Life Coaching or Therapy is expensive

Life Coaching/Therapy Myth #4

Have you gone through a phase in life when you thought you need the guidance and expertise of a life coach?  You felt you needed a therapist to unload the past and overcome thar which is weighing you down at present? And then you just shook your head and said, ‘Yes, but life coaching or any kind of therapy work is so expensive.’

People often look for quick-fixes instead of life coaching or therapy for financial reasons. Like that cigarette puff which gives you a fake sense of calm, that shoe on sale which replaces your stress with style, that random intimate encounter which makes you feel momentarily wanted, popping those pills which lull you off to sleep or that ‘one more for the road’ drink with the guys which makes you forget it all. However I’d like to propose a question for you here; Life Coaching and Therapy is expensive; as compared to what?

For me, it was a personal investment. I spent five years learning and trying every new theory and therapy during a time in my life when I couldn’t afford it. There was pain from my past that I knew I needed to address, and for me it warranted using my credit card and working two jobs. Now, I’m not surely encouraging you to do the same—that’s a decision only you can make. But my view is that good coaching/therapy is worth the time and money. There is greater cost for not doing the inner work to improve the quality of your life. When you consider how your well-being - or lack of it - will impact your relationships, health, career success, and overall life satisfaction, personal life coaching and/or therapy is an investment clearly worth making.

MYTH: Life Coaching and Therapy is expensive, I can’t afford it.

FACT: Yes, seeing a life coach or therapist often can get expensive. Yet when you think about price, what's the cost of not going for it? Your relationship/marriage? Your job performance? Think about how your distress may conflict with your work, relationships or your life and then make a decision about pricing.

It is also true that you don’t have to always pay top dollar for expert help. Yet people are hesitant about entering a client-coach relationship in order to prioritize their own well-being and let the cost be an excuse for not getting help.

Health insurance companies often provide some mental health coverage, but whether a coach or therapist takes insurance or not varies. If they don’t, many offer sliding fee scales based on income for people who need help but can’t afford it. Most of us aspire to make a positive difference in people lives. We are do-gooders and want to help people, so if someone needs care but can’t afford it, you can usually work towards an installment payment structure which is best suited to your financial position. Thereafter it is just a question of budgeting and prioritizing. Sometimes professionals also provide mental health services for free or at a reduced fee on certain days or hours of business as a gesture of gratitude and giving back to the community at-large.

In conclusion; the long term cost of not getting the help one needs can be high. You may think why should I pay someone to be nice to me and care for me? I can get that for free from a loved one. However, there is a huge difference between a life coach or therapist and your family or loved ones.

What you pay for is their time, expertise and commitment to your success - the caring infact is for free.

Note: Tasneem Kagalwalla offers free of cost online/1:2:1 life coaching every Saturday between 0900 -1300 hours CST. Prior appointments are required. She reserves the right to accept or decline a client based on individual requirements and/or space availability.

Contact Tasneem Kagalwalla for more information on how Life Coaching works best for you.

www.tasneemkagalwalla.com

Click here for Therapy Myth #3 http://tasneemkagalwalla.blogspot.com/2015/01/therapy-myth-3.html  

Click here for Therapy Myth #2 http://tasneemkagalwalla.blogspot.com/2014/10/therapy-myth-2.html

Click here for Therapy Myth #1 http://tasneemkagalwalla.blogspot.com/2014_09_01_archive.html

Life Coaching or Therapy is a pseudo-science, all mumbo jumbo!

Life Coaching/Therapy Myth #3

Imagine this. You’ve lost your job and your career seems to be going nowhere. Your finances are a serious worry and the daily charades of life seem to wear you out. Your relationship status stands at messed up and you are up close and personal with an identity crisis. Mental health challenges have manifested into physical ailments. Depressed and anxious you struggle to stand strong against these extremely trying times. You seem to have tried it all; fought your illness with medications and your mind with will power. You even prayed every day for God to relent and cut you some slack. Yet you just cannot get a grip on things and like bone china you seem to be slowly crumbling apart.

MYTH: Life coaching and Therapy is a pseudo-science, all mumbo-jumbo!

FACT: Now hopefully (and thankfully) you may or may not be going through all of the above all at the same time, however take one or a combination of any two and you still have a pretty hard battle ahead. At such a point of time someone you know directs you to – a Life Coach; a Therapist.

Desperate for a resurrection you eagerly listen, go through several testimonials and then - wait a minute; you stop dead in your tracks. Why? Because you wonder, you are terribly concerned and you absolutely have to know if life coaching/therapy is a pseudo-science before giving it a shot. Seriously, do you really need scientific evidence to convince yourself to take a chance at success?

No, I hear you say. 

Then what is that which is truly stopping you? Are you afraid of trying all over again? Are you scared to commit to your success after a series of bouts with failure? Are you overwhelmed by the diversity of practitioners out there? How do you go about finding a reliable life coach/therapist?  Are you skeptical of the financial and emotional investment? These would be more appropriate questions. For honestly having been there, done that myself the last thing on my mind was the placebo effect or any such scientific predicament. It was instead lack of clarity on the above. So I took the first step. The decision to do it. The rest followed suit with the help of some dedicated research on available life coaches in my area, holistic practitioners and their references.

Having said that it’s ok to be concerned about the subject, after all it has the possibility to bring about great results. Often people think that life coaches or therapists choose to disregard science and instead like to think of it as an art. But this common critique of the profession is filled with misunderstandings and errors that lead people away from a deeper understanding of the complexities that exist in the development and delivery of evidence-based mental-health care. Let’s take a look at some reasons why individuals often do not receive coaching/therapy based solely on what science says to do.

Truth and Science:

Let’s talk about what science is not. Science is not the same as truth. Science is just a method that moves us towards the truth. The amount of effective interventions we have yet to uncover through research will eventually dwarf what we have figured out thus far. Therefore it would be safe to conclude that scientific studies that do exist are full of limitations and likelihood that what is currently termed as a pseudo-science be proved as a scientific cure/breakthrough at a later date.

Generalizations and Science:

We all know that science generalizes in order to conclude. The problem with research studies is that they isolate various mental health issues whilst weighing them against a sizable randomized norm so as to come to an evidence-based conclusion. However how often are two people alike? How often are our models of the world identical in nature? Also for example; how often does a person suffer from obesity only, without it being linked to a lack of self-worth or any other limiting belief? What happens when a client approaches a life coach or therapist with multiple issues? Should the life coach explain to the client that while we do have a scientifically proven treatment for obesity, we don’t yet have an evidence-based treatment protocol for combined challenges? Please come back a few decades later? Obviously not. And so we use our expertise to tailor an individualized coaching plan best suited to the client history and current circumstances. Would this be what you refer to as mumbo-jumbo?

Rapport and Science:

We must consider the role of the rapport between client and coach/therapist as a potential variable that influences the outcomes of coaching and therapy. Surely that’s not the only thing that’s needed. No coach/therapist is sitting around sipping iced tea and making friendship bands with their clients. But a good therapeutic relationship is necessary and a key ingredient that helps people succeed. A skilled coach or therapist can help create a safe and comfortable environment to rebuild one’s capacity to overcome and triumph. I wonder if we’ll ever be able to measure how the client-coach/therapist rapport contributes to the healing process. I hope we do but what if we don’t? Does that mean it’s therefore not part of what makes coaching and therapy useful?

In conclusion; evidence-based treatments are absolutely the backbone of what coaches and practitioners should be using to help people. It is great to know that various colleagues in academia continue to work tirelessly to find evidence-based treatments for those seeking help. We need those scientists working for us all, and science will certainly contribute to our deepening understanding of psychological function and dysfunction. But right now, let’s admit it; we just don’t have all the answers...as yet.

And so for now I will continue to work tirelessly to help individuals, using everything I have in my arsenal. That includes evidence-based practices, knowledge, skill, empathy and staying committed with those, fully aware that we perhaps don’t have all the answers but continue to have the conviction and faith that together we will surely move towards wellness and growth.

Contact Tasneem Kagalwalla for more information on how Life Coaching works best for you.

www.tasneemkagalwalla.com

Click here for Therapy Myth #2 http://tasneemkagalwalla.blogspot.com/2014/10/therapy-myth-2.html

Click here for Therapy Myth #1 http://tasneemkagalwalla.blogspot.com/2014_09_01_archive.html

Life CoachingwellnessTherapycoachmental health challenges

I Hope

8 ways to go from hopeless to hopeful

We’ve all been there. Swinging the seesaw of hope. We’ve experienced the highs of feeling full of anticipation, brimming with confidence, optimistic about the path ahead, encouraged to achieve in spite of adversities. After all; there’s hope!

And we’ve seen days (if not more) of feeling low and miserable, seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, forlorn and lost, we despair; desperate we trust our fractured souls to any ray of hope!

Hope then is like the weave to the fabric of our existence. The quintessential thread that holds us together. Having hope is like taking your next breath; breathing. Without hope; would it be fair to say that we essentially lose motivation, direction or even the will to survive?

Wouldn’t it be ideal if we never had to struggle with the hope-less days and forever remain positively charged? Always be hope-full.

Spirituality, Faith in a Higher Power, Trust in yourself, Belief that everything happens for the best… these are a few of the likely answers and (to each heir own) rightly so. Hope then is intangible, it needs to be felt. It’s a feeling. And luckily a feeling can be evoked.

Like a song that makes you sentimental, an old perfume that makes you nostalgic or a photograph that brings forth happy memories.

So how do you evoke hope?

Here are some ways to do just that.

• Ask yourself, "Are hope and possibilities through faith related things?”

If you answered "Yes," then focus on how to improve your possibilities and the faith to believe. What do you believe in and why? How can working on that make you stronger?

If your answer was "No," figure out the difference between the two – hope and possibilities. That may help you understand how to best use your faith to have hope and see possibilities.

• Look at the people around you. You can learn plenty from them.

Observe those that are making progress toward their goals, are centered, happy and optimistic -- do they do possibility thinking?

• Imagine waking up fresh every morning, truly feel hopeful. That is possibility thinking. Make time every day to imagine the day going well as you work to continue making progress toward possibilities. 
• Get training or coaching/counseling. Sometimes this needs a sincere commitment towards change and can be time consuming. Stay determined to improve. 
• Decide to take it as it comes... accept life events and work with them. Living in denial blocks hope. 
• Take risks, make shifts in your lifestyle if that seems like the way to make progress. 
• Redesign, rebuild -- a little at a time or start afresh, but don't you quit. 
• Relax and be refreshed; meditate/pray and find time for recreation to be able to keep going forward.

Most importantly; pause long enough to realize you probably already possess a seed of hope -- even if you don't realize it! You either feel hope – less or hope- full. Regardless of both eventualities; hope exists.

Look within – hope only needs to be evoked.

Notes from my desk:

Hope has been recognized as an important and central element of healing, and has been known by many other names, including optimism, the placebo effect, self-efficacy, and positive expectancies. A life coach inspires hope during treatment and change. Often equated with the particular promise of a cure, hope is better understood in its broader meanings that involve will, way, wish, action, and horizon. This richer and deeper context of hope is a vital perspective for the therapist. Helping clients to find and realize their sources of hope can be a process of waiting together for a clearer vision to emerge. It is important to remember that the task is not one of installing hope as much as evoking it, calling it forth from the client's own resources. In this sense, hope is not given as much as it is found. What therapists can give their clients is, at most, a lens or mirror through which their own vision is clarified.

Contact Tasneem Kagalwalla for more information on how Life Coaching works best for you.

www.tasneemkagalwalla.com

Do you believe a Life Coach or Therapist will fix you?

Life Coaching/Therapy Myth # 2

You are driving down the highway and all of a sudden your car stalls and swerves. You struggle to keep control and just about manage to get the car to come to a grinding halt. Yikes! Something is wrong with your car.

What’s next? When there is a problem with your car, you take it to a mechanic to get it fixed. You take it to an expert.

What about when you are feeling unwell? You go to the experts; therapists. But you are not a car and you cannot be fixed.

For therapy to work, you need to be an active participant, bringing your expertise about what life is like for you. The best solutions and insights will come from you, with the therapist acting more like a skilled and knowledgeable facilitator, guiding the process. Therapists do not fix you and they do not tell you what to do, how to walk, talk, think, and feel. And thank heavens for that! Can you imagine being dependent on a therapist to tell you how to live?

MYTH: Therapists are experts. They will fix me.

FACT: If only this were true! A qualified therapist is there to guide you through your challenges and therapy is an experience where you can feel relieved that you are not alone with your problems, there is a qualified and proficient individual who is there to guide and direct you to success.

Working with a therapist can be compared to working with a physical trainer. Although a trainer can provide an inspirational structure for change, helping the client to identify specific goals and suggest a regime to achieve them, it is always up to the client to make use of the tools provided.

Therapy can be similarly overwhelming at first. Initially you may not even notice the results. You wonder when you will see the new changed you. It is common to feel a bit worse before you feel better, but if you stick with the process, let go of old habits, and rework some perceptions, soon enough you have your mind and body functioning better than ever.

Therapy does require you to work and does not always provide an immediate sense of relief. You may confront feelings, thoughts, memories or personal insights that are uncomfortable, even painful. These experiences result in you wanting to make changes in your beliefs, values, habits or behaviours that may make you uncomfortable at first.  Yet with time and effort they will result in a happier healthier you.

In that sense therapy is a lot of hard work—a process more akin to going to the gym than going to the spa.

Ultimately the responsibility for change rests with you. The therapist will not provide you with a psychological blueprint of who you are. The therapist’s role is to provide a safe and comfortable environment along with a trusting relationship where questions can be addressed. Therapists will not often give advice, but rather, help you to understand the conflicts within you that make it difficult for you to make your own decisions. Of course there are a-ha moments and revelations during sessions, but for change to really happen and last, the majority of the work happens between (and after) sessions. With your therapist’s help, you work towards your goals, decide on a plan for growth and change, and then practice the new behaviors not only during the sessions but most importantly out in the real world.

In the long run, the goals of therapy are for people to develop more awareness, gain more self-insight, and make the most of their strengths and abilities thereby creating a new compelling future ahead.

People like:

• Taasha made the big move – quit her job and relocated across continents to move forward with the relationship of her dreams.

• Sarah is using the tools and techniques that she learned to close deals in her new Sales Manager role.

• Neil left a successful career with the aviation industry to follow his passion and is now a successful fashion photographer.

You could be next!

www.tasneemkagalwalla.com

As featured in http://whattherapy.com/therapy-myths-busted-part-2/

Click here for Therapy Myth/Part 1 http://tasneemkagalwalla.blogspot.com/2014/09/therpay-myth-1.html