Moving Through Fear in an Age of Uncertainty

“The best way out is always through.” — Robert Frost

We at Learning in Action are here for our community, and we’re listening deeply to what’s needed in the world right now. And what we’re hearing is that there’s a need for resources and insights for working with fear.

We developed the new video course, “Moving Through Fear,” to help you name, tame and move through the fear of what you may be experiencing and would be so natural to be experiencing during this really challenging time.

Much has been written about how to handle fear of things we can control, like fear of flying, fear of public speaking or even fear of failure. But less is available about how to handle the fear that comes with situations like we’re experiencing now —those over which we have little to no control.

Whether they’re top of mind or running in the background, our questions and doubts can generate fear. Will life ever return to normal? Will I or someone I love get sick? Will I lose my job? What about my financial future? 

And so that’s what this article — and the video course — is about. How do we work with fear in the face of great uncertainty?

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Posted in: Emotion: Fear|Mindfulness & Meditation

The Information and Gifts of Emotions

Whether our clients say it or not, how they feel about what they bring to us for coaching plays an essential role in the coaching itself.

That said, it isn’t always straightforward as to how to coach our clients around their feelings. Some clients discount the importance of their feelings, some clients don’t have ready access to their feelings, and others simply don’t have a language for what they feel.

By request, we created this primer for you to facilitate coaching your clients around emotions.  Share the context below and the downloadable emotions guide with your clients to help them understand the role emotions play in their lives, the importance of accessing them, and a language to use to identify and talk about them. (more…)

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Posted in: Emotion: Sadness|Emotional Intelligence

You Are Enough

It’s a question that’s remained largely outside of my conscious awareness, lurking in the shadows of my shame, for years. What’s the question?

Am I enough?

Am I enough for my clients? Do I know enough? Am I smart enough? Do I have enough experience? Am I a good enough coach? Do I know what my client needs from me? Can I be that? Deliver that? Bring that?

These questions get triggered when I feel like I’m failing my client. When they are struggling and our sessions don’t seem to help. When I don’t know the questions to ask, the words to say, the feelings to express to help them feel better, move forward, see a new perspective, find their way.

Am I enough?

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Posted in: Coaching|Emotion: Sadness|Emotional Intelligence

Coaching: By Design or By Default?

I’d rather listen to this than read it.

A number of years ago, I began to see a pattern in myself that I could no longer overlook.  Whenever I coached an older female client, I experienced an internal dialogue that was critical of them. YIKES! That’s a big f-ing deal!  

The foundation of my work as a coach is in seeing the hero in every client. My internal disparagements were infecting me and my client relationships and souring our results. Oh, I could always justify or explain away my criticism. “She’s being a victim.”  “She’s just wanting attention.” But when I looked at my default patterns and the results they created, it was clear. I was the problem.

Default Patterns

We all have patterns. Patterns of thinking, feeling, and wanting that reflect experiences from our past and how we’ve been shaped by them. Not metaphorically or figuratively shaped, but literally, neurobiologically shaped. Our brains, our minds and our bodies have been shaped by the events of our lives and the meaning we’ve made from them. And if we are not aware of it, we bring that pattern of being into our present moment experiences with our clients.

The perniciousness of these patterns is that they tend to be invisible to us. They are our “default settings.” They lie outside our conscious awareness. And because our patterns are largely hidden, we will tend to cling to, explain and defend them, even when they don’t serve us or our clients.

We will experience a given moment and believe that our internal reactions are reasonable and responsive to the unique situation at hand. And yet with help from reflection and self-examination, we can see that we’ve had many moments just like this one, with different people, in different circumstances, that yielded similar results. And we are the common denominator. (more…)

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Posted in: Coaching|Emotional Intelligence|EQ Assessment

FREE Podinar: Mindfulness Coaching: The New MBA – Mastering Being and Awareness

APRIL PODINAR: MINDFULNESS COACHING – THE NEW MBA – MASTERING BEING AND AWARENESS

Learning in Action’s Live Monthly Podinar Championing Transformative Change

FRI. APRIL 26, 2019. 800-9:00 am PT / 11:00-12:00 noon ET

MINDFULNESS COACHING:
with guest Dr. Steve Romano
Executive Coach, Managing Director of Olistica and the Center for Sustainable Leadership

Join Steve Romano and Alison Whitmire, president of Learning in Action, for discussion and Q&A around mindfulness coaching, and how a proven methodology for this expansive way of operating is critical for 21st century leaders and coaches.

This podinar (interactive podcast+webinar) will cover topics like these:
– What Being and Awareness is, and the outcomes or results they produce
– The 5 components of Being: breath, energy, investigate, navigate, generate.
– The Triple Loop Listening Model
– The Six-Point Transformational Coaching Model

You will leave with tools and new ideas of how you can use Mindfulness Coaching to help your coachees to experience a new level of leadership that leads to deeper, more transformative change.

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Posted in: Coaching|Mindfulness & Meditation|Podinar Series