Why you should consider using a life coach.

I know, life coaching has a bit of an image problem. When I try to explain it to some people they say things like '.....but what do you DO?' They may think it all sounds a bit 'airy fairy' or 'New Age' or even (gasp) Ame-ri-can! After all, us Brits are so hard-nosed and down-to-earth right? Meat and potatoes, none of that fancy stuff for us. The stoicism that got us great! And I have to say; all that is true. There is a stoicism in the UK and it has served us well in past times. So, is that it? Should we all just grit our teeth and knuckle down with that Bulldog Spirit? Just get the job done eh Monty? Perhaps, and as a coach I would agree that there are times when this approach is extremely effective because we don't want to all be whimpering wrecks running for help at the first sign of trouble.

But the reality; the reality is that we are complex beings full of feelings and we live in a world that can also be overwhelmingly hard to navigate. True, you might not hire a life coach if you're living on the breadline or struggling to feed your kids, but you might. It's no accident that life coaching has emerged at this time in human history, in western culture. People are looking for more than just life-in-survival-mode. Not surprisingly they are interested in more abstract and elusive goals such as fulfillment, happiness and achievement.

For the last few thousand years, and particularly in the last few hundred, we have lived with the urgent need to provide, for families and for ourselves. Principally this has come to be expected through an exchange of work for money. This was an exchange that worked quite well for a long time. Employees were grateful to have the security to bring up families and feel certain about the future. But things are changing. Actually they have already changed. In reality people are no longer satisfied with the deal of the industrial age under which the majority still labour. Organisations may thrive, individuals get worn out. They know they are missing out on something, and they're right.
The media works (inadvertently) in the service of companies, corporations and governments by instilling fear through relentlessly sensationalised reporting which engenders a non-stop sense of crisis so that employees are sent scurrying back to the grindstone with their heads down.

But now so many people are beginning to ask awkward questions, such as: Am I happy? Can I be happy and what will it take?
Artificial Intelligence and other technological phenomena will no doubt transform our society beyond recognition in the next decade, probably in ways that we don't even know yet. But one thing is for certain: people will have more options and more leisure time than ever before and life coaches, counsellors and psychologists will be required to help them adapt and manage the onslaught of change.

We need a way to navigate through all of this. You are not a machine. You ARE a complex, feeling individual and somewhere, somehow there is fulfillment waiting for you. You do not have to passively accept things the way they are. But as long as you are scurrying, as long as you buy into the scary looking version of the world and put your aspirations on hold, you are unlikely to be able to clear a space to really get to know who you are and why you are here, let alone do something about it.

Life coaching is a service that is perfectly suited to the existential dilemmas that are already looming for post-industrial societies.It is probably THE best and most effective way to get focused and set a course that YOU have chosen rather than feeling it has been thrust upon you.  So what is it that you want to do? What will it take to get you to the place of feeling ownership of your daily activities, tuning into your purpose with a clear understanding of what's important?

Life coaching CAN be about exploring feelings, about discovering who you are and what you want. It CAN be about setting definite goals for higher achievement, success and recognition. Life coaches are interested, for the most part in supporting you in getting where you want to go, as long as it aligns with your values. Life coaching is as multi-faceted and many-layered as individuals and what happens in life coaching will depend uniquely on the person that you are.

Why the mind is designed to stop us growing.

Most people in western society would probably describe themselves as open-minded. However, it doesn't take much testing to discover that this claim is often made falsely. There is a good reason for this being the case and it lies in the nature of the mind itself.

We can think of the mind as being like a machine or a computational device. It produces thoughts, feelings and images in response to incoming data or stimuli. It works automatically, driven purely by the incoming stimuli, giving out results in the form of judgement, words, concepts and emotions that can be experienced as waves of varying intensity. For the most part, such responses from the mind go unchallenged. In other words we tend to accept these mind-responses as true, as real and as 'us'.

In addition to this machine-like modus operandi, another characteristic of  the mind is the impulse to defend itself, and what it sees as its integrity in response to new stimuli. The mind knows itself very well, although it tries to conceal this fact from all of us. It knows that its foundations, its principles and beliefs are in fact very shaky and it needs to keep this fact away from our consciousness as much as possible by putting on a good show of being confident or sure of its opinions. Notice that this is a characteristic that tends to strengthen with age.

 In this way, when something threatens the minds' integrity by introducing a radically new idea, the mind's instinct is to close ranks and defend against such an invasion. It also needs to produce a justification for doing this in the form of a belief, facts, data and opinions.  This is one of the characteristics of the mind that keeps people stuck in life patterns that don't work, that bring harmful or damaging results, and that allow them to cede responsibility for their own existence.

We can also think of the mind as a system. A system is something that works with an integrity, or completeness that allows it to function. Closed systems have the characteristic of running down over time in accordance with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. However, an open system that has the capacity to exchange energy with the environment has the potential to expand by 'escaping into a higher order' . this can occur when the system interacts with the environment to the degree that it is sufficiently destabilized that its whole integrity is threatened. When this process is pushed beyond the tipping point, the system either collapses altogether or re-arranges itself in a new and superior pattern that has the capacity to incorporate and make use of the new level of interaction with the external environment. 

When we apply this principle to the mind we see that before expanding into a higher order, the mind's integrity must be threatened to the extent that it is destabilized and this would involve challenging and undermining the core principles and beliefs that keep the mind locked in a set of limiting patterns.

Unfortunately, the mind itself is structured to exclude and avoid such experiences. This is partly due to a cultural meme that says something like 'It's bad to be uncertain, destabilized and have our views undermined'.

In order to expand our mind, our view of the world and our possibilities, we must open to new ideas and remain open. Understanding that a period of mild or extreme destabilization is part of this process can help us to engage more productively and grow as we expand our view of the world on an ongoing basis.

Michael Brooman June 2015

A REAL alternative-Part 2

In the first part of this two-part blog post, I described how I came across the 'teachings' of Robert Scheinfeld as a REALLY alternative way of living.
I'm going to continue here by going into more detail about what differentiates these teachings and why you may wish to investigate this opportunity further.

If you look at most self-help programs, techniques and strategies, you'll see that they recommend a set of actions that are supposed to change or improve our lives in one way or another. Let's take as an example meditation. In meditation the aim is to quieten the mind by going into a particular state that may involve breathing techniques, counting and/or forms of visualisation. The idea is that we can close out the 'noise' and interference of our busy mind and experience a state that is closer to 'blissful' or 'calm' or 'peaceful'. The implication is that we can feel 'better' or happier or more in control by doing this and that it will somehow impact on our lives.
This is fine as long as it lasts, but if you have ever tried meditation you will know that as soon as the session is over, the mind starts up it's activity again and very soon we are back where we started. In other words the supposedly positive effects only last as long as we are engaged in meditation itself and sometimes for a short while afterwards.No real transformation of our actual EXPERIENCE has taken place.
The structure and aim of meditation is based around the wish to change our state, even if only temporarily, and experience a different state of being which by implication is superior. Unfortunately it is an aim that is in direct opposition to the way our contemporary lives are structured and the way our minds function.

In the teachings of Robert Scheinfeld, which I shall refer to as Phase 2 from here, there is an opportunity to move into an experience of appreciating whatever we are experiencing, whether we call it peace, calm, stress, fatigue, excitement, frustration, anger etc. What Phase 2 represents is a major, MAJOR shift in the way we perceive experiences. It is almost a mirror image of our 'normal' way of perceiving and experiencing the world, which is called Phase 1 in Robert's work.

In Phase 1 of our human experience, there are 'good' and 'bad' events and emotions. Judging our experience in this way is SO ingrained that it is rare that we even question the validity of our judgements.
Almost all self-help and wellness techniques incorporate the idea that there are good and bad experiences and states of being. They attempt to maximise the 'good' ones and minimise the 'bad' ones through an endless variety of strategies.
In the Phase 2 model that Scheinfeld teaches, these distinctions are seen, and experienced in a wholly new light which increasingly as time moves on provides a gateway to a completely different way of living.
In my view, the central piece and most powerful tool that Robert Scheinfeld offers us is something called 'The Process' which is an activity for transforming the way we experience the world and in particular the emotions and events that we would usually term 'bad' or 'negative'. This Process also transforms 'how' we live our lives as the established 'change, fix and improve' way of living gives way to a massive sense of appreciation and openness to whatever comes along in our lives.

The Phase 2 journey, which involves the transformation over time of how we experience ourselves and our lives is a significant undertaking which in most cases will run into years of living in Phase 2 mode before entering a new state which can be termed Phase 3. Yet the journey itself is a fascinating and rewarding one that gives us a completely different perspective on what is REALLY happening here in the world, where the REAL power source driving reality is located, and what's REALLY possible in this realm that we could call 'The Human Game.'
For more information, Phase 2/3 coaching is available in the UK by writing to me at:

pathway@michaelbrooman.co.uk