WHAT IS WELLNESS COACHING
What is Wellness Coaching?
Lifestyle Change
Recuperation from Illness or Injury
Addiction
Elder Support
Stress Reduction, Resentment and Unhappiness at Home or Work
What is Wellness Coaching?
The first and most difficult stage of change is asking for help. Many of us believe that we are the only one not able to overcome our difficulties. Contemplating change is often much more difficult than changing - most people are pleasantly surprised with the relief and energy that comes with beginning!
Sarah Liz Wellness Coaching provides guidance and companionship toward change in lifestyle and recuperation from illness, injury, overweight, and addiction. Sarah practices Co-Active Coaching, which works on the assumption that every individual has the resources and creativity within themselves to achieve change.
The coach's role is to help each person tap into those strengths.
Lifestyle Change – Healthy Diet, Exercise
It is a universal human desire to feel fit and healthy and free to make choices that agree with our desire for health. Many of us, through repeated failure, become demoralized and “give up.” The desire for health remains.
Wellness Coaching creates a bridge between the desire for health and the ability to identify and dispel the barriers that stand between you and your health.
All of us have developed underlying beliefs and mental blocks that sabotage our bravest efforts at change. Wellness Coaching provides you with an individualized program, utilizing the most recent developments in the field, leading to the dignity of choice and mastery.
Recuperation from Illness and Injury:
For some, the challenge of an illness or injury comes as a temporary detour in life. Healing is found by following the instructions of a healthcare professional. Compassionate support with a Wellness Coach during such a detour can make the experience less difficult. Sessions allow ventilation of feelings and a place separate from loved ones to process the experience and cope with the logistics of the experience. Wellness Coaching can also provide simple and short exercises to help regain mobility and/or adapt to restrictions with strength.
For others, illness or injury presents as a “wake-up call” causing a re-evaluation of one's life. In this instance, the experience of healing becomes a personal journey with many stages. Wellness Coaching provides the resources and support to make sense of the experience, gather information for treatment decisions, and work to understand the emotional component of the illness or injury. Inherent in this process is exploring alternative healing modalities merging physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing. Many come, in time, to see their illness or injury as a positive experience that leads them to a truer version of themselves. Exercises to help regain mobility and/or adapt to restrictions with strength are appropriate in this instance also.
All of us have been affected by addiction – either the addiction of a loved one or through personal experience with our own addictions. Nothing is more confusing than sorting out the difference between a “problem” and an addiction. And nothing more frustrating than multiple attempts at mastering an addiction or watching a loved one make attempts.
Wellness Coaching provides the information and support necessary to evaluate the stage of addiction and the steps needed to support an addict in the level of recovery they desire. Addictions take many forms in substance and activities, but have similar underlying needs in recovery.
In working with addictions, it can be helpful to think within a framework developed by Prochaska & DiClemente, who defined the following stages of recovery:
- Precontemplative: At this stage the addict is not contemplating change but may want support in managing the consequences of their addiction. The addict may not believe their difficulties have to do with addiction.
- Contemplation: At this stage, a person may have a growing awareness that addiction is a problem, but not desire to make any changes.
- Preparation: At this stage, the addict may have the awareness that change may be necessary, but not yet desire to take any action.
- Action: At this stage, the addict makes a decision to take action, either by stopping the addictive behavior or making changes in preparation for stopping.
- Maintenance: At this stage, the addict has initiated the change desired and needs support toward relapse prevention and continued personal growth.
Addicts need and deserve respect and compassion at each stage of recovery, as do their family, friends and spouses. Wellness Coaching can provide that support to both the addict and their loved ones.
In later years, quality of life can be greatly influenced by continued mental and physical stimulation. This can be difficult for many elders due to isolation and a loss of interest in activities. While this loss of interest may be a natural part of the aging process, it may also be a sign of depression. Wellness Coaching can provide the encouragement and guidance needed to participate in gentle exercise while having the “compassionate ear” of a trained counselor. Reminiscing is a critical part of the aging process, and it is crucial that persons in the later stage of life have an opportunity to process their life experiences in the presence of another.
Stress Reduction, Resentment and Unhappiness at Home or Work
It is well-documented that emotional states have direct physiological effects on health and well-being. Research on the placebo effect have repeatedly shown that our minds have powerful influence over the body. There are some alternative practitioners that would argue that all disease is the result of a stress or imbalance in the emotional or spiritual life. Stress and resentment can become a self-perpetuating cycle, trapping us in an unhealthy state of mind and body. Our focus is outward and it can feel as if we're “banging our head against the wall,” our every effort at changing the outside world ineffective.
Wellness Coaching provides the guidance to disengage from this cycle and begin to turn the focus of attention inward. Attention to thoughts and emotions and body sensation in ourselves, and subsequent changes in that area, often effect change in the outside world that is astonishing. Feelings of frustration and powerlessness transform into feelings of mastery and “live and let live.” We need not rely on people, places or things to make us feel good. It is possible to find serenity and satisfaction in our daily life.
Feel free to contact Sarah with questions by calling (707) 479-3208
or email her at sarah@sarahliz.com.
