What is Embodied Transformational Coaching?
Why You Aren't Seeing Results
So many women are out there trying so hard to find the one “magical thing to DO” that will shift their love life. They are chasing information. But despite doing everything they can possibly do and try, they are either in the same place in their love life, or often, they are in an even more painful and stuck experience than when they started.
It doesn’t feel fair, does it? If we are making so much effort and working SO hard, why shouldn’t we get the results we are desiring?
The issue is not in the effort… it is WHERE they are focusing. They simply have a lack of understanding of WHY they are creating the same types of love life relationships and scenarios again & again. They don’t know what the mechanics are of the inner conditioning of their mind, subconscious beliefs, & nervous system.
They are simply missing the RIGHT kind of solution because they are missing what the real root cause is.
What they don’t know is that what’s going on in their INNER world is the key to having the love life they desire in the OUTER world.
The answer we are desperately working to shift outwardly, is actually an INNER transformation that is needed.
You can use your will power to make any outer change, you can literally read all the books... but even the best outer practices & information will leave you exhausted and wondering why in the world you are still getting the same results in your love life or with your current romantic partner when what’s inside is not aligned with the desired outcomes.
Did you know that willpower only works 3% of the time and rarely addresses the underlying reason we are getting so much of what we don’t prefer?
What typically happens when you exhaust all you think you can do yourself and your outer results are the same? You often fall into blaming the other person (“men are the problem” “he is the problem”) or trying to fix yourself. This creates an enormous problem because what you are seeing externally is actually an experience coming from INSIDE YOU.
The KEY TO YOUR DREAM RELATIONSHIP, is first understanding that YOU are creating your current love life experience and reality as a result of your own inner view point, and not as an effect of your outer world.
And this is where my work as an embodiment focused, transformational coach comes in.
What is Embodied Transformational Coaching?
EMBODIED TRANSFORMATIONAL COACHING is the process of working with an individual to create a major change in their personal or professional life by going beyond the surface and digging deeper to discover and change the limiting beliefs, perceptions, emotions, and past wounds that keep a person stuck.
I operate from the starting point that none of us is broken or has anything missing at all. And our results are 100% something we can change, if we take full responsibility for what is showing up in our lives. We may just be operating from old conditioning and programming that is trying to keep us safe and instead is keeping us stuck. We all have the potential to thrive & achieve anything we really want, given the right skills, knowledge, and support. And if things aren’t working on the outside, we need to look inward.
To facilitate this process, I support my clients in diving below the surface and immersing themselves in self-exploration, helping you to examine your beliefs, programming, inner parts, and interpretations about yourself, love & other people (including men!) so you can get to the root of why things are happening the way they are & transform your life from the inside out.
It’s a Deep Dive into Your Internal “Operating System” (in love, your “Love Blueprint”)
I dive deeper than just dealing with your actions or behaviors. I dig below the surface to uncover the underlying assumptions, beliefs, perceptions & woundings that are operating behind what you do & the results you have.
It requires a client’s willingness to face shadowy fears and long-held beliefs in order to become free of patterns of thought and emotion & heal old wounds that have held them captive up till that point. Change happens at the core level of the subconscious mind/nervous system (which are connected) - what we can call your “operating system” - and when referring to relationships I call your Love Blueprint. From there, everything else changes easily & naturally.
Your personal Love Blueprint or Operating System is what is creating any attachment patterns you see (Anxious, Fearful, Avoidant, Codependency, etc.).
Ultimately, my goal is to help you “see” things in a new way that you couldn’t before & help you to rewire the old programming so that how you interact with the people, situations, & circumstances of your life changes. It brings that “aha” moment that once you “see” it you cannot unsee it.
Here’s are two illustrations of how transformational coaching works:
The Young woman - Old Lady Illusion:
Take a look at the drawing of the woman below. What would you say is the age of woman in the picture?
About half of you will say the woman is in her 20s. And half of you will disagree and say she must at least be in her 60s. And both sides will think the other side is crazy.
This is an example of a Boring illusion – it’s an ambiguous image that can be seen in multiple ways.
The truth is, it’s BOTH. There is both an old lady & a young woman that can be seen in this image.
Someone else might be able to help you “see” the person you couldn’t see. And once you “see” both, you can’t unsee them. There is no going back.
Transformational coaching works in a similar way. It allows the client to “see” things they couldn’t see before, and there is no going back to how they used to see things once they “see” it differently.
The Iceberg Analogy
Another way to understand the EMBODIED part of my mode of transformational coaching is with the Iceberg image (see below). An iceberg is a huge mass of ice, but most of it can’t be seen above the water. Only a very small part of the entire iceberg is seen above the surface and therefore visible. Most of the iceberg is below the surface and can’t be seen.
Human beings are like icebergs.
Most of what causes us to have the results we have is below the surface. Only our behaviors, actions, and results are above the surface and visible. But the underlying emotions, thoughts, values, and beliefs that drive the things we can see are hidden below the surface.
Additionally, it’s not all thoughts/beliefs that matter. Did you know that the conscious mind is only responsible for 5-10% of what we “create"/align with? This is, by the way, why more information alone isn't the answer. So let’s put the conscious mind above the iceberg since we are aware of it.
It’s your subconscious mind and beliefs which are creating 90-95% of your reality. So the subconscious is where we want to look when it comes to what we do and do not want in our lives. What most do not know is, we are mostly unaware of these beliefs because they are not housed in our conscious mind. With every client I ever worked with, there were beliefs that they had absolutely no clue they had that were dominating what they were creating in their relationships, money, and work. (yes, beliefs don’t just affect ONE area of your life, they affect everything). Unfortunately, we have a very hard time accessing what is in our subconscious, so even if you know your beliefs are the issue, most people are stuck working with the conscious mind, trying to change beliefs at the conscious level, which never works long term or at all.
And this is where your wounds come in. You need to become aware of your own wounds, because these wounds are largely responsible for your limiting beliefs, false perceptions, feelings, reactions, behaviors, and results that you don't want.
Lastly, your inner parts: You are not just your conscious mind. Your psyche is actually made up of a multitude of “parts” that are all doing their own thing, each of which carries certain beliefs, and some of which carry these wounds we were talking about. You need to reparent your wounded parts and develop the ability to build conscious relationships and harmony with ALL aspects of self. This is what is in your conscious mind, your subconscious mind and the higher aspect of you (your Self) (however you relate to that) that is the part of you that was always meant to lead your conscious and subconscious minds. Your "higher Self" will have access to much of the human brain we don’t consciously have the current ability to connect with.
As your coach, I understand that what is happening or not happening in your life is not the cause of the issue, these things are just symptoms.
What I do is help you dig deeper, below the surface, to uncover what is really underneath your actions, behaviors, & results. I call this identifying the “root cause.” Once you “see” what the underlying causes really are (the emotional drivers, thoughts, wounds, inner parts, and beliefs that drive the behavior/actions and results), we can address these real issues (vs. just the symptoms) and the change is often lasting and permanent because the root cause was actually addressed.
The Issues with Behaviorally Focused coaching:
There are types of coaching that are only focused on providing information or telling you what to “do.” The issue with this is that your behaviors, actions, and results are merely symptoms of underlying root causes.
Focusing only on behavioral changes may create temporary change/results, but because these changes aren’t grounded in an actual transformation, it won’t last. Eventually, you will go back to your old way of operating because the root of why you were doing it in the first place wasn’t addressed.
And often we miss the real issue entirely when looking at our results & misdiagnose what we need to fix (as you’ll see in my client example below).
With my mode of coaching, the change can be long-lasting & hopefully permanent because we address the real root of the patterns you’re experiencing.
Let me give you an example with a client.
This client, let’s call her Sarah (not her real name), struggled with constantly falling for men who did not treat her well. Men who at the end of the day, didn’t choose her. She chose men who didn’t want to commit, who weren’t pursuing her, who weren’t doing anything they could to make her theirs, men who didn’t make her feel good. She experienced early emotional attachment to men & a lot of anxiety when she started to like someone.
Sarah thought that the issue was that she wasn’t “feminine” enough. Men would be pursuing her if she was more “feminine.” So she bought programs teaching her how to behave in a more “feminine” way. Scripts for what to say or not to say. Programs that told her how to be more feminine in her expression. (You should be able to see that these were not root cause solutions, these were behavioral solutions). And they didn’t work!
Sarah met another guy who pursued her ardently at the start, and then over the course of a few months, began to stop pursuing, stop texting as much, hesitant to make future plans, etc. She was heartbroken because she assumed it was because she wasn’t behaving in a “feminine” enough way to have kept his interest.
In our coaching sessions, we uncovered Sarah’s early childhood experiences with love which had formed her operating system in relationships - her Love Blueprint. We discovered that she had always felt like she wasn’t good enough & nothing she did was ever enough. She was often criticized by her parents and she felt a lot of pressure to please the adults in her life so that she could get love, validation, & praise. This created parts of her that needed a lot of validation from others, had trouble upholding boundaries, & desperately wanted love.
Over time, as she continued on in this pattern of trying to be good enough for the people in her life, this carried over into her relationships with men. Sarah was always caretaking them, trying to make them happy, allowing her boundaries to be crossed, trying to prove to them that she was worthy of their love, devotion, attention, and time.
And below the surface, we uncovered the unconscious belief a very young part of her had that “I’m not worthy of being chosen.” As a result of this belief, she would accept men into her life who didn’t choose her, in fact, those were the men she would become obsessed with & be working so hard to get to choose her - all the while, believing they wouldn't choose her (that no man would anyways!).
Because she had the belief that she wasn’t worthy of being chosen, she was unconsciously choosing men who wouldn't choose her, because that fit with her view of reality.
Now she came to me thinking that the issue with what was happening with these men was her. And specifically what she was or wasn’t doing to drive them away. Hence, she had spent all this time, money, & energy trying to “fix” herself & be more "feminine." She had misdiagnosed the symptoms!
I looked her in the eyes and said, “no, you have it backwards, it’s not that you aren’t worthy and that’s why you aren’t being chosen, it’s that you think you aren’t worthy of being chosen, so you are choosing men who don’t choose you.”
Her mind was blown & the tears poured down. It was never her that was the problem. It was who she was choosing because of that unconscious belief that she wasn’t worthy of being chosen.
All her efforts to try to “fix” herself - to change her behavior - were not working because she hadn’t addressed the actual root of the issue.
We were able to give this part healing around not feeling good enough & change it’s perceptions of what had happened in childhood so this part saw that it wasn’t about her.
Once Sarah “saw” how the way she had been interpreting things was incorrect, she never could go back to operating on that old paradigm again. She began operating from the paradigm that she is worthy of being chosen, so when a man didn’t choose her, it didn’t reflect anything about her. And she stopped wanting the men who didn't choose her.
This pattern transformed instantaneously because it was an issue with perception.
Now that wasn’t all we had to uncover in terms of the unconscious beliefs & root causes that were creating her patterns, but it was one example of a very important, deep root behind a very painful pattern that behavioral attempts to fix the symptoms didn’t solve because the real root cause of the issue wasn’t understood.
And this is why clients hire me.
Because just like you probably could only see one way of seeing that old woman-young woman, no matter how hard you tried to see the other woman, you couldn’t on your own. If you hadn’t seen that image before, you probably wouldn’t even have realized there was another woman you could see.
So what is a belief?
A belief is something you accept as true. Often we believe we have proof to support it, but we don’t really understand the root cause of the evidence, and assigning that belief as the explanation for why something is or isn't happening seems to make sense.
Our beliefs are like colored glasses. They color how we see, interpret, understand our lives & thus, what actions we take. And unfortunately, as humans we have a blindspot where we don't see that we are wearing any glasses! But they distort our perception of reality. We only see what fits our beliefs and anything that is contrary to them is actually invisible to us. So my job is to help you take the glasses off!
There are hundreds of beliefs we have that act as glasses that distort our perception of reality. They often start with statements like – I am ….., People are …., Life is ….. Men are…, love is… ,
Here are just a few examples:
- I am unlovable/unworthy of love
- I am not good enough
- There is something wrong with me
- Men are… (you fill in the blank)
- Love isn’t going to happened for me
- Love is painful - hard - something I have to work hard to get (you fill in the blank)
- I am always abandoned
- Something bad will happen if I be myself
And our beliefs work like self-fulfilling prophecies because they inform what actions we take or don’t take. We are limited in what we think we can or can’t do based on them.
Many of these beliefs are formed in childhood. Some of them reinforced continually throughout our lives based on the experiences we have. And they are self-perpetuating; they operate invisibly and prevent us from living healthier, happier, satisfying, and successful lives.
As your coach, I help you uncover these unhelpful beliefs, HEAL where they came from (more on that in a moment), and replace them with more empowering beliefs.
When you address the root cause, you change the symptoms without having to actually address the symptoms directly! Your behavior, actions, & results change is a direct result of the inner transformation (so we don’t worry about it most of the time because it’s just a symptom and I want you to have lasting change).
Some of the methodologies I combine :
Embodiment Coaching:
Coaching is usually a process that is very much in our heads. We set a goal, make a plan, and define action steps. It is generally focused on moving forward in the fastest way possible.
Embodiment coaching uses a very different approach. This style of coaching focuses on depth-first and direction later. We move at the pace of the body instead of just the head.
By experiencing of the full spectrum of feelings, sensations, emotions & sensual aliveness in your body, and noticing all that is present in regards to the issue we are experiencing or the goal we want to achieve, we use the body's wisdom and obtain a greater understanding of all that is present inside of us.
Together as coach & client, we dive deep together into the wisdom of the client's body, unraveling frozen tension, healing tender wounds, acknowledging the very real fears the body knows, & expanding pleasure so that we can move towards our goals, fully resourced & alive.
We don't only listen to what our head/mind is saying (though we will check), we also are feeling into other aspects of your being, your emotions, feelings, etc. by bringing our awareness into the body & her sensations to get to the answers & form a path forward.
We often get the question, “what do you THINK?”
Most of us are not used to being asked, “what do you FEEL?”
I start by asking what you are FEELING, bringing embodiment to the coaching process, as I understand that at the heart of our multidimensional self (our many aspects & parts) is a body that FEELS. Your body has the answers, not your mind (your mind is only ONE part of you, & it's not the wisest one).
These feelings & sensations, are a treasure trove of intuition, wisdom & body-based-insight that are largely untapped.
The body holds the answers.
The body keeps the score.
My job as an embodiment coach is to ask questions and hold a safe space, that invites my clients deeper into themselves, to answer questions more fully, using their head AND BODY as the powerful resource it truly is.
Dealing only with the mind keeps us on the surface & misses the invaluable information that we have within our bodies.
Why we are stuck is never because of our minds. You can take all the action plan, make all the plans, try to change all the thinking & beliefs at a COGNITIVE level, but if your subconscious/body is not included and truly aligned as well, then all you’ll achieve is procrastination, delay, distraction, frustration & further self-doubt/self-criticism.
We dive first into the sensations, feelings & wisdom of the body.
I help my clients to somatically navigate what is really going on & what they really want & need. And examine through what comes up in the body, what’s really standing in their way.
Perhaps we illuminate limiting beliefs or thoughts. More likely though, we encounter unexpressed, unintegrated or unexamined frozen tensions, uncomfortable sensations, old wounds, and triggers, that were unrecognized inside the body. These are the actual things that are holding my clients back & keeping them stuck in repeating patterns.
I don't want you to rush forward. I want you to help you move deeper inside yourself. So when I ask a question, I invite your entire body to be present with it. What is actually coming up inside you? (not just in your mind, but your entire body).
We bring breath & awareness, movement, & voice into the experience.
You will be invited to...
- close your eyes and drop into your body
- find what you are feeling in your body
- give that part a voice
- understand that part of you & what it wants, needs, what its concerns are, how long it's been there, where it came from, what it's trying to do
We give the subconscious parts of you - only accessed through your body- a voice. So they can heal. So they can reintegrate. So they can get what they need. So they can work WITH you instead of against you.
This is what it truly means to come into wholeness.
Internal Family Systems:
Internal Family Systems is a powerfully transformative, trauma-healing, evidence-based model of psychotherapy that is somatically (nervous system) based, that operates on the model that every person has an entire system of internal “parts” inside them.
For example, when we say:
“A part of me feels like I want to do this, a part of me doesn’t want to.”
“A part of me feels excited, a part of me feels scared.”
These “parts” consist of wounded parts (inner child) from traumatic experiences usually from when we were very young that carry painful emotions such anger, hurt, loneliness, and shame, and other parts that try to control and protect us from feeling the pain that these wounded parts of us carry & help us to avoid feeling more pain in the future by directing our behavior or trying to direct the control of others.
But these “parts” within us are often in conflict with each other and in conflict with our core Self (the confident, compassionate, whole person that is at the core of every individual).
Every “part” has specific behaviors it has you do and sets of beliefs that they hold that inform those behaviors, many of which were formed when we were very young and didn’t have the mental & emotional resources to handle things that happened differently. So while some of these “parts” may have very healthy & productive roles they play for us, others may have extreme roles & viewpoints meant to protect us, but which actually sabotage us in our attempts to live the life we want & be the person we want to be. Because they want to keep us safe.
IFS work uncovers the core experiences & beliefs that shaped these different “parts,” give healing to our wounded younger “parts” so they no longer hold all that traumatic pain, and give new roles & beliefs to the protective parts that are working against our goals as adults.
It’s a process of self-exploration & self healing that results in you becoming more whole, integrated, aligned & happy within yourself & in your relationships with others.
Cognitive-Behavioral Coaching:
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is based on the idea that the way someone thinks and feels, affects how he or she behaves, which in turn effects the results they create. The goal is to help clients’ change their automatic thought patterns in order to change their emotions & therefore responses to situations. Often times, our thoughts are full of distortions where we actually aren't seeing things clearly. Gaining clarity around what's real & not real & how to direct our thinking in a more productive manner is infinitely helpful. There are constantly situations happening with men/in our relationships that really confuse us & we tend to jump to the worst conclusions.
Learning how to manage & call out distortions in our thinking brings peace, balance, & mental/emotional clarity that allows us to best handle situations that happen. I work with clients from the inside-out, and this is one important piece of the puzzle where the transformational results start to go into effect.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Techniques:
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created in the 1970s. Coaches such as Tony Robbins have used it for years in their coaching.
“Neuro” means “relating to the nervous system.” "Linguistic" is about "language." "Programming" here refers to "habits." Neuro-Linguistic Programming therefore means, using language to program our nervous system into more useful habits.
Neuro-Linguistic programming’s belief is that we all have our own internal maps of reality made up of our thoughts, perceptions, & beliefs. By tapping into the specific language used by a client, we can see where their maps of reality are incorrect/working against them & help them change their maps through changing their language. (remember the example of the picture with the two women? Imagine that, but with words)
Through NLP, I help you reshape your maps of reality & beliefs, once we have uncovered the ones that are working against you & need to be reprogrammed.
Somatic Work:
Nervous system regulation, breath practices & techniques
Other tools:
The latest research in cognitive brain science (I'm a huge nerd & read it all)
Mindfulness
Spiritually based (God-focused) world-views
Balancing/enhancing feminine & masculine energies within a person
Science-backed research on the very real differences between men & women (brain-science & hormones ) - which impacts how we think differently, operate differently, see the world differently, have different needs, & communicate differently.
Non-violent communication tools.
John Gottman relationship tools (a world renowned researcher on relationships with the best research on relationships out there).
John Gray relationship tools (the pioneer on teaching the differences between men & women)
Alison Armstrong 30+ years of research on the differences between men & women & how we can function in harmonious, uplifting partnerships together.
Ready to explore the different options for working together?