What Mental Health Coaching Means To Me
Tricia Gehl, Boon Coach
My lifelong struggle with depression and anxiety reached critical levels in November 2017. During that same month I also started my coach certification program with iPEC Coaching. The night before the program started, I sobbed uncontrollably in a taxi on my way to the hotel where the first in-person training module would take place. I’d had a particularly tough day at work, and the self-loathing dialogue was on a loop for the entire 30-minute drive:
“You’re not even smart enough to figure out a simple work task, what makes you think you can learn how to be a coach?”
“You’re so weak you can’t even handle it when something small goes wrong!”
“You are such a mess! What makes you think you’re going to be able to help someone else?”
“You can’t even get your own life together, how are you going to help someone else with theirs?”
“This will be just another thing you start and quit; you’re going to fail again.”
I was so distraught, and so convinced that the negative self-talk was 100% true, that I almost asked the (very concerned) driver to turn around and take me back home. I was prepared to give up before I even started. I am forever grateful to myself for not making that decision, as this was a huge turning point in my life.
A few weeks after starting my training I had a serious conversation with my primary care physician about taking time off from work, getting into therapy, and getting on some medication. I started seeing a psychiatrist for medication, attended twice weekly 1:1 therapy sessions, and attended group therapy for my emotional/compulsive eating issues. It was a start, and I was showing up, but I really struggled with therapy. It was extremely difficult for me to open up and just “start talking” about past trauma, big emotions, and everything else in between. I spent a lot of those first sessions just sitting there, which my incredible therapist assured me was okay.
Part of the coach certification process consisted of coaching, and being coached by, your peers. With coaching, it’s all about empowering questions! Asking open-ended, empowering questions helps the client to connect the dots, see things from all sides, and much more. Although I struggled with sharing outright, it was impossible for me to not answer a direct question, no matter how uncomfortable the answer. Working with my peer coach(es) helped me to get so many thoughts out of my head, and I slowly started to become unblocked. That verbal flow translated to my therapy sessions as well. I was talking about SO much during my coaching sessions that it now felt less scary and uncomfortable to share openly with my therapist.
Therapy allowed me to sift through the trauma of the past, while mental health coaching helped me connect the dots to how that trauma, and my response to it, was impacting my present and future. Mental health coaching helped me see things from all sides, make plans, and identify what could get in the way of me moving forward. More importantly, it helped me see a way through, and believe that I could actually live the life I wanted, and that I had a choice around how I showed up in my own life.
I will be forever grateful to my amazing peer coaches for providing me with the space, compassion, and support I needed to finally release all I’d been holding onto. Their gentle yet powerful questioning, acknowledging & validating, and patience helped ease me into the deeper therapy work that I so desperately needed. Mental health coaching quite literally saved my life.
Here are a few things to consider when thinking about working with a mental health coach:
Finding the right fit
Finding the right mental health coach (or coach of any kind) is like dating. Is the chemistry there? Do I feel comfortable sharing openly with this person? Do I trust them to support me as I grow and change? If you don’t feel a deep sense of psychological safety when working with your mental health coach, then it may be time to try another coach on for size. If you aren’t 100% comfortable you won’t get what you truly need from your sessions.
Release the pressure
I recently started working with a new client who was looking for some coaching around stress and burnout management. During our first session, the client confidently declared: “I’m sure we can get this all sorted out in 6 sessions.” Within our first two sessions we uncovered some additional stressors that the client had not been fully aware of, let alone planned to work on; but as often happens with coaching, issues come to the surface and present themselves whether you plan on it or not. My client was so upset! Not because we’d uncovered another issue, but because they were now worried they wouldn’t be “fixed” after just six sessions. Give yourself permission to let go of any expectations you may have around working through things within a set time limit. Releasing the pressure around time, and other (often unhelpful) metrics, gives you the space and freedom to do the work without parameters or limitations. This frees you up to simply explore.
Show up (even when you *think* you don’t have anything to work on)
Make your coaching sessions a priority, even when you don’t feel like it or don’t think you have anything meaty or significant to work on that week. I can’t tell you how many coaching sessions start with a client saying: “I really don’t have anything to work on today,” and end with massive breakthroughs! If you have a session on the calendar, show up and start talking; I guarantee you will always find something to work on, talk through, or brainstorm around.
Know when to call in the bigger guns
Mental health coaching helps shift people from functional to optimal. Although in coaching we don’t dig deeply into a client’s past, we may reference or explore past events through the lens of how they’re impacting the present and future. Coaches support their clients to identify triggers, provide them with tools to gain mastery over those triggers, and in releasing any inner blocks that may be preventing them from moving forward and reaching their goals.
However, when events of the past have a deeper hold on us, and we need to do some significant exploration to help release trauma and heal, seeking a licensed therapist or counselor may be a better way forward. Knowing what modality of support you need is key, and your mental health coach can guide you toward therapy when necessary.
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