My Selph health coaching journey - Week 6

I’m going through Selph’s Coaching Programme and recording my journey as I go!

My name’s Sarah-Lizzie, and you might have seen my other articles on our Learn page! Like everyone, I have my own goals and challenges to overcome. I can admit my health needs improving. Holistic health coaching sounded like the right place to start. A few weeks later here I am - looking back on the sixth week of my Selph coaching journey, marking my half-way point of the course!

You can read about my first week to find out why I chose to start my coaching journey. If you missed last week’s instalment, you can read my thoughts on Week 5 here.

The theme of Acceptance this week showed up for me in many ways. During the coaching course, I feel like I’m going through a transformative journey. Each new theme has somehow fit perfectly with the different challenges I faced that week. This theme was a tricky one!

We’ve all heard about how we’re our own harshest critic. In the course so far, I’ve learned more about how to practise self-compassion and replace my inner critic with my best friend instead. Last week I noticed how I tend to self-sabotage and hold myself back from things. When I act this way, it moves me further away from the things that are important to me - confidence and happiness.

This week, I felt myself struggling creatively and hitting a roadblock. I noticed that my resistance is mainly linked to stress or my perceived lack of confidence.

I had been putting off making several macrame jewellery pieces for some of my customers. There had been such a long build-up to finding their perfect gemstones to work with. I was resisting, too afraid of not living up to their expectations.

Luckily, thanks to the theme of Acceptance, I was able to spend time in reflection this week. Instead of being ruled by my thoughts, I brought awareness to how they were impacting my behaviours.

Instead of just getting on with making the necklaces and completing the task, I was actively avoiding it and beating myself up for doing so. I also wasn’t letting myself structure in restorative breaks unless I felt I’d “earned” them, which never happened because of my refusal to make any progress.

My coach supported me, telling me I was only human and that we all have to accept ebbs and flows of creativity and motivation.

I tackled this resistance by breaking down the large tasks into smaller sized chunks. Instead of thinking about how I needed to make all of my necklace orders, I focused on just one part of one commission. When I checked it off my to-do list, I felt a sense of accomplishment and relief, which pushed me forwards and onto the next thing.

At the end of each day, I used my gratitude journal to list down all the things I was grateful for. Then, I would fact-check my thoughts and feelings for that day. Did my feeling of getting nowhere with tasks make sense, or had I actually accomplished more than I’d given myself credit for? On reflection I could see that I’d done more than I’d felt.

In my daily messages, my coach encouraged me to reframe my self-talk, instead leaning on my humour to overcome resistance and find acceptance. She said the following which really resonated with me:

“Be kind and take every opportunity to laugh at yourself in those uncomfortable moments of awareness. This will go much further in motivating you than being harsh and overly critical.”

Inspired by the daily messages, I noticed that when I’m telling someone about myself or my day, I usually get them to laugh about it with me. I frame stories about my life in a humorous way.

Leaning into humour as my coach suggested will make me more resilient when I inevitably have tough weeks in the future. When my thoughts are rain clouds, I’ll have fun and laugh as the rain falls. If I lighten the mood for others, why don’t I for myself?

I will use my sense of humour to support me through the tough times - especially when I’m struggling with things like stress or motivation. Accepting things the way they are, laughing and moving away from resistance will bring me closer to inner peace.