The term “holistic” comes from the English language and means “holistic”. Holistic Coaching is about exactly that:
The person is not reduced to his symptoms, but considered as a whole. It is an increasingly popular form of coaching,
often complementary to medical treatment.
What is Holistic Coaching?
Holistic Coaching can provide clarity and new orientation for numerous problems and questions. As already mentioned at the beginning, Holistic Coaching looks at the person as a whole. The aim is not to conceal the disturbing symptoms, but to find out and eliminate the causes. This is the only way to ensure that the quality of life improves permanently.
Symptoms, whether psychological or physical, are often an expression of deeper issues. For a layperson (or even for yourself) it can be difficult to understand the connections between a symptom and the core conflict behind it. This is where the Holistic Coach comes in. Holistic Coaching views body, mind and spirit as one.
In the first step, the Holistic Coach will take a detailed look at your life story. Then you will put the pieces of the puzzle together in individual conversations to form an overall picture: In what situations does the behavior that triggers your distress occur? When did you first notice the symptoms? Which measures can help you to act in a self-determined way.
Where does holistic thinking originate from?
Holistic health has been around for thousands of years, despite only being applied to the coaching world more recently. It has its roots in traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine. You can find references to holistic thinking and holistic health in the work of Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates, Pythagoras and Aristotle going back to the 4th century.
The idea is that you think of the human as a system consisting of multiple parts, some internal and some external factors. Holistic coaching looks for answers considering the different parts and how they interact with each other. In many ways, part of our day-to-day thinking is holistic thinking. For example, if you’re having a bad day at work, that usually has several reasons. These reasons could be; you fought with your partner before going in, you got up late and didn’t have time to do your morning run, a colleague you don’t like is in the office, the tasks you do are understimulating, and a job you had left for too long was due today. Holistic thinking is about acknowledging all of these factors, internal and external, and identify what you can change so that tomorrow is a better day in the office. You can’t change which days your colleague is in the office, but you can make sure you get your morning run done on those days, so your day gets off to a better start. The idea that one part of a system can never be fully functional without the cooperation of the other parts is not a new concept.
What is a holistic lifestyle?
What does it take to live a holistic lifestyle? Holistic living is more of a philosophy than a rulebook. To be holistic, you have to focus on the sum of all the parts of your life.As an example, you have to get past the simplistic thinking that ‘exercise’ is only for the body. You can exercise your mind and spirit, too. Your whole health is dependent on understanding the full picture, not just the parts that get magnified by the busy parts of your day-to-day life.
For instance, if you feel physically unhealthy after a vacation spent eating potato chips, chocolate and ice cream, your mental performance will suffer as well. You might have less patience and feel more tired. The first step to holistic thinking is to acknowledge that the way you treat your body affects your mind, and the way you treat your mind affects your body.
Following a week like that, you’ll probably focus your efforts over the coming weeks on exercising and detoxing your system. However, holistic teachings suggest that focusing all your efforts on exercise alone isn’t enough to overcome your challenge.
After all, what happens at your next opportunity to gorge yourself with sweets and snacks? The better way to permanently heal your unhealthy habit is to make changes to other symptoms, too.
Ways to work with me
I’m here to support and guide you to self-manage strategies to
achieve optimal health and wellbeing
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