There is a book called The Magic of Thinking Big, it’s very old but I read it years ago on my self help journey, and from the title you can guess that it’s about thinking big and taking big risks and getting big rewards. That all seems straightforward.
But when my soon to be clients first come across me, they find it hard to put me into a box of where I stand on this coaching or therapy spectrum. You see I was trained to be a coach but to go deeper, so I don’t spend years naval gazing as they used to call it, like a psychologist might do ( apologies if this offends, but I’m just making a distinction) and I don’t do the counselling head nodding thing either or refrain from giving giving direction, so you can’t quite put me in a box. And so because of this they are never quite sure how what I do works and that leads to hesitation.
The thing about magic though is that we don’t always have to know how that trick is done to enjoy it or be awed by it. If something works, it works. But I get it sometimes it’s useful to be able to put what others do in a box so we can compare, so let me try and build the box for you so you know what kind of therapist or coach would be better for you and your issues.
Talking As A Way Of Being Changed
The talking therapies I’m sure you’ve heard of are ones such as CBT or TA or general counselling. What they have in common is that they use talking rather than medication to help you overcome/ manage your woes. There are others of course who use drama, or drawing, or journaling to help. Some even use meridians, energy or light to help and it’s useful to know what type of person you are as to which would suit you most.
I work primarily with beliefs.
Now beliefs can’t be seen in its true form, but the outcome of believing something can. If you can’t get yourself to stop procrastinating for instance, then that’s not a physiological or mental issue, it’s a belief issue. Your beliefs such as – something being boring, time consuming, difficult etc will direct your behaviour. You might also find it difficult to relax in public events, withdraw or become overly attached and needy of others in your life. This behaviour again isn’t a psychological dysfunction, it’s purely a belief issue. If you believe that you are safer with someone, that others have better ideas than yours, that if you speak out people will make fun of you, then you are going to act as if this were true.
My stance on this is as you’ve read, it’s all about perceptions, beliefs, thoughts, or your thinking and if you can first identify what it is that you are thinking just before you take an action then you now have something you can work with, because if you know what you are thinking then you can change it, and when you do, you get different results.
A Box With Many Sides
And that’s the box you can put me in, the beliefs box or similar ways of describing it are the mindset box, the perception changing box, the behavioural change box. Everything I do is with one aim, to challenge your faulty thinking so you can be different in your life. First I identify the thinking that causes an unwanted behaviour, then I challenge it. I knock the legs out from under it so that you can think in another way that works better for you. The aim here is to get you to start to doubt what you believe because that leads to a change in behaviour, reaction and results.
To illustrate
If you know someone who has low self esteem, ie they don’t think much of themselves and so put themselves down, beat themselves up a lot or not let themselves off the hook, then no matter how much you say that they are okay, that they shouldn’t be hard on themselves that they are better than others, that you love them, like them, admire them even, nothing will change for them, and it can’t.
Until they believe that they are okay at the core, to their core, your words, your well wishes and even your love will bounce off them as rain does off a waterproof coat.
So if you’ve ever wondered why your pep talks don’t change someone’s attitude, it can’t no matter how much that person may want to because you have to find the belief that’s holding it all in place. If you don’t then any change is superficial at best or based on liking or respecting you and when you aren’t there they revert back to type.
So if you were ever wondering how change really happens, and what makes change stick, this is the way it sticks. Just think of a time when you used to believe something you no longer believe and analyse your behaviour then and now, and you’ll see belief change work in action in your life.
Hopefully that helps. Basically if you can’t get yourself to consistently change what you do, how you feel or what you think, then I have a way of doing that for you so that you can act in a way that works for you in your real life.
Speak to you soon
Elaine
