A Coaching Model Created by Aleka Thorvalson
(Life Strategies Coach, UNITED STATES)
Presuppositions to the W.H.O.L.E Model
The W.H.O.L.E Coaching model is a process of transformation and healing based on a Holistic Coaching perspective. The term Holistic, emphasizes the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. From a Holistic perspective then, our lives reflect more than mere physicality. This all-encompassing perspective includes psychological, emotional, and spiritual aspects as well. A Holistic Life Coach strives to grasp this broader view when assisting clients to work through life challenges.
Holistic theory understands that there are many layers of meaning and causation beneath every life challenge. Thus, every challenge that appears has immense wisdom and learning. Within every physical symptom, worry, stress, disappointment, and frustration there is a deeper cause; a system within a system. As a Holistic Life Coach it is vital to help clients seek into those deeper layers to assist clients to locate the underlying agents for imbalance in the system. When we find and undo the cause at its origination we have the ability to create lasting change.
From this perspective then, every symptom, every challenge, can become a doorway to transformation. The way out is by going within.
W- Willingness to see it differently
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor E. Frankl
The willingness to see things differently opens the door to new perspectives. It establishes the confines of that potentially creative space between stimulus and response where new information can be entered into the system to generate change. Chaos is the Greek word for gap. Willingness puts us into this gap, this pregnant pause, between matter and energy. It is through the willingness to be curious, to be vulnerable, to tell our story, feel our feelings, and to be exactly where we are, that we can begin to move through the stages of change and transition. Willingness cracks the door to self- reflection with intention to begin to witness from a different perspective illuminating the present moment. In essence, willingness is the first step, the “cosmic grease” that ignites the energy of transformation.
The Model:
YOU represents the present time at the point of change between the sum total of past history and future potential. It demonstrates that that there are many facets of a Holistic self and whole self. As a coach the willingness of a client determines the ability to coach them. In turn, it is the coaches’ willingness to create an open and safe space creating trust and rapport that can ignite the coaching process.