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Hakomi is a mindfulness-based approach to psychotherapy that can be highly beneficial for coaches looking to improve their coaching practice and help their clients achieve their goals. While Hakomi therapy is typically used by mental health professionals, it can be adapted to fit the needs of coaches and applied to a wide range of coaching settings.

One of the key benefits of Hakomi therapy for coaches is that it can help them develop greater self-awareness and insight into their own patterns of behavior and communication. Coaches who practice Hakomi therapy can learn to cultivate a greater awareness of their own thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, which can help them identify any blind spots or areas of improvement in their coaching practice. By developing greater self-awareness, coaches can become more effective at helping their clients achieve their goals and reach their full potential.

Moreover, Hakomi therapy can also be highly effective in helping coaches develop greater empathy and understanding towards their clients. Coaches who practice Hakomi therapy can learn to develop a greater awareness of their clients’ experiences and needs, which can help them communicate more effectively with their clients and build stronger, more authentic relationships with them. By developing greater empathy and understanding towards their clients, coaches can create a more supportive and empowering coaching environment that can improve client outcomes and satisfaction.

Hakomi therapy can also be highly effective in helping coaches develop greater communication and interpersonal skills. Coaches who practice Hakomi therapy can learn to communicate more effectively with their clients, and develop greater empathy and understanding towards their clients’ needs and experiences. By improving their communication and interpersonal skills, coaches can build stronger, more authentic relationships with their clients that can improve client outcomes and satisfaction.

Another benefit of Hakomi therapy for coaches is that it can help them address their own emotional and psychological issues that may be impacting their coaching practice. Coaches who practice Hakomi therapy can explore their own thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and gain greater insight into their own patterns of behavior and communication. By addressing their own emotional and psychological issues, coaches can improve their own well-being and provide better care to their clients.

Hakomi therapy can also be highly effective in helping coaches address any underlying issues or challenges that may be holding their clients back from achieving their goals. Coaches who practice Hakomi therapy can learn to help their clients identify and address any limiting beliefs or emotional blocks that may be impeding their progress. By helping their clients overcome these challenges, coaches can empower their clients to achieve their full potential and reach their goals.

In conclusion, Hakomi therapy can be a highly effective tool for coaches looking to improve their coaching practice and help their clients achieve their goals. By developing greater self-awareness and insight into their own patterns of behavior and communication, coaches can become more effective at helping their clients achieve their goals and reach their full potential. Moreover, by developing greater empathy and understanding towards their clients, communication and interpersonal skills, and addressing any underlying issues or challenges that may be holding their clients back, coaches can create a more supportive and empowering coaching environment that can improve client outcomes and satisfaction. Hakomi therapy is a powerful tool that can help coaches provide better care to their clients and improve their own well-being and professional satisfaction. Ready to give it a try? Reach out to me or find someone near you from this directory of Hakomi certified practitioners.

During an e-mail correspondence with a subscriber this week, I was alerted to an essential topic for the newsletter: how the economy has trickled down to impact service providers.

This particular subscriber is a service provider and mentioned that the economy hadn’t impacted business as much until recently when clients who had been laid off and hadn’t found new jobs were unable to continue to receive services.

Ouch. I knew this subscriber wasn’t alone, so I wanted to address this issue in the article this week.

While I know we are all up on our wealth consciousness and reading whichever books and listening to whatever recordings keep us upbeat and motivated, this is still a challenging time. And for many of us, we may just be starting to feel it now.

As service providers, we depend on an economy that supports people with an income that allows them to afford us. When our clients lose their incomes, where does that leave us?

Often with fewer clients and a scarier balance sheet.

What to do with this problem?

Often, the sad part is that our services are never more valuable than in this kind of stressful period of time. Finding ways that you can offer services in new and inventive ways that are affordable to the client and aren’t too much of a drain on you can often be a good solution:

For example, the Quirk Tank is a solution to help more business owners find their quirk at a lower price point so that they can benefit from the information. Is there a way to offer your services or information at a lower price point to a larger audience? If service must be given one on one, can there be a smaller option of time… for example a 15 or 30 minute session for a coach at a lower price or in order to get quick support: a quick support package might keep clients who depend on you able to get the help they need.

Also, developing an info product, such a series of videos available to members on your website, or a video and e-book course can be a way to transmit information to those who can’t afford your full price services.

Two good questions to ask over and over again are:

Who needs me most right now who can’t afford me?

and

How can I offer them something of value that doesn’t drastically lower what I need to make per hour?

We’d love to hear any and all suggestions you have on this topic or successes you have had in solving this issue… please share them with us on the blog!

And anyone else who has topics they would like to see addressed, please do write to me as this reader did… we love to serve you and give you the information that you want and need!

Keep up the good work. It’s a tough time, in many ways, but this can also be an amazing way to find new ways of offering your value in new ways…

image: Banksy

Itching to break away from whatever is standing between you and your more realized self?  Are you ready to leap into the depths of your own mind to figure out what unique features you have to offer the world that could also work to benefit you and your business?  Are you ready to stick your toe into the waters of discovering what the quirk is behind your own work?!

Join us for the QUiRK TANK!!!

It will be a wonderful group experience that will create a safe environment to allow you to come into your own without feeling overwhelmed or like an island in order to do so. You don’t have to give up on your dream and get a job you hate just to get on with the lifestyle you want and deserve.

We’re all in this together!  We’ve made this a FREE class, so no excuses…Let’s make some magic, people!

When do you find yourself being struck by the highest levels of inspiration? When do you experience your “Aha!” moments? Is it when you’re sitting in front of your computer screen? Probably not. More often than not, we assume that screen acts much more like an intimidating hinderance than a supportive muse.

So…we have quite the problem then as entrepreneurs, don’t we? How do we continue to work work work to keep our businesses going, but also wear the hat of “idea haver” — hmm?

The answer is to DO things! Have experiences! Take a walk, a shower, paint a picture, stretch, sew, cook, dance in the living room — whatever things you can DO that help get those creative juices a-flowin’ — THAT’S what you need to start devoting more of your time to doing.

Without giving yourself space to cultivate your “Aha!” moments, all that work you keep putting into your business will eventually be unimportant.

Realize. Prioritize. Focus. Experience. Aha! 🙂

Many of you have heard my story: I was a kid with bifocals. Not the cute kind you can get now with cute light frames and crazy fun colors.

I looked like church lady. With an eye patch. Kid kryptonite, essentially. I switched schools partway through kindergarten when we moved and let’s just say, it wasn’t the easiest move.

I did make a couple of good friends, but when they got in a fight my little elementary world was shaken.

The community I had hoped for in my new school didn’t come until much later when I discovered drama classes. We were requested to act weird and let it out.

What a relief! I even got trophies for it at drama competitions.

Still, the fear that something about me didn’t fit in hovered for years and in many ways, it’s still there.

Many of us never had a drama teacher like mine, and even if we fit in in some places, I know lots of people feel awkward somewhere, always worried they’ll say the wrong thing or get found out as strange and just too crazy for everyone else…

I’ll tell you: the days of hiding your weirdness are over. People are letting the quirk fly all over the place and they are prospering from it.

The worst thing you can be in this economy is forgettable and bland, like vanilla pudding. It’s tasty, it’s reliable, and it’s totally predictable. Why have vanilla when you can have boysenberry or cocoa chili pudding?

It’s time to find your flavor if you don’t know it, or to put out a tray of samples if you do.

This week… share your flavor in the comments… if your brand was a flavor, what would it be? Share it with us in the comments and on the Facebook fan page and then keep thinking all week “How would my brand flavor write this email? Dress? Give this talk? Connect with this client or customer?”

I promise that while the world likes vanilla, they are going to love the real flavor you are out to give…

Often we are afraid to share our quirks out in the world, especially right after we begin to discover them.

“Why would anyone have any interest in learning this about me?”

“What the heck does this even have to do with my brand?”

“Why are people always talking about what they are having for lunch on twitter?”

I get questions like this all the time, and people’s fears about sharing who they really are online range from fear about sharing details about their family and loved ones to hesitation about even posting a picture of themselves in their marketing materials.

If you’re feeling confused and scared about getting more personal with your target market online, you are not alone. Most people fear that anything they share is TMI (too much information) and that they will end up embarassed by putting a quirky or unusual detail into the public eye.

In order to make this feel a bit safer, I’ve put together a list of questions I like to ask myself before posting content online…you may want to review these questions when you put posts up on twitter, facebook, or elsewhere for the next week to help get your internal compass calibrated toward useful quirk only…

1. What is your desired outcome from this post? (to inspire people, appear more human, show empathy and the ability to relate to your clients, share valuable info, add humor)
2. Who is your target market/my followers, and how are they likely to take this post? (remember, YOU are not necessarily your target market. Something that feels like TMI may be welcome to your readers and vice versa- try to see it from their perspective)
3. How does this post fit with/conflict with your brand? (If your brand is fun, playful or zany, you can and should post silly things. If you are a corporat consultant, you might want to stick with more of the business formal personal details like loving the view at an event or a funny thing you’d feel comfortable sharing in the board room…)
4. How do you feel in your gut when I think about putting this post up? (Sometimes something that goes against all the logic we have used in the first three questions just feels right, and sometimes it feels wrong even though all other clues say “go for it!” Trust your intuition- we often know more than we think we do…)

You’ll have your own journey with this process, and as many online professionals have learned, your clients and customers are much more interested in getting to know you than you realized. Start out slow with something small and quirky, like a new flavor of tea you’re trying, or a fun outing you took over the weekend and see how it goes. Then apply the questions from above and build from there…

Make sure to share your results in the comments on the blog or post them on the facebook page!

As I sat down to begin to write my first guest blog post in ages, I had my iTunes going on shuffle.  Bjork’s “All is Full of Love” began to play.  I listened, thought it’d be a great blog post, changed my mind, continued to listen, then decided to run with it.

you’ll be given love
you’ll be taken care of
you’ll be given love
you have to trust it

maybe not from the sources
you have poured yours
maybe not from the directions
you are staring at

trust your head around
it’s all around you
all is full of love
all around you

all is full of love
you just aint receiving
all is full of love
your phone is off the hook
all is full of love
your doors are all shut
all is full of love!

all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
…

I think “love” is something that we all spend SO much of our time thinking about (maybe even to the point of obsession?), planning for, questioning, seeking out…and yet I feel that all too often we forget the fact that love really is all around us already – in this very moment!  Isn’t that an amazingly comforting notion?!  It should be…

Her lyrics tap into the concept that the love is there – it’s already a very real and very strong presence in our life; it just may not be where we’re currently looking for it.  Beyond that, we may ACTually even be blinding ourselves in a way…shielding our eyes, closing our eyes, forcing tunnel vision upon ourselves…it’s like looking through a telescope and hoping that a shooting star will go across the lens rather than just staring up into the heavens and watching them shower down.

So…in this very moment…we may actually be missing out on the very thing that we’re searching for! How crazy is THAT?!

The good thing about it: if we allow ourselves to become aware that we may NOT know what’s best for ourselves right now, and that there’s a different plan that we should go along with, it just might lead us to something bigger and better than we could have ever imagined…but we have to be open to receive it.  We have to trust it.

We can take control of our own lives (even if that means choosing to abdicate some of our control to the higher powers that be)…we can open our eyes to see this love that is already all around us.  It’s a beautiful thing to awaken to, I assure you.

Find the love that’s already beaming in your life.  Embrace it.  Show gratitude for it.  Harness it.  Let it feed you and motivate you and inspire you and engulf you and comfort you and indulge you.  Then pass it along.

All is full of love.

I love this image, which I took the last time the ladies and I got together in Lake George. One of the things I love most about getting away to a more remote spot is the chance to slow down and connect with stillness.

A practice that was recently given to me by a mentor and coach of mine brought the word stillness into mind recently.

Many of us work so hard all the time, and much of this work is mental. We start sentences with “I think…” even when we are talking about feelings!

In order to get to the guts of what you want to do and what you want to offer in the world, it’s essential to go deeper. Here is the practice I was given:

Sit in a quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed. Close your eyes and breathe for a few minutes. Put a hand on your belly in order to connect with your intuition and body sense rather than staying on the hamster wheel of the brain. Then ask your intution a question.

It might be as simple as “what do I need to do next?” or more complex as in, “How do I be the me I need to be in order to bring my biggest possible success into the world?”

Then get very still and listen.

Let the answer come in from the belly and the body. If you start to strain and feel pressure to “come up with something” as I started to feel when I first tried this, it won’t work. Try again if this happens.

The answer I got? Stillness. That’s it. So I’m digesting what it means to bring more stillness into my work. It’s very different than a to-do list or a spreadsheet of goals.

I’m digesting and paying attention to how what I do each day takes me closer to stillness or further away from it.

If you try this practice out… look for a single word that comes to you from your intuition…

Share it with us on the blog! We can all try some being an intuitive space together.

It’s so easy to get bogged down by everything our businesses throw at us each and every day (or close to it).  This makes finding small things to re-energize you THAT much more important!

Figure out what little things you can provide for yourself or do for yourself that will put you in a happier, more creative and “go get ’em, Tiger!” kind of mindset.  You’ll feel better for it, which will only pour over your business, relationships, etc.

It’s a win-win! 🙂