Introduction: Does coaching fit me?
“Does coaching fit me?” is a reasonable question.
Because for most people the answer is likely no. It’s mainly used to coach, help, and inform those who:
Have undergone too much stress for too long, leading to exhaustion syndrome or burnout. When that’s the main problem, it’s often necessary to use some sort of life coaching or stress coaching and look at what’s essential in life. You might need to learn about your values, and why you stress yourself sick to do something about it.
Try to battle depression and don’t get decent enough results when just using medication. When that’s the main problem, cognitive behavioral therapy, a bio-psycho-social approach to your entire being together with treating stress and pain if there are any usually gives wonderful results.
Suffer from long-term pain and need a wider approach than just tending to the physical parts or medications. Pain science is too often neglected when treating pain. To get better from long-term pain it’s often essential to use that bio-psycho-social approach and treat everything that bothers you and find pleasure in life. Focusing on nothing but pain, depression and stressful events will increase that pain far beyond what’s necessary.
To some, it might sound like a huge commitment to do a bothersome coaching thing for twelve weeks, but meeting just a few times is often a disappointment if the issues are big. Big expectations, big problems, and little time obviously won’t work for something complex. Behavioral changes take time. These three take their toll, and they’ll change you profoundly. That won’t disappear in a couple of weeks regardless of how hard we try.
If you’re far too heavy, you won’t get rid of all of that in a couple of weeks, and if you’ve sprained an ankle, that won’t be rehabilitated entirely in a couple of weeks either. Things need their time. The body can’t possibly adapt instantly. Twelve weeks is, however, quite some time. Taking that time and making an effort to change things up can make a tremendous impact. That doesn’t say you’re done after those weeks. Life will go on, and then you’ll have to keep managing everything well enough afterward.
Some are practically without symptoms after the project – but it might take longer if you’re too long gone… Or not willing enough to change things.
The main point of doing these projects is to teach people, practically like a short education, so they know how and why we do things and how to keep going afterward. I want to teach them enough about the problems and what they can do about them to make them self-sufficient enough to care for themselves. While learning enough about that, we generally take care of whatever seems to be the problem. I coach, nudge, shove and guide in the directions that seem appropriate, but I’m not the one doing things and changing things up. I’m the support the seedling needs initially to endure whatever is necessary – but as the tree grows on its own, I become more and more redundant.
Doing things yourself and being responsible for your own progress, regardless of support, is usually a great source of increased self-efficacy. It makes people believe in themselves and their capacity again. They regain their confidence in managing things, even though things have been nothing but destructive darkness for a while.
Twelve weeks are enough to try, fail and try again, which is the nature of learning. That’s done while having someone to ask, guide and support you so you can get the help you need and eventually get forward, succeed to relax, and change the underlying stress response, which usually gives some hope. As you learn and do different things, you’re likely changing the behaviors that led to whatever wasn’t what you desired. You’re changing the situation that might have been the cause of the behaviors in the first place. That gives a lovely chance of getting to a better place both mentally, physically, and less figuratively speaking if we’re looking at social aspects and the situation in life.
The point for most people is to get you on the right track and moving in the right direction to progress wherever you need to go. If we’re a good fit, but it does take more time than those twelve weeks, my end goal is for you to manage that yourself. You shouldn’t need anyone else for the journey.
What’s the school book example of a client?
Those don’t really exist – but some things are more common than others. Those who suffer and look for help to get better from their symptoms, regardless of if they’re from pain, mental- or stress-related illness, are generally women. There are statistics, but to get great statistics out of all the diagnostics, therapies, and treatments would likely be quite the hassle.
High performers or “type A” personalities get here when it comes to stress. Those are often office workers of some kind, leaders, and managers – generally in the middle, so they’ve got plenty of responsibility, but they’re not totally in control. They could also be company owners or healthcare workers. People who want to perform more than they are capable of. Those who work practically always, except when she’s exercising like a maniac. The most common age span might be ~25-45.
For those, moderation doesn’t exist.
The most common ones are those who come here after having tried healthcare. Sometimes for a couple of years, sometimes for ten or fifteen. They might have tried to solve things elsewhere just once, or sometimes A LOT. But it seems as if people who end up with me are those where the small and easy intervention didn’t help, so they come to me as more or less ruined.
It’s not uncommon to:
Walk in the door and cry most of the first visit (except for unreasonable amounts here and there in everyday life).
Be depressed and gather 25+ points when doing a MADRS-S test.
Be bothered by the entire body aching; it’s not even uncommon to be able to create a long list of things that hurt covering the area between the top of the head, as in tension headache and the soles of the feet.
Be unable to sleep, but try to nap twice daily.
Be unable to remember things.
Be completely disorganized.
Have a racing heart, anxiety, and panic attacks.
Ruminate.
It’s not uncommon to try to brute-force it as a solution. Try to work, and “help out at the office” without getting anything done; instead, it creates more work for the others to clean up afterward. “I’ve added this, that, and twelve other things! I AM TRYING SO HARD!” – while trying harder and doing more isn’t the point or the way forward.
Doctors might have prescribed a bunch of medications in an attempt to do something, anti-depressants, opioids, muscle relaxants, gabapentin for nerve pain, and likely something to sleep on… but the results are rather MORE symptoms in the form of side effects.
That’s not at all a rare place to be. But it’s not the end, even though a lot of people might feel that way, and for some, just one of those could be enough for someone to lose their will to live.
So, she feels hopeless – and in due time comes here, ideally by actually asking for advice – to take it to heart because she really WANTS a change. Listens, tries, fails, tries again… keeps going. She changes things, acts, and gets away from what’s making things worse. Goes through the project wholeheartedly. Then takes the time – and uses the little energy she’s got – to make the changes necessary and to REST to suppress the ever-present stress response.
The point is to flip the downward spiral upside-down, though, step by step.
Less pain gives better sleep. Better sleep gives less pain.
Less anxiety gives peace of mind and then more sleep.
Doing something pleasant and meaningful gives them the joy they need to feel pleased.
She gets content and pleased enough to do something that usually feels WAY TOO hard.
Getting proud of progress gives another good night’s rest.
And then it’s possible to start eating decently where depression usually made her skip it because she didn’t want to and didn’t care.
Inserts food and gets energy. Who could have guessed?
Positive things happen, and she gets forward.
Suddenly, though REALLY gradually, after years of pain practically all over and an almost entirely useless brain, one might notice that it doesn’t have to take ages to get WAY BETTER as long as there’s a plan and steps in the right direction. Decently functioning and practically pain-free after 12 weeks. In the context and compared to earlier results – a miracle. But… not really. Because we’re just looking at a biological being and giving it what it needs. If you water a plant when it’s starting to die from dehydration, you don’t call that a miracle. When it rains in the desert and the whole place blooms, you might think it looks like a miracle, but it’s rather just a decent place for the seeds to bloom. It’s a big thing for the plants – but not a miracle. The hard part is that you probably need more than a glass of water.
But once people do get their metaphorical glass of water, it’s not uncommon for them to go from more or less complete misery to joy, and it’s not just once I’ve seen clients start out crying and end up saying, “I LOVE LIFE.” after the project. I remember one of those who expressed just that. On the last day of the project, she came through the door in a bright yellow summer dress, happier than ever, telling me she had just been on a walk where she’d been picking sunflowers. Then she expressed just that. How she loves life – and that’s her first time ever. She went all the way from being one of those who cried for a big part of our first meeting – to that.
I love those. When people really go for it – change things up – and smash the goals and do far more than they thought was possible.
Even though more women than men are bothered, I’ve tended to both men and women, students and teachers, and from young to old. I aim to help people get their lives back regardless of age and gender. After being ruined by too much stress or pain, I want them to thrive again. I want them to get pain-free, rid of depressive symptoms, and get the energy to be awake an entire day without crashing. People should stop having panic attacks or require hours of napping.
All of the statistics and parameters with age, gender, and who gets what seem to get fuzzier and get less and less accurate as time goes on… Or perhaps I care less about statistics and more about the people I meet..?
The statistics seem to show in a reliant way that depressive symptoms and anxiety among kids get more common, and pure exhaustion appears to happen to younger and younger people – and definitely happens among men as well. Depression and long-term pain seem to be more prevalent in women, though that doesn’t really matter for patients who suffer from it.
Gender doesn’t matter. Age doesn’t matter.
I’m pragmatic and personal. When I take on cases head-on, it’s an intimate coaching service. I do things as thoroughly as I possibly can.
When I help people, we take the time we need to dig around in private matters. It’ll take time and be a hassle, but it’s for a good cause. These are complex matters. It’s necessary to discuss what matters, trust the process, and have a good enough relationship to get things done together. I’m doing this because I care about you and your results – and it has been shown to give outstanding results to people before.
When looking at how people work, what they do, and how the world around us has evolved way faster than us, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to state that people don’t seem to be made for today. Despite that, it’s obviously their fate. We can’t change the whole world. In a minuscule way, it’s possible to alter the world around us, but most of us can’t impact any significant part of it. But we can change ourselves and choose to accept the world we live in. To handle the modern way of life and still feel well, it seems as if some people need to learn a few things about what to focus on.
Many of us obviously think we’re made to live in the modern world since it’s the only thing around. Kind of like fish in the ocean taking water for granted. If that fish happens to get into the wrong type of water, deep sea into shallow or fresh into salt, that would be comparable to people today. It’s not instant – but it isn’t good. It’ll slowly poison the fish, and it might even be fatal before long. We’re not made for the environment – and there’s not much help to get when we happen to get into the wrong water unless we figure it out ourselves.
Healthcare misses the target far too often since people are complex when it comes to life and stress. These questions are trickier than a pill. In all too many cases, they are practically invisible when they sneak up on you, come gradually, and then make you completely broken. Then, you’ll need that holistic approach, which seems to be hard to find. Some tend to brains, some to pills, some to the physical aspects, and some to other pieces of people. It quickly sums up to plenty of people and a lot of appointments if there are a lot of symptoms.
When healthcare doesn’t have the time, energy, or resources to take care of, get to know, and manage the entire individual but just the “diagnosis”, you might need something else. I want to help people who suffer and are helpless when healthcare doesn’t help, regardless of if that’s because they don’t have the resources or the interest.
Some question if the industry should be defined as healthcare, wellness, life-coaching with a focus on escaping misery, help to self-help, or something entirely different?
I’ll be the life- and health coach, therapist, support, leader, and friend you’ll need. I want to do what’s necessary for you to succeed in achieving the goals we’ve set.
As long as we find something that makes you progress, that ought to be what matters, and you’ve got my full support.
If you suppress anxiety, relax muscles and get pain relief with THC – I’m glad you’ve found a tool that works!
If you manage to break through the darkness in their depression by using psilocybin – awesome! We don’t use it within healthcare yet, but I’m nothing but pleased if that’s working for you.
Did you find pleasure and stress relief for the first time trying hardcore BDSM? Well… Creative idea! Well done.
I try to ask about,
I try to reason about –
and I try to discuss
whatever might be relevant
to those I meet.
Nothing’s holy.
We will, however, not settle with just talking. There are plenty of people who’ve been helped by talk therapy alone in different issues, I’m sure, but I’m quite certain that we need a change in these cases. To get tangible, pleasing results, we need to make substantial changes. If change is NOT what you’re searching for, but you rather want more of a speak-your-mind- and ease-your-heart-approach, I’m not your choice.
If we are to chat, I’ll start with a bunch of questions to get a decent picture of the problem. I don’t want to work with everyone. I want to help the ones I can help and those who want to help themselves. I don’t want to work with people who want me to solve everything since that’s impossible. I don’t want to work with people who don’t think there’s anything to do. I don’t want to work with people who see themselves as victims and who don’t want to act to get away from there. If you want a magical change, I’m not your guy. I can’t help you with that, and it’s not worth trying. The solution is often customized, that’s fine, but it’s up to YOU to do the magic. I can show you how to… unless you need something extraordinarily magical.
In short, it’s about learning to take care of yourself. Ration and reload energy are often how we start if you’re tired. Then we try to recover from the misery you’ve been in and have often been in for quite some time. That’s done in this wide approach I keep mentioning. Affect the body, behaviors, and environment while focusing on what’s essential in life. This often includes hunting some demons; if there’s anxiety around, we’ll have to do something about that since it drains a lot of energy. Changing focus is often helpful. How that’s done depends on what the problem is. Is the problem performance and doing? Ruminating and brooding? Where do you want to go, and what do you want to do? The coaching is done in twelve weeks where we start by mapping out life, looking at what needs to be changed, and then eat that mountain of shit, one spoon at the time.
We’ll look at physical aspects, food, exercise, behaviors, environmental factors you can affect and sleep, social life, and most things worth tending to when trying to deduce where the energy is leaking. That’s often more or less obvious, but the solution and taking care of both the problems and you are rarely as obvious. You’ll have to look at your entire life if you do this yourself. I would if I’d help you. I love helping people with this, but it’s not impossible to do it yourself if you’ve got the resources and the willpower. There needs to be a will to get better, and it’s often a lot of work, but the results are often marvelous.
The most significant, loveliest point of doing it this way rather than with pills is taking ownership and responsibility for your own life. That seems to be highly empowering, and it makes people grow tremendously.
If you want to get better, a great first step to do it yourself is to get the book at www.mbdolor.com/book. That’ll share my perspective and hand you some great tools to get going in the right direction. You can read the blog, look at videos, and try to get your hands on material to do your part to educate yourself. Those are great and there for a reason – to get you better.
If it’s too hard despite that, or if you’d prefer to get as well as possible as quickly as possible, you could get hands-on help if you get to www.mbdolor.com/contact.