Holistic Life Counselling and Coaching

Men's Work

3/6/2021

The common themes I work with men on are

Needing to hold it together
Being strong for those around them
Disconnection from their feelings, softness, vulnerability, empathy, the feminine
Needing to present a narrow image of who they are and feeling like an imposter
Hiding from shamed aspects
Addiction
Resistance towards the feminine
Resistance towards the masculine
Feeling trapped
Skepticism, doubt and over analysis
Passivity
Violence
Confusion in relationships
Over analysis, questioning and hyper rationalisation
Not being sure of what it means to be a man, and so attempting to act like one
Loneliness
Depression and Anxiety

What these men long for

To be able to deeply let others in
Being more of who they are. Authenticity
Rejuvenating their innate playfullness
Cultivating a healthy ability to assert, loving fierceness
Softening the rigidity into open feeling and empathy
Connection to their natural adulthood
Rediscovering their connection to the inner child, the deeper masculine and feminine.
Opening into freedom and aligning with purpose
To be able to connect deeply in relationships

When men are supported on the journey from the head to the heart, the miraculous softening, and embodiment that takes place births a healthy deep masculine that the world urgently needs more of.

When I experience a man dissolve a façade, melt a wall, give voice to a vulnerable, shamed aspect, I feel a sense of trustworthiness and a connection through the energy of brotherhood form more deeply.

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Healing in Life

3/5/2021

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Society has a focus on achievement, on the manipulation of the variables and challenges of life, to avoid hardship and to attain outcomes.

This has lead to a boom in the coaching industry, promising the skillful navigation of obstacles and roadblocks on the way to attaining goals.

The focus of healing on the other hand, is the graceful surrender of those things that are triggered by the unfolding of life.

Rather than ducking and weaving through the barriers on our journey, the emphasis is on opening through the bruises and blows caused by the impacts of the tragedies, mundanities and tribulations of life.

Never is this more evident as when something truly catastrophic befalls our fate. Something that cuts so deeply, that no amount of future achievements or accolades can repair.

A serious illness for instance, that permanently impairs one's ability to function as they once did, brings anger at unfairness, fear of the future, disdain at the body's inability to completely recover, anxieties of missing out on what was once within reach, and the shame of now being less valuable than others.

Of hatred towards life, resentment towards the divine, and the contempt towards the universe for the hand that has been dealt.

Of having to rely on others, of resisting becoming a burden to loved ones, and the helplessness inherent without their support.

Of feeling singled out, picked on, chosen to suffer, victimized by the gods. Of a sense of being deprived and a loss of self worth.

It forces us to chose between growing bitter and jaded with resentment at our destiny or to surrender through those parts of us that bemoan, that fight, and rile against it.

The golden spiritual and deeply human opportunity is to surrender, and open through these pains.

Transforming so completely as to live in the acceptance of tribulation and of tragedy alike.

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Working with the Ego

3/3/2021

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The ego is a set of unconscious psychic relationships to different natural energies.

We may resist anger, avoid appreciation, crave love, block out connection, hide shame, hold onto guilt, protect through distrust.

The energies are natural and abundantly accessible, but our relationship to them is our conditioning, our trauma, our cultural and familial inheritance, contained within our egoic structure.

When we live an unexamined life, we are driven to relate in a way that reflects these inner relationships.

We pacify rather than assert and confront. Not able to receive recognition, nor give genuine praise. We live behind walls, unable to fathom our loneliness in the absence of intimacy and exist beneath layers of shame while holding onto guilt as a way to atone for our perceived sins.

When we are aware of our inner relationships, we change organically. Nobody consciously chooses to self flagellate, nor to remain locked in some inner basement.

The challenge is to see how we are relating to various aspects of ourselves.

This is where a guide is helpful.

A coach, counsellor, healer or therapist aren't able to remove or to change these dynamics for you, but those that are skilled are able to bring clarify and awareness to them, and then support you to redefine yourself.

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Coaching, Psychology, Counselling, Psychotherapy and Healing

3/1/2021

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What's the difference between Coaching, Psychology, Counselling, Psychotherapy and Healing?

The way I see it, what differentiates these supportive approaches are focus and depth.

The focus in coaching is on the present and the future. It draws on its' future-orientated therapy roots to develop ways in which to move through present blocks on the way to desired goals. The primary emphasis is on intended destinations. Challenging the client and giving advice are often part of the coach's repertoire.

Psychology's main focus is on the blocks preventing one from moving towards desired goals. It views the unconscious as a black box to be avoided, instead putting one's behaviours, conscious thoughts, beliefs, and emotional responses at the forefront of one's experience. Advice and suggestions are part of the process, where the psychologist is seen as the expert in the therapeutic process.

Counselling is predominantly client led. The counsellor is more a supportive sounding board and curious guide rather than the expert on the client's life. The general focus is on the deeper aspects of the client's experience, with an emphasis on supporting people in leading more psycho-socially healthy and adjusted lives through connection with community resources. Counselling seeks to empower the client to make their own decisions and choices that lead to better life outcomes.

Psychotherapy does less on the social connective elements, and focuses on intra-psychic dynamics in order to resolve unconscious issues, leading to mental, emotional and behavioral, and ultimately social and relational changes.

Energetic and psychic healing focusses purely on the deeply unconscious. In supporting patterns to come into consciousness, the ripple effect is that psychology, emotionality and behaviour changes by healing their blueprints at the core. Though powerfully effective, there is an element of disempowerment, where the healer has the supernatural abilities, and the client needs this in order to grow and change.

Each approach has it's merits and its drawbacks. Each approach is useful at relevant stages and suited to different personalities.

Yet the more holistic, the more adaptable and flexible a therapist is at being able to move along this spectrum, changing hats seamlessly in order to work with a person on their presenting needs, the more effective they are in their service.

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Cultural Awareness

2/28/2021

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A person's culture is the often ignored elephant in the therapist's room
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Most therapeutic methodologies dealing with the mind and emotions have been developed from within the Western Philosophical paradigm.

As a result, an individual that is descended from a particular cultural group grounded in essentially different core values, can sometimes be mistakenly neuroticised or pathologised for their traits by a therapist.

Cultural Sensitivity, Cultural Humility and Cultural Awareness are terms that have fairly recently been coined into order to bring in the dimension of Cultural Competency into the therapist training space.

Though at our core, there is a shared emotional and spiritual place binding us, the cultural layer is a complex and relevant aspect of our makeup that is vastly more deeply rooted than the story of our personal childhood journey.

The therapist therefore, needs to be culturally fluid, yet humanely centered.

My personal journey of having migrated from a vastly different culture has enriched my ability to share multiple cultural spaces in sessions with individuals from various backgrounds.

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Holistic Life Counselling and Coaching

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