NOTE: The May blog posts will not be updated this month, but check back soon for new updates.

  • Tempering Tough Times without Despair

    If you look around at the losses in the job market, the crush of the housing industry, the financial woes of the car industry; and, any personal events in your life, it’s no wonder the slide into despair is common place for many today. As one of our clients found himself on that downward spiral, he related this series of events to us. We’ll call him Ed and illustrate the events, with his permission, that caused him to fall into depression and despair.
    Ed is the owner of a small residential construction company in CA, married for 18 years with two teenagers and has a huge yellow Labrador named Sadie. Ed told us, “In the last two years I watched the private housing market decline in the demand for my company’s personalized remodeling services, consequently impacting my overall livelihood. As I struggled to gain additional business, I had to travel to other parts of the state causing me to be away from my family. On one of those trips, my wife phoned to inform me that Sadie, our family dog, had been struck by a car and fatally wounded. I was surprised at the deepness of loss I felt. We had had Sadie for twelve years. When I returned home the following week, I was called by the ER in Lake Tahoe informing me that my father was there with a massive heart attack. Before I could drive to his bedside, he passed away. With this series of events, I found myself in the depths of despair. I felt I couldn’t get out or above it. I couldn’t cope anymore. I felt helpless.”
    What Ed was experiencing is not exceptional for those that have had a series of traumatic events, especially with the events of death. He had become pessimistic about the construction market, but that does not lead directly to despair. Pessimism only fuels the negativity about a set of problems or specific event of injustice such as, the loss of monetary value or personal defeat.
    Despair is the overwhelming feeling that your whole life is lost and can come over you like a crashing wave. Despair is the experience of helplessness and the lack of hope, often seen by others as depression. Some of the symptoms of despair:
    • An uncontrollable emotional response to loss resulting in anguish
    • Sudden bouts of sobbing, the physical response to suffering
    • Physical pain in the chest or back with involuntary muscular contractions
    • Howling or ranting at God or others in response to the wave of intense grief
    • Sense of being ungrounded, adrift, or abandoned
    • Constant inquiry to the “fairness” of individual treatment, striking out against it

    The road out of despair is not quick, but can be decreased by using any of these options:
    • Conduct a sincere inventory of your behavioral response to the loss, identifying the unhealthy responses to despair
    • Methodically disprove each irrational belief holding you in despair
    • Seek help to assist you in dealing with your irrational beliefs openly such as, a parent, a trusted relative or friend, a spiritual advisor, or a healthcare professional
    • Give permission to yourself to experience the loss fittingly, adjusting to the changes of how life will be now
    • Try not to be flawless in your response to loss; the human experience is as varied as the number of pebbles on the earth.

    “The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise within you, a challenge to life; and, the promise of future accomplishments.” Gustave Flaubert

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  • What is Your Identity?

    What is the belief commonly accepted as self-identity? According to Professor Rick Hoyle of the University of Kentucky, “The human self is a self-organizing, interactive system of thoughts, feelings, and motives that characterizes an individual. It gives rise to an enduring experience of physical and psychological existence—a phenomenological sense of constancy and predictability. The self is reflexive and dynamic in nature: responsive yet stable.”
    The self can have several identities, both public and private. Identity is not just what you know, but how you came to know it. Identities are realized over time. Think back to when you were a child seeing things in a very trouble-free, non-demanding manner. As you grow older and become shrewder, you identify yourself with very personal experiences, various people’s influences, associate different places and things in additional refined ways.

    Your life goals develop and are influenced by your worldview of what you would preferably like to be or avoid being, as well as the influence of culture and faith on what is attainable. Conceptions of self and the world affect how you make progress towards your goals, is monitored, evaluated, redirected, and re-evaluated by your contemporaries and family. Consequently, as we progress on our life’s journey we may have families, become a political advocate, assume human rights advocacy; and, assure environmental safety for the coming
    generations. So, we can state that various identities can be present contingent on the world or community you are engaging in at any moment. Your collection of identities can be contained in one physical being, yet as rich and varied as your experiences are.

    If you think you need to strengthen or enhance your family of identities, ask yourself:

    • Are you aware of your core values and how can they can help you demonstrate your uniqueness of self in the community, the world?
    • What do you think your identify is among your peers, your neighborhood, your professional life, your marriage life, motivating, stable, ungrounded without support or assumed to be no-one without a partner?
    • If your personal assessment of your identity is faltering in importance, how can you evaluate your strengths and your current achievements to propose a more updated identity for you? Can you make a list of these and truly boast of yourself, and rightly so?
    • Do you recognize that you were born with innate gifts that will carry you to fulfillment regardless of the event, fundraising, political speech making whether you are a couple or not?
    • If you want to be involved in more than one activity outside of partnership, what actions do you need to take to making yourself available & visible to outside organizations such as, national health organizations or community support groups?
    • Even if you are recognized as part of a married couple, what other larger identities do you want to be recognized with such as, the Sierra Club, Boy Scouts of America, And National Cancer Support Group? What is ‘calling’ you that you feel compelled to answer or join?

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  • Does Your ‘Thrive Drive’ Need a Tune-up?

    It is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain a positive resilient outlook. Have you noticed the frequency of news that bombards you with health threats in air and food quality, global natural disasters, threats of national terrorism, plus the broadcasts of loved ones lost in the Middle East war? Faced with the constant stream of TV bad news and negative psychological publications and talk radio, is it any wonder that there is an increase of folks in therapy, support groups, and anger management groups? When real trauma and crisis arise, how do we thrive and not just be stoic ‘bullet biters’?
    Let’s not assume that we can erase all suffering and personal crisis that cause pain. We should avoid thinking that pain is the ultimate enemy with no other intention than to ruin our lives. Pain experiences, both emotional and physical, can be the catalyst for transformation to a different state of being, or the awareness for a new meaning of life. According to psychologist, Karen Saakvitne and Howard Tennen, “Our culture fosters denial of the long-term impact of trauma by urging victims to ‘get over it & get on with it’, idealizing those that bite the bullet and suffer without posttraumatic adaptations. Those that have progressed beyond trauma have processed those events, making them a part of a new, more vigorous and adaptive consciousness. These people now live in a state of discovery rather than just recovery.”
    It’s time for positive psychology, not just pretending to be in a good mood everyday. As noted psychologist and immunologist, Dr. Paul Pearsall, states, “positive psychology tries to focus on our strengths, rather than repairing what is wrong with us. Our work is based on enhancing emotional and spiritual resources promoting ‘thriveability’ not simply treating illness to just recover. This thriving ability re-enforces our psychological immunity, so that we don’t have to strive to live well-balanced lives. We just do. Thrivers know that no emotional state or mood will last forever. Those that thrive after traumatic events seem to choose to release the event and its associated negativity and construct new meaning for the rest of their lives.” As one thriver said to Dr. Pearsall’s staff, “The possible we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.”
    Positive psychology is an integral part of life coaching. Globally, life coaches assist clients of every culture and gender to release the ‘story’ of past events, or discard the assessments of their current situation to achieve desired goals or nurture a deeper calling to their lives. Consequently, people thrive in a real practical sense as well as in a social sense. From one of Dr. Pearsall’s studies, it was documented that thrivers use their wisdom to help others enhance their own talent for thriving. Many of those that had survived painful cancer treatments, horrific car crashes, or cruel domestic abuse, now guide others in the search for meaning after fear and misery. These thrivers will tell you that there is no quick fix. It takes as long as it takes. While it is contrary to psychology’s pathogenic view that depression is bad, many of these folks experienced a rock bottom down phase. However, they used this phase as their inward reflective time to construct the new reality, the more adaptive way that their life will be.
    Who has been super-thrivers suffering severe trauma or excelled against overwhelming odds? Helen Keller. She was not born blind and deaf; it was not until nineteen months of age that she came down with an illness described by doctors as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain”, possibly been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind. By age seven, she had invented over sixty different signs that she could use to communicate with her family. At the age of 24, Helen graduated from Radcliffe magna cum laude, becoming the first deaf and blind person to graduate from a college.

    If you think your ‘thrive drive’ may need a tune-up,ask yourself:

    • How can you construct an escape route everyday so that you limit yourself to negative talk shows and TV broadcasts on health scares and mud-slinging politicians?
    • What practices can you create that will assist in keeping ungrounded fear and insecurity out of your personal & family life?
    • How can you dis-engage from affiliations and professional memberships where insenstitivity, intolerance, or discrimination is an accepted way of behavior?
    • How are your internal beliefs bolstering your resiliency skills in the event of trauma such as, losing your job, losing a spouse, or even losing the ability to walk?
    • What can you do to change any of these beliefs about yourself so that you feel continually aware & alive, not just surviving?

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  • Recognizing the Signs for Change

    In our work this year with a board of directors, all seasoned veterans, the Director of Finance retained us for individual coaching. He believed he was in a phase of ‘restlessness’ in his personal life, which was spilling over into the professional world. He described his daily condition of edginess, a lack of harmony, a feeling of constant nagging, but he couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. Restlessness is not an uncommon experience. Often times we may not know what it means, but feel a huge discomfort that something is out of order. What causes it?

    Inner restlessness is not tied to chronological age, financial wealth, or gender. Frequently, it can occur after significant experiences of upheaval such as, career disillusionment, divorce, home relocation, surviving a traumatic event or illness, even the death of loved ones. Many people have reported that occurrences like these have proven to be defining moments of what is earnestly meaningful.

    Whatever may be calling you or nagging you for change will be a journey of exploration. Think of your exploration as a personal phase of discovery. Give yourself permission for the time to evaluate and examine the following areas:

    • Take a deep look into your current activities, personal interests, and professional associations. Have you outgrown any of these memberships? It is possible that your values have shifted with experience, nationwide events, and long or lost relationships. Your needs today may be different with regard to generosity, self-worth, compassion, or unconditional service than they were when you were a fledging member. Investigate groups that share the same values you treasure. Leave those that do not meet with your needs now.
    • What is the predominate mood you currently have in the state of restlessness? Are you feeling anxiety, a sensation of resentment, an awareness of melancholy, or an overwhelming level of dread? Emotions such as these can indicate that an area(s) of your daily life that burden you. If so, identify where these emotions are coming from, a specific location, a specific person or group, or a specific responsibility that you need other resources to help resolve.
    • What and where are the resources that can give you relief? If your mood is a sense of urgency, an intuitive sense of unfinished business, or an increasing
      perception that you need to get involved in a humanitarian mission, then you have the foundation for great contribution. Your inner gears are spinning so that you are ready to make events happen. Find the cause that you can be proud of participating in and find fulfillment.
    • Look beyond financial rewards. Certainly you will want to maintain providing basic financial support for yourself and your family. However, look intensely into your present occupation. The company may pay you adequately, but enough to make you feel appreciated and truly needed in your work position? Reflect on inner interpretations, then new perspectives. We all have belief structures that we live from and use for our existing worldview. Scrutinize the stories you’ve fashioned about how the world is. Do any of these stories sift out reality?

    “When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view. “ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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  • Walks Beside Coaching Moves to Arizona

    Walks Beside Coaching & Consulting Announces Arizona Office Move

    Moving to Hi-Tech Corridor We Can Provide Both Startups & Established Companies Tools for Workforce Engagement!

    Gilbert, AZ – – – July 23, 2017 – – – Walks Beside Coaching & Consulting (WBCC), an outstanding coaching company with offices in Virginia, announced their move to the hi-tech corridor off 202 in Arizona. This will provide WBCC an opportunity to help the Chandler Innovation Center as well as startups that have relocated to that area. Companies there have a robust foundation of skilled software engineers, programmers and systems analysts. Along with the nonprofits, our programs can enhance employment emotional intelligence and workforce engagement for productivity and retention. The move to the Chandler and adjacent Gilbert allows us to expand into:

    • Tech company startup support infrastructure
    • Talented labor force and higher education and workforce training partners
    • With a wide range of affordable housing options within a 15-minute drive time of all predominant employment corridors, attracts solid employers
    • An excellent environment for data integrity
    • Outdoor activities and walk friendly communities with the image attractive to Millennial workforces

    WBCC is one of the nation’s only coaching companies where the coaches are also gerontologists. WBCC designs programs for businesses with the ‘wave’ of Boomers that are blending the next chapters of professionalism with civic engagement. WBCC constructs business solutions around the achievement of business goals, the integration of a multi-generational workforce, and the integration of a diverse cultural labor force. These programs eliminate imprecise administrative thinking to synchronize ideas and goals for large-scale systems change, both locally and nationally. They bring their business knowledge from Virginia to the greater Arizona area to serve businesses in their efforts to be provide excellent environments for the collaboration of the multi-cultural and multi-generational workforce.

    About Walks Beside Coaching & Consulting:

    WBCC has a seasoned team shaping the renewal and resilience of daily life, increasing self-identity, and assisting in the transitional life chapters of all workforces. A unique service of our company is ontological coaching, instead of just performance coaching. Ontological coaching is a structured yet personalized process of guidance using all the elements of language skills, body disposition and the impact of emotion on decision-making.

    Bradley Morgan and Stephan Marais are certified professional coaches through the Professional Coaching Certification (PCC) programs of Newfield Network. They are members of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the Phoenix Chapter of ICF Coaches, the International Longevity Center (ILC); and, are the former editors of the Web page for “Transforming Aging, Elder Care & Security” in the state of California, founded by Senator John Vasconcellos.

     

    Press Contact:

    Stephan Marais, PCC, MBA
    Company Name: Walks Beside Coaching & Consulting
    Email: sfm@walksbesidecoaching.com
    Phone: 605-799-7832
    Website: www.walksbesidecoaching.com

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