Health coaching is still a newer industry. Much like yoga, there are many styles without a truly unifying alliance yet in place. That being said, when the coaching is described as “holistic” we are referencing the integration of all realms of life. Holistic refers to the whole; an intimate interconnectedness of all parts explicable only by referencing the whole. We are speaking on the human experience - body, mind, emotion, spirit. “Spirit” can be substituted with whatever works for the individual from religion to nature.
Health coaching is an industry on the rise given the state of our nation’s health and its healthcare system. Health coaches are not doctors, therapists, or nutritionists, although the practice holds strong components from all three. We support these professions, in many cases working alongside them, as well as referring out to them as necessary.
So what happens within a coaching session? Holistic health coaching means we are peering into all realms of life to find areas we can tweak to benefit the whole:
Health
Movement of body
Nutrition
Home & work environment
Relationships
Social life
Spirituality (insert your own vocabulary)
Creativity & self-expression
Finances
Career
Continuing education
Overall joy
We are looking at root causes of disease, or lack of well-being, preventing and healing dis-ease, rather than slapping a Band-Aid on the byproduct for temporary relief.
For the coach, sessions include deep deep listening to the client often beyond what the client is actually saying. What does this mean?? Well, some folks want a coach to be specialized in order to understand what exactly they will offer and what exactly the outcome will be. Commonly heard: “I want to lose weight.”. Commonly thought: "This person will give me the magic combination of diet, nutrition, cleanse, green juice and exercise which will for sure help me lose weight." While all of these will certainly assist and often remedy an issue, many times a deficiency in an area seemingly unrelated is actually the missing link!
Digging deeper, and this happens quite often, the client eventually finds that a certain person in their life, friend, relative, or partner is actually causing tremendous stress, turmoil, obsessive thought, and all related emotions leading to a severe lack of wellbeing expressing itself through additional weight, that annoying skin condition, chronic fatigue, loss of additional relationships, and so on. These conditions then will not go away by adding more vegetables to one’s plate. In fact, when a force to be reckoned with is sucking so much of one's time and energy, it’s really hard to eat more vegetables. So once we get to the root cause, we begin the evolution.
Holistic health coaches listen, support, guide, teach, coach, consult, deduce, heal, and inspire change in mind, body, thought, leading to transformation. Taking people from where they are now to where they want to be is what we do.