, and the more you will be able
to do the other techniques aimed at helping you create the
kind of life you value.
ACT Observing
Self Exercise: Recognizing You are NOT Your Thoughts, Feelings,
Memories, Urges or Body
Focus on
something you can see, feel, hear, smell or taste. Now focus
on something else. Notice who was observing and who changed
from observing one thing to observing something else. Notice
that while your thoughts, feelings and body constantly change,
the observer does not.
Obstacles
to Change
As a final
comment, when the going gets tough, look to see what obstacles
to change might be operating:
F
Fusion with unhelpful thoughts.
E
Expectations that are unrealistic
A
Avoidance of uncomfortable feelings
R
Remoteness from your values
Your
Next Step
If you would
like some encouragement and support in applying these exercises
to your career, business or personal life, engage the services
of an ACT coach. Many coaching psychologists will be familiar
with ACT. Linda is an ACT coaching psychologist in Melbourne
inner Eastern Suburbs (Camberwell - Box Hill area). You may
contact her on 9836 5721 to book an initial coaching session.
In addition,
you might like to purchase a copy of: The Happiness
Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living Russ Harris M.D. Exile
Publishing (NSW & NZ, 2007). This book is useful for improving
the quality of life in general and takes a life coaching/career
coaching approach to mindfulness and values driven action
in place of experiential avoidance driven action. It contains
many exercises including some of those listed above. It is
one of the most useful books Linda has come across and she
has found that those who have read it progress more quickly
in their coaching sessions.
TOP
Copyright
Dr Linda Edwards 2002-2011, Psychologist & Business, Executive,
Career & Life Coach Melbourne Victoria Australia. Art
of Living Psychology Consulting Rooms are in theCanterbury
- Camberwell - Burwood end of Surrey Hills in the Melbourne
Inner Eastern Suburbs, Camberwell, close to the business districts
of Hartwell, Box Hill and Hawthorn.
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