THE BIG SHIFT

EP #58

 

“Do I need a life coach?” You’re listening to Episode 58, with Rhiannon Bush

 

Welcome to the Do I need a life coach? Podcast. We’re here to discuss the ins- and outs- of the life coaching industry and give you tools to use, to see for yourself. I’m your host, Rhiannon Bush. Mother, management consultant and a passionate, certified life coach.

 

 

One of the things that first drew me in as a client to coaching and what coaching gave me was a big shift. A big shift is a lightbulb moment, or an epiphany, or something that happens when you realise that something you’ve believed is not actually true, or that it’s no longer true.

 

For some, it’s “I can’t lose weight”, or “I shouldn’t do that”, or “I have to do this”, and often those types of beliefs limit us and cause restrictions in our lives that aren’t necessary. We have been ingrained with these beliefs in us from such a young age that we’ve grown up believing them, and never really thought to address the factual nature of the belief itself.

 

These beliefs block our flow of energy and abundance we can experience in our lives. Not only can they make us feel icky but they prevent growth by shifting our focus to what we don’t want rather than what we do.

 

One of the best examples is that “blood is thicker than water” or that you have to be friends with your relatives. So not true. If you want to be then be. If you don’t, just because you’re family does not mean you have to have anything to do with each other.

 

More often than not, a belief like this is over time becomes unconscious especially if it’s one we’ve grown up with. As we age, and things stop working the way we want them to, that brings the belief into our conscious awareness. That means we have an awareness of it that we didn’t before. And when we have that awareness, we can begin to shift it.

 

Beliefs are what we use to guide our behaviour. How we determine what feels good or bad, right from wrong, our moral compass if you will. Our beliefs inform our identity, what we stand for and how we show up in the world. And as we make our way through the world and the beliefs we use to guide us are questioned, sometimes we’ll choose to stick to our beliefs and other times we’ll choose to question them.

 

It's in the decision – to stay or to go – that the power lies. Sitting in the land of indecision is not what serves or empowers us, and it definitely doesn’t move us forward with the momentum many of us want to progress with.

 

The reason for this is that it actually takes a split second to make a decision. So while some people say things like “I just can’t make a decision” or “it took me months to make that decision”, it didn’t. If we’re getting technical about it, what took months, or what’s prohibiting the ‘making’ of a decision, is actually the anticipation of the repercussions or the thing we’re holding onto and getting something from, right now.

 

If you consider a time you’ve had to make a tough decision, the reason it was tough is because there was most likely going to be a sacrifice of some sort required. This may have been before making the decision – like getting serious about losing weight or joining a gym or selling an asset or breaking up with somebody… before the decision’s been made there’s a discomfort around what you’ll have to give up in order to have that thing. And with every decision comes a give and take… even buying something at the supermarket. Do you want it? Yes. Are you excited to pay for it? No. So do you buy the thing, or don’t you?

 

But when it comes to big decisions, we often have to also consider what we’ll be giving up. If you move to a new country, you’re leaving your friends or family. If you’re joining a gym, there’s time you’re forfeiting to get there or money you’re paying that you could do other things with… always a sacrifice.

 

There’s our pre-decision self who’s usually unhappy about something which is why we’re needing to make a different decision that the one we’ve made to get where we are, then there’s our post-decision self which is often riddled with uncertainty because we don’t know who we’ll be or how we’ll be blindsided by things on the other side.

 

Working with a coach helps you to make decisions that feel right for you, faster. And this is not only empowering, it gives you more momentum than you could ever have realized you’d have. And not only that… your coach is there cheering you on as your post-decision self. So if there are things to navigate or reconcile out the other side, or further decisions needing to be made, you’re supported and encouraged throughout that phase as well.

 

Early on in someone’s coaching exposure, they’ll often have big, life-altering shifts because they’ve never considered the possibilities they have for themselves. It’s like if you think about the realm of your world currently being the size of a tennis ball, that’s all the room you have to move, that’s how much room your life takes up and that’s how it’s been for a long time… then after experiencing that big shift the expanse of your world grows to the size of a basketball.  At that point, life’s never the same and you can’t go back. You get to take up more space, you get to own that power and you get to experience that new reality.

 

We all experience epiphanies throughout our lives. At various stages and for various reasons.  A lot of the time with immense pressure because it takes that amount of pressure to call on things within us that we didn’t know where there to fight and stay in it and to keep going. For many people it’s contextual and that will depend on your socioeconomic status, the country and culture you’re born into, etc. etc. and I promise you, your epiphany will come far faster when you work with a coach. If you’re looking to level up and get going and you’re already in pain, that’s the benefit of working with a coach.

 

That’s why you work with a coach. Because a certified coach can not only see the picture in the frame that you can see your life in, they can also zoom out of that and through great questioning, get you to expand the picture for yourself, in a way you choose and want to, to give you additional context that makes the picture itself appear completely differently. And from there, a client will often question what they stand for, what they’re searching for and begin to discover beliefs they want to have, or question existing beliefs that aren’t serving them.

 

Let me give you a better example. Can you see, vaguely, a picture of the Mona Lisa in your mind? Most of us can bring up some kind of image in our mind of what the Mona Lisa looks like. Now, imagine if you zoomed out of the Mona Lisa picture to get additional information about what she’s experiencing in that moment. You might see other people in the room she’s sitting in. You might see something behind the person painting her picture that she’s actually looking at. You may see that there’s a window behind the person painting her, or the detail in the canvas hanging behind her on the wall… By zooming out, you will get additional context that informs you of the state she’s in and what she’s experiencing right then and there, in that moment in time, which may give it a completely different meaning to how it originally appears.

 

Another way of looking at, is if you think of entering a very large, blacked out warehouse. And you go in with the flashlight. And you’re using your flashlight to find a pot of gold. And as you’re going, you look in one corner of the warehouse, you don’t find anything and you walk back out. This is what our Reticular Activating System does (listen to Episode 25 for more information on our RAS).  If instead you turned on the light to the whole factory, you’d find it far easier to find that pot of gold located in a different corner of the warehouse, where you just didn’t happen to look or, which is more often the case, you couldn’t find. Have you ever had an experience where you’ve been so sure somebody was going to tell you something, and they speak and you hear what you know they were going to say, just to discover that actually that’s not what they said at all. 

 

A friend of mine was telling me about an experience she had like this recently. She was expecting news from a doctor that was negative. She’d been preparing herself for that news because her body was telling her of the likelihood of the news she was about to experience. She heard what the doctor said and broke down, and the doctor didn’t understand her reaction because she’d said the complete, and positive, opposite. Our brains are wired to give us information we tell it to focus on. Good or bad. Your coach can see the whole warehouse and your blindspots. Think of your coach sitting behind a bunch of TV screens watching the CCTV footage of you navigating the warehouse. They can see where you’re not choosing to look and ask you questions to guide you into those spots. This is what gives you the big shift.  

 

Coaching work is deeply embedded in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. That’s why I said ‘certified’ coach before. Because coach training teaches you questioning techniques, trance states, language patterns and other forms of therapy that work not only with your conscious mind but also with your sub- and un-conscious minds. Through coach training, coaches are able to recognise how somebody sees themselves, their values and core needs which enables them to help you shift on an identity level, not only environment or behaviours, capabilities, beliefs or even values, but on an identity level which is much deeper and why coach work is life changing and long-term. Because it helps you look at who you are, and then spans out by looking at how you at your core determines what you value, what you believe, what capabilities you have and what behaviour you choose to demonstrate, and how that impacts the world around you. On a cellular level. Not because you were born a certain way, into a certain life, but you get an opportunity to recognise it, explore and therefore understand it, and from that point, make decisions to inform who you want to be.

 

Think of it as an opportunity to redefine you, and then begin writing your story. Exciting huh? And by the way, there is always the safety net of making the decision to not continue on and revert back to the way you were. Always. That option is always available to you, and that’s the promise of expansion. You can always contract but will you want to? From that expanded frame with the expanded context, will you want to go back to viewing the world through your pre-decision self’s eyes? I doubt it. While you can’t unknow the things you learn, you can always revert back to living the way you did pre-decision or pre-coach.  The thing about doing that, is you will still be happier and more fulfilled than what you were before, because this time around it’s been your choice. You’ve made the choice, and when you have choice, you have power. That additional context will never be unknown, but you can use it to feel better, to feel more powerful and to feel in control. And that will come from an increased awareness and understanding than what you had before going down this path.

 

This is why self-coaching only works to a point. A coach doesn’t have your reality, or your context. All your coach has is the knowledge that every possibility is available to you, right now. You have everything you need, already within you, ready to live the exact life you choose. You may just need a little guidance, a little help to expand your current reality and experience that big shift where you see the possibilities for yourself.

 

I’ll see you next week.

 

 

Hey! Before you go, I always find reviews really helpful when looking for new information or insights…

 

I you’ve found this podcast valuable, please take a minute to write a quick review about what you’ve found most beneficial for you, so other people can benefit from your insights, and listen in too. I would LOVE that!

Also, if there are any topics you’d like me to cover specifically about life coaching or the life coaching industry, visit rhiannonbush.com to contact me. Thanks for joining and I’ll see you in the next episode of Do I Need A Life Coach?!

 

 

Please note, this transcription may not be exact.