General coaching approach to take Helena is upset and agitated and can hardly speak when she comes to see her coach.
Provided that Helena agrees, the coach can do a brief exercise with her to allow her to become centered and present in her body which will also open up her mind.
The coach can start by asking Helena to describe her feelings at this demanding stage of transition in her life. Relocation is a time of heavy turmoil. This often goes with a temporary loss of identity. Helena’s identitiy is tied to her profession which has always been the case back home.
Validating Helena’s feelings will open up the way to a fruitful discussion about how she wishes her life to look like and about changes in her life that she may have to make at this stage.
Helping Helena to define her personal values and how she lives them at this stage will be very useful. In this process she may discover that she neglects an important part of who she is and what really matters to her.
A cultural element may also come into this situation. Dominant values in the Swiss culture are ‘understatement and modesty’ versus a more achievement oriented approach in the English speaking cultures. Helena may have to adapt her approach and be more assertive in an interview situation. This kind of more behavioural coaching could be something that her coach can work on with her.
It is important for the coach to carefully observe Helena’s wording, to paraphrase and sum up regularly and to use strong and powerful wording that Helena uses or to come up with metaphors to underline a point that Helena is making.
Looking at Helena’s self beliefs or Underlying Automatic Commitments (UAC) could reveal a belief such as ‘If I have a job, I will be happy in London.’ Or ‘If I don’t find a job now, I will not find a job anymore’. Or ‘Finding a job is demanding’. Whatever we are committed to, will show up in our lives. It can be conscious or unconscious. It is important to identify what those
commitments are and ask the coachee what empowering action they would take based on this new insight.
One of the key aspects of coaching would be to Introduce Helena to the ‘Wheel of Life’, developed by the Coaches Training Institute, The Wheel of Life exercise can be used to identify imbalances in one’s life resulting in a diffuse feeling of ‘not feeling good without knowing why’.