Since the infamous pandemic and all the related stories started dominating all headlines, we have possibly read many articles, including the term ‘unprecedented times’ somewhere in it. Most people agree that we are living in such times, some have their objections. Let’s agree that the last 12 weeks or so, were remarkably different than the same period of 2019, to say the least. How about our professions, in particular? Did we find ourselves providing more of transformative coaching & healing through these unprecedented times?
How was it before? In which ways are we challenged?
We have been living our fast paced, transaction based and result oriented lives, until one state after another started to impose the lock-down measures. It was a new situation for the vast majority of us. We didn’t have any similar reference points to compare it with. It was ‘unprecedented’. How did we cope with this new reality, when most of us had to stay at home? Many people responded by ‘getting back to the basics’. They spent more ‘quality time’ with their loved ones. The life itself and its tempo slowed down. At least, in the perception of our minds.
Some of us started reading more books. Some, decided to get really creative and they started preparing their own homemade recipes for any sort of food imaginable. Others have focusied on learning a new language, through these home-stay weeks & months. However, there was a constant question circulating the minds of people: “When will the ‘Normalization’ start?”
How did the ecosystem of coaches & healers respond to it?
How does this term of ‘unprecedented times’ translate into our world of coaching and healing industry? Surely, almost every coach and healer went ‘online’, not having any other true options left for them. Many of us focused on ‘group coaching sessions’. Group meditations became even more popular and common. Coaches and even worldwide known ‘personal brands’ started sharing a lot of free content, in incomparable amounts prior to the lock-down period. Ok, those happened to be the -relatively- new practices in medium of coaching, technology, diversification and marketing. How about the ‘content’? What did the coaching / healing clients demand differently, during the sessions?
In two major directions: 1) New strategies to generate more money & additional streams of income. 2) New tools for having truly deep insights, rediscovering their true identity, the meaning of their lives, and their life purpose.
Needless to say, those 2 group of people need to be approached differently. My clientele is falling into the second group of people, heavily.
Is there only one right way to respond to it?
‘Unprecedented times’ already influenced so many aspects of our lives, in so many unexpected ways. What about people’s deep and sincere thoughts about themselves? And how about the coaching / healing questions that we ask our clients? Could transformative coaching & healing industry adjust its tools through these unprecedented times?
What I set my focus on during these times was helping people to face and understand their own deepest truth. Existential truth. The truth related to their creation, purpose, mission and values.
Focusing on ‘values’, ‘mission’ and ‘life purpose’ during those coaching sessions might seem -at least to some of us- as, ‘wasting precious coaching time’. This perception is an alarm bell, for remarkably many people. Those many people perceive that situation of focusing on values, life purpose etc., as ‘postponing achievement date of the future results’… Those ‘promised lands’ of measurable results.
What are we usually expected to do according to the values of the mainstream society? To immediately focus on the goal of ‘getting that promotion’, ‘impress the board of directors’ or ‘earn those 7-figures per year’. In most of the cases, those measurable goals are mentioned during the very first coaching session with a new coaching client. Nobody seems to be in favor of losing that ‘very precious time’! “Paving the road to success should clearly be the focus during every minute of that session! Isn’t that common sense for everyone?” Ehhm, perhaps it was so…until…?
How about aligning those measurable goals with the notions of ‘personal values’, ‘meaning of life’ according to every individual, and the person’s ‘life purpose’? Immediate response to this in the past could be as the following one: “No, why do so? How can they possibly help to achieve those goals? Back to the strategy and tactics, please.”
It may very likely surprise many coaching clients to realize their emotional state, but only in later months: ‘Achieving the goal’ actually didn’t elevate their levels of happiness, joy, inner peace, an overall sense of well-being, for a long term. They are back in that ‘success craving mode’. Surprise surprise!
Here it starts getting tricky
Rather than strictly holding on to those practical coaching tools and following them with a precise order… in a road map-like fashion… how about letting those worries go and allow ourselves be guided with our own inner wisdom & intuition? No, I am not mad, and no, I haven’t watched too many of those Star Wars episodes. “May ‘the Force’ be with us all” 🙂
Our inner wisdom wants us to become the best and the most ‘compatible version’ of ourselves, within our life purpose, soul contract… whatever you would like to call it.
It is so common and so humane that our logical / analytical mind step in, right at this stage, and starts censoring any other inputs or influences, which it labels as, ‘vague’, woo woo’, ‘adventurous’, ‘irresponsible’, or ‘not safe enough’.
As a matter of fact, I highly recommend you to underline the sentence above, with a thick red marker, and read it out loud, preferably 3 or 4 times! Only by doing so, this truth about the mechanics of our brains may begin to sink in. 🙂 Yes, even though it may seem very simple and basic to many people, it usually takes more time to fully accept and comprehend it.
Somebody is behaving a little inflexibly here
The cautious mind (please read it as the subconscious mind + the ‘Ego’, as a package here) has a religiously strong belief: “When it comes to evaluating situations and making decisions, no external person or no other consciousness (including the other internal consciousness centers) can know the needs of ‘the self’ better than I can!
Because of the absolutism, it is a true challenge to calm down this part of the mind and get yourself open up to other new possibilities; be it a new perspective, approach or even a new light projected on current matters.
Here comes the point: Our minds almost always approve ONLY the safe options! The reasonable choices, containing familiar elements. Anything unknown is considered unsafe, therefore a huge “No” would be the immediate answer to them. And please trust me: Every mind has this unlimited access to a huge database of reference events -mostly from our past-, full of failure, humiliation, ridicule, emotional wounds or traumas. Our minds (hijacked by the subconscious) have very creative ways of forecasting many ‘worst case scenarios’. This sounds to me like a very ‘safe, but limiting’ loop of living our lives. How does it sound to you?
Let’s begin putting things in order
If we first heal & deal with the elements of ‘fear’ or ‘worrying’, ONLY THEN our minds can be convinced, thus reprogrammed to think, respond and act differently. When constantly existing stress and pressure in our lives are minimized, then we perhaps may start remembering what we already innately know how to: Activating our creative and expansive energy!
Only after this very point it will start making more ‘sense’, talking about goals, targets, desired achievements and so on. Only after this healing process, those brilliant tactics, coaching tools and long term strategies will start becoming increasingly effective & applicable, in client’s life.
Perhaps after these adjustments, our clients may start getting closer to a point, where everything starts flowing relatively easily & effortlessly. It is simply another state of mind: ‘Being in the flow‘! This one is the legendary ‘flow state’. This is ‘the state of being’, which almost all professionals from all walks of life put all their effort & focus to reach it and stay there, as long as they can.
Are you not sure what ‘being in flow‘ means, from the psychology perspective? Positivepsychology.com describes it as follows:
Psychological Flow captures the positive mental state of being completely absorbed, focused, and involved in your activities at a certain point in time, as well as deriving enjoyment from being engaged in that activity.
‘Being in flow‘ (colloquially, being in the zone) is NOT a myth! It is achievable. I have complete faith that people may be encouraged & guided on this journey, thus they can start believing they can get to that state.
It is time to start living our lives in an ‘Unprecedented Way’
If this is a journey, every step on the way is valuable. As an example of one of the earlier steps, I highly recommend everyone to give themselves the gift of truly listening to themselves and asking a few very good questions: “What does truly make me happy?”, “What does truly matter to me in life?”, “Is there any true meaning in how I am currently living my life?”, and similar ones to those.
Just like the character ‘Jackson Maine’ (Bradley Cooper) sings in his song “Maybe It’s Time”, in the movie of “A Star is Born” from 2018:
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a (wo)man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe, it’s time to start living our lives in ‘Unprecedented Ways’.
Kıvanç Öroglu
Transformative coach & Healer
Photo by Freepik.com
