Coaching Workshop: Experience being a life coach!

I am very happy to announce my upcoming workshop called, Experience being a life coach, as part of the requirements to engage in a series of coaching workshops for 2017.

Experience being a life coach is a 4-hour session designed to introduce you gradually to different coaching methodologies. Some of them are based on solution focused psychotherapy methods, but also we will talk about fresh topics in coaching like the latest discoveries in neuroscience and its implications in coaching. Here I am listing some of the topic you will be introduced to during the coaching workshop:
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The Solution Focused Brief therapy, SFBT

The SFBT focusses on helping the client to be an expert in building solutions rather than analyzing and thinking about the problem. It is called a brief therapy because it can last from one to five sessions. It was developed at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee by Steve De Shazer, his wife Insoo Kim Berg and their colleagues from the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, USA in the early 80s.

This group of psychotherapist discovered that problems do not happen all the time. This means, there are periods of time when the problem is not present, or people are not aware of it, or the problem is less intense, and therefore, people do positive things that they are not fully aware of. These positive things are unaware success strategies people do. By focussing on solutions, the therapist bring these successes into people awareness, so they can improve their lives and become more confident to make a change following their own solutions and not the solutions suggested by the therapist.

Due to the incredible effective tools of this approach, many coaches have taken this method into their portfolio, to help clients to achieve results in short periods of time and bringing their attention to focus on what works, on solutions and on possibilities.  The coaches do not suggest any solution at all, they must discover the previous successes of the client and bring them into her awareness. In this way the client solves her problem using strategies that she had used before.

Some of the active ingredients of the solution focused brief therapy are:

1. Well defined goals
2. Identifying previous successes, also called exceptions
3. Hypothetical solutions
4. Cheerleading and compliments
5. The famous miracle question

Coaching using solution focused brief therapy ingredients is an effective way to work with a client that you see for the first time, because you can use questions that let you know more of your client and also help your client to think about what has already worked for her before.
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The Systemic-Gestalt Approach

Working with systemic-gestalt methods means helping your clients to understand themselves by being aware of themselves and the vulnerability of the environment due to their behaviours, thoughts and feelings they put out there.

The systemic coaching comes from the systemic therapy. The method treated not only the  client on the individual level, but also the different group of people she interacts with, and takes in consideration the interactional patterns and dynamics in the different relationships the client has.

There are many different approaches to the systemic therapy. Originally the systemic therapy has its roots in the family systems therapy which has also based its ideas from the field of systems theory and cybernetics. But, let's try to focus in one angle instead of the whole spectrum of systems and its constellations.

It is very common to find coaches that have learned the method of systemic constellation by Bert Hellinger. But this is not the only one and it is not the one you will learn in the workshop. For that purpose, there are coaching schools that specialises only on teaching his methods, as well as, online training about it.

Another fascinating approach is the Gestalt Therapy of Laura and Fritz Perl.  Gestalt Therapy hat its origins from the Gestalt Psychology in Germany. Gestalt therapy uses an existential approach and considers a client’s "here and now” experience. The initial goal for a client is to gain awareness of what they are experiencing and doing at that time in their life. This type of therapy encourages the client to directly experience a situation rather than talk about it.

In the Gestalt therapy, the client learns to manage the Self using her awareness in the present moment. Gestalt therapy takes into account the dynamics of the interplay between three aspects of client’s personality: Feelings, Thinking and Behaving. Gestalt therapy helps to bring the attention of the client to what is here and now. 

So, what do we have to do with that in coaching? Well,  this is a great method to bring the client to find answers within. This answer can manifest through feelings, thoughts, behaviours and intuition. We as coaches can help to create the conditions for the proper session environment, when we know the right methods to do so.  And in our workshop, you will learn about it and you will try a Gestalt exercise.
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The Energetic Pacen

Many people think that there are only two ways to communicate, verbal communication and body language.  But they are not the only ones. There is third kind. This is the energetic communication or the energetic language.

In order to understand what energetic language is, let us see energy as information that we can perceive through our body senses, but also the information we can perceive through our intuition.

In this way, we can perceive different message of information when we are in the presence of other people. In a coaching session occurs the same. As a coach, we can transmit an energy that makes our client feel saved,  or that makes her feel that we care about her and her situation, that we understand her and that we know what she is talking about. We show our empathy and compassion. We can communicate that we are connected.

During the coaching workshop you will learn a method to help you develop this connection and awareness about the energy signals that occurs when we are in front of other people.
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Neuroscience in Coaching

What is neuroscience and what does it have anything to do with our coaching workshop?
Neuroscience is the science that studies how the nervous system develops, its structure, and what it does. Neuroscientists focus on the brain and its impact on behavioural and thinking processes.

As coaches, we will not go deep into this subject, but we will learn in a very simplified way, what is going on in the brain of our clients when having a coaching session and what kind of exercise we can use to help them open up and communicate better.

This topic is just an introduction to coaching with neuroscience and covers the central and peripheral nervous systems, the “second and third brains”, (well known as the gut and heart) and we will talk about some of the brain chemicals and how this chemicals affects the way we think, feel and behave.

The important thing in coaching with neuroscience is that it shows us that the way we coach affect directly the way our client's brain process the information and exercises during the session. If we coached problem oriented or if we provoke a negative reaction in the client, she will not open up to change and thrive.

But if we coach very supportive and solution focused, we will help our client's brains to be more receptive and therefore, more willing to think about solutions, being more positive and achieving change or personal transformation.

Let me know what you think about this post and send me an email at successchoices@outlook.com. 

This coaching workshop will take place in October and November 2016. Register now paying the early bird fee (only 69 CHF) until October 7, come to the workshop and experience being a life coach!

I am looking forward to greeting you at the coaching workshop!

Griselda Mueller
Success Choices