My Approach
My approach is grounded in the Neuroscience of Change and the iPEC (Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching). Neuroscience is a multi-disciplinary practice inviting us to take an innovative look at what shapes our perception and behavior equipping us to become equal to the challenge we face by maximizing whole system intelligence. iPEC complements neuroscience by offering a methodology to explore underlying patterns—conscious and unconscious programming that limits us. We have a far greater capacity to change than we ever believed possible. Coaching will offer you practical actions that generate reliable results. For those who want to quantify and measure your progress we offer tools:
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An inner balance sensor that gives real-time feedback on how to shift from stress and frustration to balance and resilience. You get to examine firsthand how shifting from one state to another affects your daily reality. There are several tools available to ensure you get the one that fits best for you.
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An assessment that takes something abstract, like the way a person views the world as well as approach to life and turns it into a metric. This assessment allows you to reshape perception and behavior in a way that increases your ability to meet adversity in way that builds creative strength and flexibility. You can measure your progress over time.
Here are some ways we might proceed together.
Discover the invitation encoded in your challenge
“We can shift states. When we shift states, we have a totally different portfolio of feelings, experiences, and behaviors. If our body shifts….we perceive the world differently and react to the world differently, even our access to certain brain areas changes and we become different….This physiological shift changes our autonomic state and enables us to interact with the world differently.”
-Stephen Porgess
Neuroscience illustrates what Albert Einstein meant when he emphasized that a problem cannot be solved with the same thinking used to create it. To understand the opportunity within a struggle, it is paramount to make conscious what is usually unconscious. Prior to investigation, one must be clear about the mind state or lens of perception used to view adverse circumstances. A variety of coaching tools and techniques will permit you to shift quickly between different states so you can explore the resulting differences in worldview, feeling, thinking, and behavior. This places you in the seat of power to choose the best approach.
Access Your Whole System Intelligence
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”
-William Blake
We mistakenly imagine that our minds are disconnected from our bodies. In fact, we have a distributed brain with three major functional brains, heart, gut, and head, each with complex neural networks. Our gut operates largely independent of the brain in our head and “is the only part of our nervous system that can override our brain.” When we integrate all three, we navigate the world more effectively. This multiple brain integration, or whole system intelligence, equips us with a powerful inner guidance system to negotiate formidable problems in a way that enhances rather than diminishes. Coaching will uncover your optimal integration strategy coupled with tools and techniques to stay grounded in this state of being throughout your day for maximum personal power.
Embrace new possibilities
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening.
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.
-John O’Donohue FOR A NEW BEGINNING
Our brains and physiology are not the static entities we previously believed. The truth is, we continually develop and change our brain-physiology throughout our lives. Because of this we have the capability to create new social realities at any point in our lives. It is never too late.
Our social reality is shaped by our experiences within our environment and our responses. We live with a brain structure that moves so quickly below the level of our conscious awareness to respond to and predict our reality that we believe we see the world objectively and mistake our created social reality for the empirical world. For example, when we respond to the world in stress, our physiology immediately shifts, minimizing peripheral vision, flooding our system with cortisol, and shutting down creative centers. We become cognitively, perceptually, and emotionally impaired. Alternatively, within as little as 30 seconds, we can shift to brain integration and our nervous system shifts to renewal.
Learning to identify and shift mind states gives us much greater control over our reality than appearances lead us to believe. This changes the game. Rather than being at the mercy of our circumstances we have the power to shift our brain-physiology and refashion a reality that is more in line with our life’s desire. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, calls this a superpower and notes “A superpower works best when you know you have it.” Coaching supports you to shape your unique vision and craft a plan to operationalize this vision.