Transcript Summary:
You know, it’s such a positive environment to walk into a room with coaches and mentors, isn’t it?
You can’t go wrong. It’s like stepping into just a space of positivity.
You know you’re in the right place!
So it sounds, I suppose, in some ways a sad subject to talk about loss.
But in actual fact, the two speakers beforehand have just tipped on some of the reasons I have become so interested in this space.
Judith talked about women in leadership.
She mentioned some really important areas. She mentioned things like women say, things like I should do this. She talked about assertiveness.
She talked about belief systems that we hold as women.
Sometimes in the space of leadership there are serious implications, and if that’s pushed to the dark side, what happens is women end up burnt out.
And there are plenty of stats around this and what happens to us. I’ve got two clients at the moment, two female leaders, both are just back in the workplace, after hitting burnout.
Now what’s happened to them is loss.
That living bereavement I talk about because they don’t know who they are anymore.
There, they have a fear that they would be typecast as the two people who got burnout.
They have a fear of talking about it.
They want to appear to be strong and they want to walk into rooms where this has never happened.
And I don’t believe that’s correct because they are different people and they have achieved a lot by getting back into the workflows.
So I am going to talk about coaching for emotional trauma and and obviously the subject today is I suppose the bereavement part.
I’m going to use the model that some of you already know, that I talk about quite a bit, which is the Rose model.
So I’m gonna use it as a road map to assist us.
I am doing a PhD at the moment and this is really what I’m exploring. I’m only at the cusp, I’m only halfway through.
I’m hoping I’ll have lots of really useful information to share with you around this coaching space.
Because of this coaching space I’m interested in, the Rose model does stand for reason and meaning, optimism, self identity, and empowerment.
In my studies, these two words have come up I hadn’t actually heard before, which is living bereavement.
One of my clients at the moment has been transferred from a job they loved, promoted into a job they hate.
Huge loss for them, and it’s working through that to assist them and empower them.
Lots of other other areas there including retirement actually. We can meet people who are either moving towards retirement or they’ve just retired.
I don’t like the word retirement, actually.
I think it’s a word that should not be used because that’s that sense of pulling back from something rather than going forward to meet something and look in the eye and welcome it.
Health is an important one for leaders and managers who are the people who welcome a person back into the workplace, maybe after they’ve encountered an illness or a bereavement, and to help them with the language.
Because it can be something we don’t discuss enough, I believe.
We’re not becoming therapists by talking about this. We can associate bereavement and loss with therapy. Yes, there is that space. But then there’s the time when we’re ready and isn’t that what we always talk about in coaching and mentoring?
When a person is ready for that space of coaching, then we will welcome them and that’s that. That’s the important thing to remember – when somebody is ready.
I’ve always embraced performance coaching.
Space where a person is going to become the best version of themselves possible.
We hold our clients in unconditional positive regard.
We hold them in a nonjudgmental space.
We know all this, but what we’re working with is the thoughts that may not be serving them, leading to emotions that are not so useful, maybe disabling them and then actions that are not getting them to where they want to be.
That’s I think great to see.
Reason and Meaning
Reasoning, meaning this is such an important topic for any area of our lives for us.
It’s a good question to ask ourselves today.
If we were sitting quietly and just thinking about it as coaches and mentors, what gives your life reason and meaning?
I asked my clients that and I very often get a blank look coming back to me going Jesus.
One client said to me I thought this was really, really brilliant. She says “Paula, I’m not Buddha.”
I thought it was wonderful!
But we all, we all have to connect to our purpose in life.
It’s really important.
And we all have life purpose during a loss, during something that hits us.
So the question what gives you purpose in life is worth really worth taking away today for us and maybe picking a few notes about what does give you purpose in life?
What feeds your soul?
And actually, who feeds your soul?
And make sure that you’re surrounded by people who do feed your soul.
Optimism
I’m often told, “Jeez, you’re awfully optimistic person!”
Well, you know what? Now we had somebody talking from the Cancer Society this morning. We had great people standing up. Maybe optimism is a good thing.
I think it is a good thing.
But we do need optimism to optimise our strengths.
So thinking of optimism to optimise is really important.
I often say to clients who come to me and say that was a really good session, I say, well actually I think he just heard yourself think, isn’t that what happens when the when a client comes to us, they hear themselves think the overwhelm begins to seem a little bit less and that’s so important for us.
Self Identity
This is something that is so important.
Our self identity is linked to and you won’t be surprised to hear me saying this, to our belief systems.
Are my beliefs serving me?
Is what I believe right now about myself and the world around me actually serving me?
Self identity and belief systems are central to our sense of self, and they do play a significant role in shaping our attitudes, our behaviours and our emotions.
And you know, I often talk to my clients about the deceptive mind. The mind can feed us information that’s not true.
Bereavement or loss can challenge our self identity by forcing us to confront the loss of an important role or identity that we held.
And that’s a very important statement.
We put an identity around ourselves and we create a belief system around it that becomes true.
Who’s going to question it?
I think a coach will.
I’m sure you’ve all looked at yourself in the mirror this morning and went, “Jesus, God, I’m hot!”
Did nobody do that??
If you did say that, if you did stand in front of the mirror and said I am hot, what would the mirror say?
Agree with you?
“You’re looking good to me too!”
And I am joking, obviously, but actually, when you feed your brain negative messages, who is going to deny those messages?
Nobody.
Words create worlds.
If we are constantly giving our ourselves negative messages, what kind of world are we creating for ourselves?
So let’s be positive to ourselves first.
Don’t let negative people rent space in your head.
Raise the rent and kick them out!
Empowerment
Last part of the Rose model is empowerment.
This is the space we move our clients to before they leave us.
Experiencing a bereavement or a loss can give our clients a sense of being out of control and overwhelm.
It’s important to assist them to move to a place of empowerment by working with them to assist them to create the action plan that we always talk about in our coaching and our mentoring sessions because it does create that road map.
It is a system.
They’re now moving towards an image that’s more positive.
They’re taking back control that they may have felt they’ve lost.
It gives them clarity and direction.
A client of mine is feeling quite overwhelmed at the moment. She has a new job, feeling that everybody knows more than she does around the table.
And one small step for her was just putting her hand up at the meeting and saying something. She she muted herself. Her voice was not being heard because she was feeling just a little bit fearful.
So one small step, a really important sense of accomplishment.
The appreciative inquiry question: “What three things can you do now to move forward?”
Thank you all for being here.
Thanks for listening to me.
And I’ll see you all during the day.
Thank you.
