Telephone session with an anxious client,
using Nick Kemp’s Spinning Feelings and Tempo Shift methods,
with commentary by Steve Andreas
A colleague asked me for feedback on a 25-minute phone session that he did with a middle-level manager who was anxious about an imminent meeting with several upper managers, in which she expected to be criticized and attacked verbally. The session was very successful, as indicated by her report the next day, “Thanks for the check in, and THANK YOU for that fantastic work in the afternoon. I felt really great about how I conducted myself. I was able to provide the center even in the midst of yelling.”
Feedback seldom gets much better than that! However, despite the complete success of the session, I had a number of suggestions for how to make the process even more elegant and effective. Some of my comments are minor, perhaps even “picky”; others are more substantial. Many clients will be able follow instructions appropriately even when they are sloppily worded, but others will not. (And of course some clients will manage to misunderstand even the most carefully worded instruction.) The more specific and precise you are with your words, the easier it will be for the client to change. When I offer this kind of feedback, I also see it as an opportunity to learn as much as I can, in order to make my own language more precise. I’ve made my living as an editor—in one form or another—for some 45 years, so I have quite a lot of practice. With the coach’s permission I have made a transcript of the phone recording, and interspersed my suggestions, which I hope will also be of interest to others.
Verbatim Transcript
(Steve’s comments are in italics)
Coach: So, what would you like to have different?
Client: What would I like to have different? I would like to be less anxious, going to this meeting.
Coach: OK, so you’d like to be less anxious. Now that’s a negative so you want to be less of something. What would you like to have in its place?
(Eliciting a positive outcome is an important part of many interventions, but in the case of anxiety, it’s not required. My experience with the spinning feelings process is that it is unnecessary, because the result is automatically positive and appropriate, without needing to rely on the client’s conscious mind to decide what the new response will be.)
Client: Well, I would like to be a calm, non-anxious presence.
Coach: “Non-anxious” is also a negative.
Client: I would like to be astute. I would like to be a centering influence on the group; I’d like to be a calm influence on the group.
Coach: Calm influence. Actually the word that I like, is in comparison to being non-anxious is to be assured.
(“Assured” is content, which may or may not fit for the client. Content interventions can be useful, but it’s good to realize that they are different from process interventions.)
Client: Be assured?
Coach: Uh-huh.
Client: That’s good.
Coach: But anyway the idea of being able to be calm, which to me also is about being centered and grounded in who I am—
(“Centered” and “grounded” are additional content.)
Client: Totally.
Coach: —rather than being totally reactive to what other people are doing.
Client: Totally, Right, yes.
Coach: So with that in mind I’ve got a couple of things that I’d suggest we do, and the first thing is to respond to the anxiety, deal with the anxiety.
(“Respond to the anxiety,” and “deal with the anxiety” are not the same thing, so this introduces ambiguity and is a little confusing. I think what you mean is “work with the anxiety” or “resolve the anxiety.”)
(Before working with the anxiety it would be good to find out what the client says to herself that triggers the anxiety. The coach does this much later, after using the spinning feelings process. At that point, the feeling is resolved, making it awkward to find out what she says to herself.)
So take a moment and just be aware of,
(This is “putting the cart before the horse”; you need to elicit the context before being aware of something in it.)
imagine being in this meeting and how you probably imagine you will be.
(This sentence is also not as clear as it could be. “Probably imagining how you will be in the future,” elicits hypothetical, intellectual, possibility rather than present actuality. Compare with, “Imagine you are in the meeting, and notice what you feel,” which is more direct and succinct. You want to start with “imagine,” but after that presuppose in your language that the client is actually in the meeting.)
So just anxious, right?
(“Anxious” names the feeling, which is unnecessary, and may limit or distort the client’s experience of the feeling; using the word “feeling” is more open-ended, and can also be used for any other strong feeling. The outcome at this point is not to name the feeling, but to locate it.)
Client: Right, right.
Coach: So just take a moment and be aware of the anxiety.
(The previous sentence is unnecessary; the following one is fine.)
Now as you are aware of the anxiety tell me where it starts in your body and where it goes to.
Client: And where it goes?
Coach: Yeah. Anxiety is kind of an interesting experience. It has a huge physiologic component.
(The two previous chatty sentences are unnecessary, and irrelevant to the location.)
So where does it start in your body?
Client: It starts in my chest with very shallow breath.
Coach: Very shallow breath. It starts in your chest so it’s sort of your upper chest?
(I would delete the “sort of” which suggests her experience is uncertain. Nothing is added by saying “upper chest,” which may not be accurate.)
Client: It’s in my upper chest, and I’m truly having hot flashes. Of course it is about 100 degrees here today, but I’m still having hot flashes about this meeting, yeah.
Coach: So and so you also experience an increase in temperature. So now it starts in your chest. Where does that anxiety travel to? Where does it—?
(There is no advantage to naming it “anxiety.” “Feeling” or “it” is enough.)
Client: Well it goes down to my stomach, but it doesn’t go— How shall I say? It goes to my stomach, but my feet are not on the ground. It does not go— I know that I’m not grounded; I guess that’s how to say it.
(There is a curious jump in her attention from stomach to feet. I would have asked if the feeling goes anywhere after going to the stomach. Since she mentions that her feet are not on the ground, I suspect that the feeling goes all the way down through her legs to her feet. Even when I think I have the full path, I usually ask once or twice more, to be sure I have the complete path.)
Coach: Oh, OK. So the feeling now goes from your chest down to your stomach.
(The “now” implies a change; I would delete it.)
Client: Yep.
Coach: OK. So it’s traveling that path. Now notice, as it’s traveling that path what color is it?
Client: What color is it? Red.
Coach: It’s red. OK.
(A step of the protocol is missing here—asking about the shape, size, etc. of the path. It’s not essential, but it amplifies the visual representation of the feeling, establishing a detailed context for asking the next question.)
And watch it going down that red path,
(“As the feeling moves along this red path,” presupposes both the moving and the watching, so it’s a bit better for engaging unconscious processing.)
and tell me which direction is it spinning—clockwise or anti-clockwise?
(I prefer “notice” to “tell me,” since the client has to notice it before telling me, and the context already implies telling.)
Client: It’s spinning, uh, anti-clockwise.
Coach: Anti-clockwise, OK.
(The following conscious-mind selection of an outcome color interrupts the process, requiring a shift in attention, and back again to gathering information about the problem state afterward. It’s not part of the spinning feelings protocol, and seems to be unnecessary. However, selecting the outcome might be a useful addition for some clients.)
Now just set all that aside and come back to that sense of being grounded, with a sense of assurance in who you are, that sense of confidence and calm. When you think of that, what color is that experience?
(“When you think of that” is an invitation to intellectualize. “What color is that experience?” is more direct.)
Client: Grass green
Coach: Green, grass green
Client: Grass green, yep.
Coach: Cool. OK, so the first thing I want you to do is to take a moment—
(There is a big jump in attention here between the outcome specification and the problem state. More important, the problem context for the intervention is not elicited. Adding sparkles was omitted here; it’s not necessary, but it amplifies the visual experience in a pleasant way for most. Better to say, “Go back into that problem context and notice the very beginning of that feeling. As it begins to move along that path, spin it in the reverse direction, change it to a color you like better, and add sparkles to it, and just find out what happens.”)
—and spin that anxiety as it’s going down. It’s going anti-clockwise
(“It’s going anti-clockwise” is not useful because it elicits the problem state, which is not what you want here. Doing it this way links the reverse direction to the problem response rather than to the context. This can lead to feeling bad first before feeling better. You want to link the context directly to the reverse spinning.)
so I want you to spin it clockwise and as it’s spinning clockwise let it turn from red into that grass green color, and tell me when it’s spinning quite quickly in the opposite direction. So it will be spinning clockwise and you’ll begin to see as it spins quickly clockwise it will be turning from red into grass green, and tell me when it’s completely green.
(Again, mentioning “red” elicits the problem state, when you want the context to link directly to the new color. “Change the color to a color you like better.”)
Client: Right. It’s marbled. It’s a marbled red and green.
(This is the result of mentioning “red,” making it more difficult for the client to change it.)
Coach: Just center into yourself and just let it spin, and spin it quite quickly and tell me when it’s completely green.
(Nice “save,” presupposing that it will become all green.)
Client: Yeah, it’s completely green.
Coach: OK, and now as you watch it spinning and it’s completely green just let it add some sparkles to it, so that you’ve got green and little sparkles going inside of it.
(Much better to add the sparkles earlier along with reversing the direction of spin and change of color. Using several instructions together tends to overload the client’s conscious mind, eliciting unconscious change.)
Client: I saw my temperature coming down. My hot flash is subsiding.
Coach: Cool. So you got little sparkles in it as well?
Client: Yep.
Coach: Brilliant, brilliant. OK, now just take a moment and check to see whether your feet are now on the ground.
Client: They are.
Coach: Cool.
Client: It’s sort of amazing.
Coach: So now just see if you can get the anxiety back.
(This is imprecise. Better to say, “Go back into that meeting, and find out what happens,” to test and future-pace. If the process didn’t work, and the client still feels anxious, asking “see if you can get the anxiety back” would be a serious mismatch! Assuming the report is positive, then follow with a further challenge, “See if you can get the anxiety back.”)
Client: It’s interesting because now I can remember what red looks like but it’s hard to think about it. It’s actually harder than getting it to spin in the first place. The green is kind of overwhelming everything, which is good! Just the color, it’s a very common color to me.
Coach: Yeah. Cool.
Client: Yeah, amazing, amazing!
Coach: That really is quite amazing
Client: It’s so much better; I was out in my car searching, seeing if I could find a little happy pill to take. I don’t have any of those anymore, so there you go; I can’t take a happy pill—just do it the right way.
Coach: OK now so that’s the first thing so that sort of takes care of the physiologic part of the anxiety.
(The following elicitation of the voice that triggers the anxious feeling is a bit awkward now that the feeling has been changed. It would have been much easier and better to elicit the voice before changing the feeling.)
Now I want you to come back though and think about anxiety
(“Think about anxiety” is an invitation to intellectualize, rather than to notice.)
and to imagine I’ve never been anxious in my life. And so you are trying to teach me how to be anxious.
(“You are trying” implies effort that doesn’t succeed. Better to say something like, “Now I want you to imagine that I’ve never been anxious in my life, and your job is to teach me.”
And so the things that—particularly since you’re feeling anxious about a meeting that’s to come, so the meeting is not actually happening in the room with you at the moment, so it’s a future—
(That is a very confusing sentence. The focus has shifted from teaching the coach to the client’s experience. “You’re anxious about a meeting to come” would be much simpler and direct. But since she doesn’t get anxious any more, it’s hard for her to do. An explicit reorientation in time would be helpful here: “Go back 15 minutes to when you used to get anxious, and notice what you say to yourself just before the feeling.” In addition to gathering information, this sentence helps solidify the change that has been made.)
So you got to imagine the meeting right? Typically there are four things to pay attention to when we have an experience. And the four things are: what do we see with our eyes, what do we hear with our ears, and then what do we see on the inside, and what do we hear on the inside? And so I’m particularly interested in your experience of anxiety because it’s not happening at the moment.
Client: Right, right.
Coach: It’s just in your imagination that what do you have to see on the inside and what do you have to hear on the inside in order to get anxious?
(The foregoing would be fine as an introduction to a thorough elicitation. However, this is after putting the client into the situation, so it is requires a shift in attention, and is an invitation to pop out of the experience and intellectualize. For this process, the only thing you need is the voice and what it says.)
Client: Hmn, see on the inside, or hear on the inside. I need to see walls all around me like I’m in a tunnel.
Coach: OK, you need to see like you’re in a tunnel.
Client: Like I’m trapped.
Coach: So there’s a sense of being trapped. Now what do you have to hear?
Client: Actually what I have to hear is well inside of myself? Inside of myself I need to hear my voices, my mini-voices—
Coach: Yeah.
Client: —trying to figure things out.
Coach: And actually what you’ll find that in order to feel anxious there’s usually, well I call them, a negative mantra. It’s a little phrase that you repeat over and over and over again. It’s kind of in a loop like those old, old eight tracks.
(This may be true, but the client doesn’t need to know it, and it introduces content that may not fit for the client.)
Client: Right, right.
Coach: So this continuous loop and it’s doing, and it’s saying something. So just listen to the loop of all those voices and find the one that really elicits the anxiety.
(I would leave out “loop” and “all those voices” both of which may be a mismatch for the client.)
Client: Yeah, now I’ve got it, yeah.
Coach: And tell me what it is.
(“is” is vague, and confuses the client; “what it says” is more specific, and would avoid the confusion that follows.)
Client: You mean what it’s saying?
Coach: Yeah.
Client: It’s saying, “How can I get out of this?”
Coach: How can you get out of this?
Client: “How can I escape this?” Yeah, how can I? How can I? “I’ve got to flee.”
(Any of the above sentences will be in the fast voice tempo that elicits the feeling, so any will work to do the voice tempo shift.)
Coach: OK, now take a moment though. Why would—if you had to stay in this, why would that be a bad thing? ‘Cause getting out of this is an escape mechanism; you’re trying to escape some bad outcome.
(The foregoing is true but unnecessary. The voice is what used to trigger the anxiety. Asking about the precursors only confuses the client, as shown by what follows. )
Client: Yeah, why?
Coach: So what’s the bad outcome?
Client: Well, actually I think that when I’m trying to escape I’m trying to escape; I don’t even want to be part of it. But yeah, no on the level of—hmm—I’m not quite sure what you’re saying.
Coach: Well, it’s kind of like “I got to get out of this” and that may be the little negative mantra. Here’s what I often find though, is that underneath that is something like “They’re going to get me, I’m going to die.”
(“little negative mantra” and “underneath” may not be a good fit for the client.)
Client: Oh yeah, thank you, actually all day I’ve been saying I’m terrified.
Coach: “I’m terrified.”
Client: I’m terrified. I’m shaking. I’m peeing in my pants. I’m terrified.
(Being “terrified” describes the feeling elicited by the voice, not what the voice says that causes the feeling. This is where many people go wrong, mistakingly thinking that it’s the voice that causes the feeling.)
Coach: And so something—which tells me, something really bad, you’re imagining something really bad, like “They’re going to hate me, they’re going to fire me, they’re going to abandon me, or I’m going to be alone.”
(These are all content possibilities for what might cause the feeling.)
So take a moment, just take a breath, take a moment and listen and see if you can find what’s the sort of the darkest little mantra that’s way down underneath all of these?
(“The darkest little mantra that’s way down underneath all of these” introduces content that may not be a good fit for the client’s experience.)
Client: It’s really good. It’s very clear to me that if I stay in the thing I’m going to die.
Coach: “I’m going to die.” I’m just writing it down. “I’m going to die.”
(“I’m going to die” will also work. However, that meaning is carried by the voice tone in which she previously said, “How can I escape this?” etc. The words don’t matter that much. The fast tempo elicits the anxiety. If she said, “I’m going to the store” in that tempo that is will also make her anxious. It would be more efficient and equally effective to just use the first clear statement the client offered, “How can I get out of this? Or How can I escape this”)
(At this point in the protocol, the instruction is to ask, “When you have said this to yourself, do you say it in your normal conversational speaking voice, or is it said at a faster tempo? That’s all. Period. Compare this with the somewhat meandering instruction below, some of which is an invitation to think about her experience, in contrast to noticing it.)
So now let’s just take a moment and listen to “I’m going to die” and the first thing I want to do is figure out what do you have to do, and there’s usually two things but we’ll check both of them, to make the feeling of anxiety get worse? So I want to see what you need to do in order to get it worse. And the first thing is to change the volume of the, um—so for example, if we make the negative mantra “I’m going to die,” if we make it really loud does that make it worse?
(Although volume will have an impact, it is secondary. Asking about the volume is not in the tempo shift protocol, and unnecessary.)
Client: Yeah.
Coach: OK, loud. Now check also the pace of it. So if it speeds up, does that make it worse?
(“Does that make it worse?” is pretty clear in the context, but “Does that increase the feeling?” would be more precise.)
Client: Yes, yes, more than slow, fast, yes.
(The next step in the protocol is to ask the client to say it the way they have been, then to slow the tempo by one-third, and then to slow it much more.)
Coach: So fast and loud?
Client: Yep.
Coach: OK. So now what I invite you to do is you know when you watch TV on like CNN they have a “crawl” that’s going along the bottom of the screen?
(The above is not in the tempo shift protocol.)
Client: Yeah, yeah.
(What follows is essentially a variation of the phobia cure, with green and sparkles added in, rather than the anxiety protocol.)
Coach: OK, so I want you to imagine in your mind you’re seeing this whole situation and you’ve got a crawl going down the bottom of your visual field and the crawl is this “I’m going to die” and it’s just going, it’s an endless crawl. So you’re no longer hearing it, you’re now seeing it. So tell me when you see it. So you can see it?
Client: I see it. I got it.
Coach: OK, now the background of the crawl I invite you to make it that green with the little sparkles in it.
Client: So I’m like looking at the television set? Is that what I‘m imagining?
(This points out an earlier ambiguity. “Seeing this whole situation” didn’t specify seeing it on a TV.)
Coach: Yeah, or that sort of the visual field of what’s going on.
(A very confusing sentence! “Sort of” weakens the instruction. Better to say, “Yes, you’re seeing this whole situation on a TV.”)
In the bottom of it you’ve got this crawl and the background of the crawl, so like typically it’s usually like black writing on white or something like that.
Client: I think I don’t understand the word you’re saying, “call”?
Coach: Crawl. C-R-A-W-L.
Client: Oh crawl! Got it, got it. (both laugh)
Coach: So as you’re watching the crawl, make the background of the crawl that grass green color with the sparkles. And what we’re going to do is (slowly) slow the crawl down.
(At last, the tempo shift, visual variation, though modified significantly from the protocol.)
So it’s going, (very slowly) “I’m . . . going . . . to . . . die.” So it’s getting slower and slower. (client laughs.) Keep watching it as it’s going really slow, and get really curious and see which of the words is the first one to just get so slow that it gets bogged down and absorbed into the background so you can’t even see it anymore.
Client: Yeah, “going.”
Coach: “Going,” OK. And just keep watching and tell me what’s the next one that’s—?
Client: “I’m.”
Coach: And just keep watching and tell me when they’ve all gone.
(This is an instruction for amnesia. In general we never want to erase experience, only modify it.)
Client: Yeah, pretty much green, pretty much green. I can still see a little vestige of it, but pretty much green.
Coach: OK. And what’s the vestige?
Client: It’s more that if there was lighting there, the vestige is that it’s not perfectly green, I guess is a way to say it.
Coach: OK, so there’s a little reminder. And would it be OK if that reminder was a memory of how you used to be, which reminds you to be calm instead of that other way?
(The first part of this is a nice hypnotic invitation to categorize the “vestige’ as a “memory of how things used to be,” which puts the old way into the past, and consolidates the change. However, “instead of that other way” invites her to re-elicit the problem state again, so that’s not useful.
In the tempo shift protocol, all that is done is to slow down the tempo, and that is sufficient to elicit a new response.)
Client: Right, right, right, umhmn.
Coach: And assured. OK, so now as you think of this meeting, yeah as you think about the meeting, see if you can get the anxiety back.
(“Think about the meeting” is an invitation to intellectualize. “Imagine you are in the meeting” would be more specific. I prefer to first ask an open-ended question, “What do you experience?” which invites the client to respond with whatever they experience. If the process didn’t work, and she is still anxious, then asking “see if you can get the anxiety back” would be a serious mismatch of her experience.)
Client: It’s totally gone. I’m not anxious right now. My feet are on the ground literally—literally and figuratively.
Coach: So now take a moment and be grounded, and remember we used to talk about compassion being tender, fierce, mischievous, that sort of—
(The above seems to me to be totally irrelevant to the stated outcome of the session, introducing content that may not fit for the client. Likewise what follow seems to be a meandering way to future-pace. Since the purpose of the session was to resolve the client’s anxiety in a meeting, the simple and direct way to do this is to say, “Imagine being in that meeting, and tell me how you experience it now,” to confirm that the new response is immediate and spontaneous. That would get the job done, and make what follows unnecessary.)
Client: Yeah.
Coach: —think of your competence, the times when you have been grounded, that experience of you in your realm being responsive rather than reactive, with the full range of compassion.
(I think compassion is great, but I don’t see how it’s relevant here.)
Client: Right and I think that that’s— I’ve got that, and I think that it’s reminding me that my feet on the ground is important.
(The client returns to her own statement of the change she noticed, “my feet are on the ground” without mentioning the other things suggested, which adds to the likelihood that they are not particularly relevant to her.)
Coach: Grounded.
Client: Literally.
Coach: Now take a moment and just sort of internalize that experience
(“Sort of” weakens the outcome of internalizing the experience.)
of being really grounded, and now imagine having this meeting with these folks, being really grounded. And play that through like a movie, where you’re the lead character in the movie, not just watching yourself, but actually being yourself fully grounded.
(“Play it like a movie” suggests being separated from it rather than being in it; at best it’s ambiguous. And “not just watching yourself” is a negative command creating ambivalence. Better to say something positive like, “Imagine being in that situation now, seeing out of your own eyes, and find out how that scenario unfolds spontaneously.)
Client: Yeah, I mean I have a vision of myself being solid, you know—
(“A vision of myself” indicates seeing herself in the situation, rather than being in it, which is necessary for a dependable future-pace.)
Coach: And take a moment and imagine some other situation with some other people where you need to be this grounded and just imagine doing the same thing, playing a movie of you being grounded in the future.
(Again “playing a movie of you being grounded” is ambiguous at best, suggesting seeing herself. And since she is in “some other situation with some other people where you need to be this grounded,” “in the future” directs her attention to a future beyond that, which isn’t useful.)
Client: Right, I got that.
Coach: OK, cool. And now take a moment and go back in time to a situation where it would have been really good to have had this resource and just do the same thing, play it through like a movie as though you’re in the movie as the lead character but having this resource so we can use one of those past memories as a learning lab.
(This is fine, but out of order. Better to revise 1-3 past memories before doing a future-pace.)
Client: Yeah, I got that, and for me it’s a really good image because it’s like I’m taking up my space. I mean that in a really good way. I’m holding my space. My space is mine.
Coach: Yeah, and you’re fully inhabiting your body and your being.
(Nice reinforcement of the associated experience.)
Client: Yep.
Coach: And I should have done this a couple of moments ago,
(This is distracting, and not useful.)
but is there any situation that you could think of where this would not be appropriate?
(“This” is ambiguous, and “not be appropriate” is a negation, possibly causing the confusion that follows. Better to state this in the positive. “Can you think of any context in which you would want to have the old feeling, or some other response?”)
Client: Yes, I mean I think that this would not be appropriate in, um—you mean—
(The client is confused by the preceding ambiguities.)
Coach: Some kind of contextual limit and I don’t know—
(“Contextual limit” is unclear, and jargon.)
It may not be but I think of helping someone to be assertive and that we’re not actually doing that so much as we’re helping you to be grounded. It may not be the most beneficial to be assertive if you were in a 7-Eleven that was being robbed.
(The example of a robbery would be fine in a teaching context, but bringing in assertiveness is suggesting content that distracts from the simple question, “Can you think of any context in which you would want to have the old feeling?”
Client: Yeah, and I think I was actually thinking of the opposite if I had to, because it’s not about being grounded but it’s about being active, because what we’ve just done makes me feel calm and not inactive, but not a lot of frenetic energy. When we talked about the anxiety it was very frenetic and fast to me. So this seems very slow and deliberate, slow and deliberate. So I actually thought the only place that I can imagine—well no it’s not true. I was thinking if a building suddenly caught on fire I would still need to be deliberate. I might not need to be slow—I could be fast and deliberate.
Coach: Yeah, and just to sort of be aware that it seemed to be a pretty safe generalizable state
(What does it mean to “sort of be aware”? “A pretty safe generalizable state” is jargon. Better to say something like, “Being aware and grounded is a useful resource in almost any situation.”)
but there are times when maybe not like you said when you have to really— Well, I think there are times when there’s life and death where we need to act promptly, quickly, instantly if you like, and we can deal with the issues when we got people to a place of safety. Now so just take a moment and
(There have been quite a few times earlier when “take a moment” has been used without being particularly useful.)
with that in mind this seems to be a state that you would like to keep.
(“A state that you would like to keep” is somewhat dissociated and jargon. Better to say, “So you are fully satisfied with your new response.”)
Client: Yes, definitely, definitely.
Coach: Cool. Brilliant.
Client: Can you come to my meeting with me?
Coach: I don’t think you’ll need me, but here’s what I would— Just take a moment and thank yourself for your ability to learn and the resources that are within you to make these changes.
(This is a nice suggestion to view the change she made as a part of her identity, in contrast to just a change in behavior.)
Client: That’s a good reminder.
Coach: Ahah, Cool. Well I think we’re done.
Client: I think we’re done, too.
Coach: I look forward to hearing how it goes.
Client: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Coach: You’re welcome.
Client: Take care. See you next week.
Remember that despite all my comments, this session was very successful. Your clients want you to succeed with them, and they will often respond to what you mean, not what you say. Still, the middle word in NLP is “linguistic.” The words you say are important, especially in a phone session in which your gestures aren’t available to clarify the inevitable ambiguities in speech.
Furthermore, the as just words of sequence a sentence as in important is, the sequence of steps in leading a client through an effective intervention is just as important. Being precise makes it easier for your clients to change, and that makes your work with them easier and more satisfying for you as well.
Coach’s comments in response
Thanks Steve for the detailed review; it has been very helpful in several ways. Three things that I am really aware of:
Paying attention to 1 and 2 would make me more present with the client and my work with them more precise, efficient, and effective.
Once again thank you for refining my skills and the elegance of my work.
Every now and then, you cross paths with someone and learn a little about them only to quickly realize you’ve lived very similar lives and had very similar experiences. Such is the case between myself and Kim Ades, founder of FrameofMindCoaching.com. Like me, Kim discovered the cathartic, healing power of journaling to get her through a difficult period in her life. Kim, however, took journaling to a powerful new level and began using it to change the lives of many other people. She spoke with me about her experiences and describes the huge changes that can happen in your life through journaling. Listen to our conversation:
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Since I missed my ability to present at the 2016 Women's Fitness Summit about culturally-sensitive nutrition guidance, I decided to blog it instead!
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I’m generally a positive person. I look for the good in each day, make lemons out of lemonade and try to practice what I preach. When negative feelings take over it can be hard to feel confident. Today I was overwhelmed and really tried to be positive person, but it just wasn’t working. I’d be lying if I said each day was easy or that every time I got knocked down I bounced back without a scrape. However I have learned some great ways to feel more positive even on bad days.
Although I thought today was going to be filled with rainbows, butterflies and all that happy stuff, it just wasn’t. I struggled to get the simple things done. The bully in my brain was beating me up, reminding me of how little progress I was making. By the time I sat down to write this I was the poster child for writers block. I felt insecure. I struggled with grammar, with simple concepts and my creative energy was gone. I researched stuff I already knew, wasting my time with articles on things that don’t even matter. I was deep in the “Google Black Hole” when all the sudden I found something that transformed my mood (for a little while at least). An article I wrote a few years ago that was actually good.
We spend so much energy trying to outdo ourselves, trying to be better than the person we were yesterday that we forget how awesome we are. Many of us spend most of our time worrying about the future or fixating on past failures that we don’t sit with whats real: We are only in control of this one moment. Anything else leads to insecure thinking and low self-esteem.
You’ve done a lot of amazing things in your life, from making the team, to graduating, even getting out of bed this morning can be an accomplishment. However, when your feeling negative you forget about how fabulous you are. This is your reminder to look back and give yourself some credit.
The point of this rant is to learn how to embrace the present you and love the old you. Sure you’ve been around people who’ve hurt you, experienced pain and rejection, but you’ve also endured days that were way worse than today.
I decided that I didn’t want to feel like the positive person who wrote the article, the Emily that was brave and put stuff out into the world that she was proud of.. I said to myself “Emily do something that makes you feel a little better.” So instead of looking at the computer screen for another four hours, I decided to call a friend, and then another friend, and then finally texted a friend who wanted to hang out. I ate lunch outside which was okay, I saw a cute dog and played with it which was fun and I reconnected with my old self for a breif period which was inspiring.
These steps are cumulative; they build a new more confident mindset the more you use them. Practice till you get there and you will see progress. Reassess along the way and see how your confidence and positive energy grows. Trust me, it does work when you embrace the current feelings and work the tips above. Remember you have unique and valuable gifts to bring to the world, learn to embrace them even on the hard days.
Emily is a psychotherapist, she is intensively trained in DBT, she the author of Express Yourself: A Teen Girls Guide to Speaking Up and Being Who You Are. You can visit Emily’s Guidance Girl website. You can also find her on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
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Does the idea of selling something to someone you love sound sleazy or conjure up images of a salesman with a greasy mustache and bad suit promising low, low prices on used cars?
We tend to confine our thinking about sales to business contexts – and more often than not it’s something we seek to avoid or shy away from.
But think back to the last time you put your best influencer skills to work, whether that was convincing your colleagues to take a new direction on a project, demonstrating your experience in an interview or pitching a startup idea. Chances are, you’ve developed some pretty good sales skills over the years.
In reality, sales is crucial for more than pushing used cars or hocking the latest as-seen-on-TV product. You can leverage this essential skill to success not only professionally, but also in your personal relationships. Whether you want to win over investors, land a job or organize a team you have to persuade others to support your vision or dream – and this same principle of motivation holds for romantic partnerships as well.
As you chase your dreams, it’s important to “sell” your partner on the positive aspects of change if you’d like them to come along on the journey with you. You can’t expect another person to read your mind, but chances are, if they have a clear sense of your needs and objectives, they’ll be your biggest cheerleader.
Let’s say you’ve spent the last few months frustrated with your job, feeling that you are underpaid, undervalued and not doing something you really love. You feel defeated, unconfident and a bit lost. After much thought (and a few sleepless nights), you decide it’s time to start looking for a new gig.
This is a big decision that will involve substantial time and energy along with emotional up-and-downs. Without a doubt, your career transition will impact your relationship whether you want it to or not. Ultimately, you know that a change – whether that’s landing a new job or being your own boss – will have a positive impact on your relationship. Not to mention, the extra money in your paycheck sets you up for a stronger financial future.
Sounds like a good deal, right? Now it’s time to get your partner on board. Here are six tips for selling your career goals in a way that benefits everyone involved.
Even though you’re a smart, self-made woman who is independent and can call her own shots, involving your partner in your career change instills respect, creating a “were-in-this-together” bond rather than a “me-versus-you” divide. This may include discussing when you start job hunting (before or after your upcoming vacation? when the kids are back in school?), talking about how much you disclose to friends and family or designating a workspace in your shared abode. Even if you think you already know how you’ll address these topics, make sure your partner is aware that you’re thinking about them so that they can feel included.
Taking the leap into entrepreneurship or switching careers can be overwhelming and scary. Allow yourself to be vulnerable and share your uncertainty with your partner. Everyone appreciates feeling needed and chances are he or she will go out of their way to reassure you. Allow yourself to be cared for – your success doesn’t have to be a source of loneliness and suffering .
Outline what kind of support you do and don’t want from him or her. Educate your partner about your goals and how they can best support you. For example, would you prefer they listen without always trying to fix things? Gently explain that when he or she asks how your day went, you’re really looking for someone to listen, not offer advice. If you’re used to spending after work hours together, be clear how you’ll need to adjust this schedule to create time to work on job applications or hustling on a side-gig.
Explain the return on your investment your career change will have for you as a couple. Showcase how short term sacrifices will pay off in the end and benefit your relationship. For example, “When I get this new job, I’ll finally be in control of my schedule and can leave the office at a reasonable hour. Why don’t we have Wednesday night dinner dates?” This will incentivize them to support you all the more.
Once your partner has “bought” what you’ve “sold”, it’s only fair to keep them posted on your progress, like you would a business client.
As you embark on a significant life change – whether it’s changing industries, going back to school or launching a startup – sharing this experience with your partner in a way that gets him or her to buy in and support you is essential to maintaining a healthy relationship that grows over time.
How well this works, in many ways, is up to you and how you sell it.
Get the FREE toolkit thousands of people use to better describe & manage their emotions at melodywilding.com.
Live video to give you a look at what Teyana does during her workouts to get and keep the body we saw in Kayne West's 'Fade' video.
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According to NSA’s Puzzle Periodical, “Intelligence. It’s the ability to think abstractly. Challenge the unknown. Solve the impossible. NSA employees work on some of the world’s most demanding and exhilarating high-tech engineering challenges. Applying complex algorithms and expressing difficult cryptographic problems in terms of mathematics is part of the work NSA employees do every day.”
You can try a couple of their recent, and quite tough, brain teasers here:
More brain teasers, games and illusions here.
“I don’t have trauma.”“What happened to me isn’t trauma.”
“Trauma is something horrific.”
“I should have been able to cope with it.”
“It’s not sad.”
“I’m not upset.”
Accepting you are suffering from trauma is by far one of the most difficult aspects of recovery. I thought that admitting I was suffering from trauma suggested I couldn’t cope with the events in my life or I didn’t have the strength to deal with and process those events. I thought (and sometimes in my dark moments still think) that suffering from the effects of trauma made me weak, broken and a failure. I have met many other people who share this sentiment. They are stuck in a cycle of denial which keeps them prisoner in a cage of negative behavior patterns and harmful symptoms.
Admitting you are suffering is not only difficult for you, but has an impact on everyone in your life, in particular your family. Others around you may not want you to be suffering from trauma as it makes some difficult truths real.
Admitting trauma means other people have to look at themselves. The denial of trauma absolves everyone of their own feelings. Having the strength to say, actually, you know what, this happened and this has contributed to where I am today, is the hardest thing many sufferers will have to do in their lives. Having the strength to say this trauma is mine and I am owning my feelings will mean others have to step back and own their own feelings. Refusing to hold other people’s reactions as my own has been, and still is, nearly impossible. Often you will go against the opinion of nearly everyone closest to you.
Admitting you are suffering does not mean you are blaming anyone. Trauma’s reality does not mean someone must be responsible. The nature of getting better is to look internally and to accept that trauma is a subjective experience as opposed to objective facts of what happened.
So what is trauma? Why are some events considered traumatic to some and not others? Why did this event affect one person and yet have no impact on another? Why do people find trauma so hard to accept? I believe it’s because it is an unspoken topic. There is no narrative for trauma.
The psychological definition of trauma is “damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a distressing event or an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds the ability of the individual to cope and integrate the emotions involved.” This definition often gets simplified into the dictionary definition of “a deeply disturbing or distressing event,” which is where we all get a little lost. It’s very easy to understand trauma as something horrific, like war, or mass violence, or a natural disaster. It’s the “exceeding ability to cope and integrate emotions” section that gets lost on us.
We need to get rid of the view that trauma is an action (an event). The more psychology tells us about trauma, the more it becomes clear that trauma is a reaction. Most importantly, it is an individual reaction.
My therapist is always telling me that some children are born more sensitive than others. The word “sensitive” always irritates me, so we have decided to agree that some children are born more emotionally intelligent than others. They are more in tune to others’ emotions and more able to connect and empathize with others’ feelings.
These children are the ones most susceptible to trauma. Combined with the lack of protective factors such as the ability or willingness to ask for help and inbuilt resilience characteristics, the possibility of trauma already seems higher. Trauma can happen to anyone. It does not discriminate.
The view through trauma-tinted lenses is one of constant fear. It makes the world seem a frightening and dangerous place where no one can be trusted. Trauma leaves people feeling confused and insecure. Many children carry these tinted lenses into adulthood and this is when signs of post-traumatic stress disorder become apparent.
These normal reactions to abnormal events in childhood provided a function while the world was inherently dangerous. However, in adulthood these reactions become abnormal and become a hindrance to the ability to live, love and be loved.
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Anxiety and depression peaks at a very surprising point in life.
People get happier with age, new research finds.
Surprisingly, anxiety and depression peak in people’s 20s and 30s, when we are generally thought to be in our prime.
Professor Dilip Jeste, a senior author of the study, talking about older people, said:
“Their improved sense of psychological well-being was linear and substantial.
Participants reported that they felt better about themselves and their lives year upon year, decade after decade.”
Youth adulthood, though, was not the paradise that is often assumed, Professor Dilip Jeste said:
“This ‘fountain of youth’ period is associated with far worse levels of psychological well-being than any other period of adulthood.”
The study’s conclusions come from a survey of 1,546 randomly selected adults in San Diego County.
Conventionally, scientists have assumed that people’s mental health follows their declining physical and cognitive function.
This was certainly not the case in the new research.
Previous findings on this have been mixed, however, Professor Jeste said:
“Some investigators have reported a U-shaped curve of well-being across the lifespan, with declines from early adulthood to middle age followed by an improvement in later adulthood.
The nadir of mental health in this model occurs during middle age, roughly 45 to 55. However, we did not find such a mid-life dip in well-being.”
People are generally found to have better mental health as they get older — but this hasn’t previously been linked to happiness.
Cognitive decline, while noticeable, clearly does not ruin the enjoyment of life for many, Professor Jeste said:
“Some cognitive decline over time is inevitable, but its effect is clearly not uniform and in many people, not clinically significant — at least in terms of impacting their sense of well-being and enjoyment of life.”
There are a variety of reasons why happiness comes with age.
It could be that older people:
Dr Michael L. Thomas, the study’s first author, warned of its limitations:
“…like many other investigations of this type, it was a cross-sectional study, and thus a snapshot of data.
Also, there may have been a survivor bias — i.e., less healthy adults do not survive into old age.”
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (Thomas et al., 2016).
PsyBlog’s new ebook, “Spark” is a step-by-step guide to using psychological techniques to achieve the goals you want.
Being passionate about a project or goal — no matter how big or small — makes us feel alive.
It is invigorating to think about the changes you could make in yourself or in the world...
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About 42 million individuals around the world suffer from dementia and the most common type is Alzheimer’s disease.
Diet is a key risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, the main culprits being sweets, meat, fried potatoes, white bread, eggs and high-fat dairy products.
However, a review of the research shows that low-fat dairy products — including fish, beans/legumes, grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables — can reduce the risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s.
Unfortunately the Western diet is on the increase in different cultures, thereby increasing the risk of AD.
For example, the change from the traditional Japanese diet to the Western diet in Japan has proved costly.
After the transition, the Alzheimer’s rates in Japan increased from 1% in 1985 to 7% in 2008.
In addition, a new study on Alzheimer’s incidence from 10 countries suggests a dietary supply of meat or animal products (excluding milk which seems to reduce the risk) has the highest associations with AD.
These 10 countries were the United States, India, Egypt, Mongolia, Brazil, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Chile, Nigeria and Republic of Korea.
In the United States everyone has a 4% chance of developing AD showing the nation to be at particular risk.
This is partly because of the Western dietary pattern, which also includes a high consumption of meat.
Dr William B. Grant, the author of this review, said:
“…reducing meat consumption could significantly reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease as well as of several cancers, diabetes mellitus type 2, stroke, and, likely, chronic kidney disease.”
Dr Grant concluded:
“Mounting evidence from ecological and observational studies, as well as studies of mechanisms, indicates that the Western dietary pattern — especially the large amount of meat in that diet — is strongly associated with risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and several other chronic diseases.
Although the traditional Mediterranean diet is associated with about half the risk for Alzheimer’s disease of the Western diet, the traditional diets of countries such as India, Japan, and Nigeria, with very low meat consumption, are associated with an additional 50% reduction in risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”
The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition (Grant, 2016).
Western food image from Shutterstock
