A fourth coaching approach involves some life planning. “Perhaps you need to find another job.” “Perhaps you should consider retiring at this point in your life.” At an even more basic level, this life planning can involve identification of personal values and life purposes, that are then weighted against the health-related costs associated with ongoing encounters with stressful events: “You want to serve other people, but can’t do so if you are always on edge or if you are no longer healthy enough to provide this service.” “You claim to be placing your family at the top of the list; yet you are always too stressed out at the end of a long workday to spend much time with members of your family.”
Physiological Preparation
Our daily behavior is profoundly impacted by our patterns/decisions regarding sleep, exercise, exposure to light, and the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and other mind-altering drugs (including caffeine). We not only create stress-ruts in our life but also alter our polystatic anticipations. From a polystatic perspective, we are likely to find that the anticipation of events in our immediate future is saturated with emotions if we are “hyped” up with a strong dose of caffeinated coffee or if we have not slept soundly for several days.
Emotions will overwhelm the cognitive appraisal required to thoughtfully anticipate what is about to happen or the effect our behavior is about to have on the person we are meeting. Our amygdala rules when we are intoxicated. We will focus on meeting our addictive needs when we are entrapped by alcohol or even tobacco. Other features of our environment, such as care for other people or job performance, are set aside and we anticipate only how our body is about to feel when we are without a drink or cigarette. It may be hard to assist other people until they are “physiologically primed” or prepared for this assistance. If we are “trigger-happy” then we are likely to find it hard to address anxiety-provoking issues in our life. It will be difficult to concentrate on a difficult issue if we continue to focus on meeting an addictive need.
Should a coach insist that her client be physiologically prepared for the challenges of coaching prior to beginning the coaching process? My colleague, John Preston, a seasoned psychotherapist and best-selling author, has suggested that therapist should insist that their clients moderate their caffeine intake before engaging in any psychotherapeutic engagements.
Building on an inventory prepared by John Preston, I have published an inventory for calculating one’s caffeine intake that can be given to one’ coaching clients as they begin their work (Bergquist, 2020). A high score on this inventory suggests that one of the first steps to be taken in the coaching engagement concerns lowering of this score. Our polystatic anticipations and bodily reactions to what we anticipate will be skewed if the caffeine score remains high.
Intimacy and Friendships
Apparently, the neurochemistry associated with the formation of intimate relationships is quite different from the neurochemistry associated with the formation of friendships. In both cases, powerful, chemically based bonds are formed. These bonds are reinforced whenever our intimate or friend appears before us – our body literally “lights up” with neuro-chemical responses – but quite different when the other person is considered a friend rather than an intimate.
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