Hello , how are you this week? I hope things are going all right for you. Today in this year's trawl through neuroscience, I will describe one of the most
surprising things that it has discovered in recent years, which has huge practical consequences for us. Then a very neat metaphor/model that I've come across, to further help us understand and manage our experiences. Plus some books to think about, and an invitation!
What are emotions, really?
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I was intrigued to learn from Dr Sarah McKay's work about a recent new understanding of emotions. I hinted at this is a recent book recommendation and I'd like
to say a bit more about it here. The seminal book is 'How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain'
by Lisa Feldman Barrett. (my Amazon link). We need to go back a bit to see why this is important, and think, what is the brain for? From an evolutionary point of view it is mainly for making movement possible, and thus to find food and survive. And in the interests of that need to
survive, the brain can now be thought of as a sort of prediction machine (although it's nothing like any machine we could make or dream up!), in the form of millions of neurons connecting and 'talking' to one another. There it sits, in the dark, isolated inside our skulls, and all it has is the input from our senses, both external and internal, and it constantly tries to 'make sense' of all this. It's always thinking - mostly unconsciously - what is going on out there? What do these sensations
mean? Is my human in danger? What is likely to happen next? How should I best prepare to meet it?
And the thinking is that an emotion is the brain's creation, construction, best guess of what our internal bodily sensations mean, in relation to what seems to
be going on in the outside world, all devoted to keeping us alive, and managing what Lisa calls the 'body budget'. Knowing this helps us look at emotions in a new light - more a source of information, rather than thinking we are just overwhelmed by them and at their mercy. For example
if I wake up in the morning I might feel fantastic if I had a good night's sleep or crappy if I didn't. The emotions I feel are related more to my own state than to what's 'out there'. So I can reflect on my emotions and see what they are telling me. Do I go back to bed or bounce off to the swimming pool? We feel what our brain believes. (Far out, eh!) And we are much more in the driver's seat than we might think. Practically, this means that the best thing we can do to manage emotions is to manage that 'body budget'. I've written extensively about this in other newsletters over the years as you can see in the archive. I just call it wellness! What could be different for you, if you knew this?
Whilst researching for the ebook I am currently writing, I came across an absolute treasure trove of robust scientific and practical articles in the website Positive Psychology. There are a lot of free articles which you can see for yourself, on all the things I talk about and more. I am thinking of subscribing, which will give me more resources that I can share with you when we work together as individuals. For
now, I wanted to share the basic idea of a model they use, about Sailing. You can get the whole thing as a free download from their site. Now Real Sailing is not my thing - I love to be by the water but I am not keen to be on it! Yet it does reveal many very rich metaphors, and this is good because
basically we think in metaphors - what is this like? Have I ever seen this before? (There is a whole realm of coaching that is based on metaphor, called Clean coaching, if you'd like to learn more about
it.) We can look at our lives as if we are sailing on the water. There we are at the centre in our boat, and lots of questions arise. Where are we going to? Do we know? Have we got a compass? Have we got crew to support and help us? What's the weather like? Do we even know how to handle a boat? Which bits
don't we know about? Are there other boats around? Are they like mine? If your life was a boat, that's like what?
I mentioned that I am working on an ebook, and there will be various bonuses and extras to go with it. It will be called 'The Compassionate Explorer; a holistic guide to self-discovery and resilience.' In it I distil much of
what I have come across in my own exploration and development the last twelve years or so, and from things that come up in the coaching I have given and received. I am editing it myself, and I would like a few people to read it over and check for obvious typos and mistakes. Of course the final responsibility is mine.
So I am looking for three volunteers, who will get the current draft for free, in return for constructive feedback. I would like to know, is the tone right? Too detailed? Not enough? How was it useful? What did you do
differently as a result? Would you recommend it to a friend or colleague? Anything else you think might be useful to tell me? I will also give a free 30 minute laser coaching session. on a topic of your choice, plus some of the bonuses when they are ready. I will send the draft to the first three people who reply and ask me! Thank you in advance!
What's going on at This Coaching Business
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- I still take a few individual clients and my coaching packages and downloads are in my Shop. See here for full details. Many combinations are possible, depending on what you need now. I usually work remotely these days, on Zoom or Google Meet, although if you are local it's often good to meet in person at
least once. Please note I am still in New Zealand until mid April, and there is overlap mostly for early evening for the UK. My calendar shows UK appointments from
April, so feel free to have a look and book in advance. (NB I don't work in the US or Canada.)
- Harrison Assessments is a
comprehensive system based on enjoying your work (how radical is that!!) which can investigate the whole of the employment life cycle and beyond, showing how your strengths need to be balanced and what is need for you to flourish best in your work. I now have a dedicated
website and a new package in my Coaching Shop based on Harrison
Assessments. And I've added some more brochures in Dropbox below to show the range of services that are offered. You can get in touch for a free call to find out more, on the booking link at the end of this email. I work mostly with individuals and my associate colleagues at Synergy Performance Associates do the bigger projects. Here are a couple of case studies, for the workplace,
- I'm still happily working through my course on Fusion coaching , which looks at the integration of coaching and counselling. As Frances, the trainer, says, 'Sometimes we are in the ‘OK’ zone and sometimes we slip into the ‘not OK’ zone. It's just part of dealing with the inevitable ups and downs of life'. This course will give me some additional skills in this area, so that I can provide more value. It's going well and I hope to complete by the summer.
- From time to time I write for a couple of websites, such as the Life Coach Directory.
You can access all the back issues of my updates, with different themes over the last few years, on my website. There are two archives; one up to May 2018 (don't
sign up for this one as it is archived, just view it) and one since then - when the world changed with GDPR!
- You can access the rest of my website here, with various free goodies, especially the Personal Life Analysis, which gets you started with the best places to make changes in your life. You can use it as often as you want, perhaps to track your changes over time. I'm aware that there was an issue with the graphic displaying. This has now been fixed, so do have another go if this affected you. There is now a new one, linked to my work with Synergy Performance Associates, and it looks at your leadership capabilities.
I always do a free 15-30 minute intro online call to make sure coaching is right for you before starting work with you. You can check my availability on the button below. (If it isn't right for you I'll try to signpost you to something that is.) And if you can't see a suitable time, contact me anyway and I'll
find one for you. Important - please don't phone me on your ordinary mobile line between now and April while I am in NZ as it will probably cost you a fortune!! Email or What's App instead. I won't have voicemail on, for the same reason.
That's it for now, - have a great weekend. I'll be in touch again in a couple of weeks or so, All best wishes, Barbara
P.S. if you like this update and you got it elsewhere, you
can get your own personal regular copy by subscribing safely here. Please feel free to share it with anyone you think may like it; just keep the attribution to me. You also get a free email course on sign up that will help you increase your well being, effectiveness and resilience. |