Gay Life CoachingIn the first section, I’ll introduce you to some of my assumptions about gay life coaching, happiness and contentment, citing some of the recent research in this area. Then with the rest of this page, I’ll describe the process of gay coaching, how it’s different from therapy, and how it might be a useful support for your own personal journey! The Paradox of Seeking Happiness In some ways, searching for happiness is like chasing a rainbow—the faster you run, the more it recedes. Instead of sitting still and enjoying the rainbow, we end up experiencing our own grasping. The New "Science of Happiness" Yet there are ways to enhance our sense of well-being in the world. We now know a lot more about the essential conditions of happiness. Martin Seligman, in his book Authentic Happiness, identifies these as “positive affect (feeling good), engagement, and meaning.” I would add a fourth aspect to these: a sense of equanimity, or contentment, which arises from being in the present, conscious of your own awareness. People often think of happiness in terms of various pleasures: sex, food, drugs, or thrilling experiences. All of these can be quite enjoyable, but the pleasure we feel from them doesn’t last very long. Living a life solely dedicated to seeking one sensual experience after another can easily lead to addictions and compulsive behavior. Freud suggested love and work as the main sources of human fulfillment. In addition, finding and developing a sense of meaning and engagement beyond yourself, by doing something you find inherently interesting and worthwhile—whether through spirituality, politics, or volunteering for some cause you believe in—can also contribute to our sense of well-being, engagement, and meaning. Being totally engaged in the moment can lead to a satisfying feeling of flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihali (pronounced "chick-sent-me-high") the author of Flow, suggests we're in flow when we have enough of a challenge to engage us, but not so much that we feel overwhelmed. This provides a wonderful optimization of experience—we're nearly oblivious to the passage of time, because we are so involved with whatever we’re doing. Mindfulness offers another way to experience flow by helping us get in touch with our own sense of being-in-the-moment—which ends the chase, and can be gratifying in itself. Having some confidence in our ability to engage with the world leads to a sense of efficacy. Then we can be more responsive, rather than reactive. Instead of grasping at whatever catches our attention—whether it’s the latest gadget, sex, money, or power—we can assess whether a given action really serves us. So Gay Life Coaching is really about helping you identify and maximize your strengths in pursuit of goals that serve your core values. In the sections below, I’ll outline my approach to help you reach whatever goals you’d like to pursue! Inner Coaching and Performance Coaching What's the difference? Inner Coaching focuses on clarifying your values, and identifying your passion! This process helps you get in touch with what's really important to you. Whereas, Performance Coaching focuses on putting your values, purpose, and passion into action. It helps you define goals, structure specific tasks, and follow through. In many ways Inner Coaching and Performance Coaching complement each other: Getting in touch with what's really important to you can help you figure out what your goals are, and provide the motivation you need to stay the course! Inner Coaching often begins with reflecting on your own sense of meaning and purpose. You might then define goals in any of the following areas: physical and emotional health; friends and intimate relationships; career goals; social or political involvements; personal growth and fulfillment. Performance Coaching helps you translate these broader goals into practical objectives, which can be something as simple (and as difficult!) as: improve your diet; increase exercise; stop smoking; find a relationship; develop a new career; get organized; reduce clutter; travel; prepare for an exam or complete a project; explore your creativity; learn a new skill—such as meditation, dance, sports, art, or music. In addition, we also look at action steps you can take between now and the next time we meet, in order to move you along the way toward your goals. Here are some areas that gay men often look at in Gay Life Coaching, to gain a sense of living a more balanced life: Intimacy and gay relationships Family Social support Health Diet Exercise Professional and career satisfaction Education Financial goals Recreation and vacations Fun and laughter! Creative expression and appreciation: Music, dance, photography, and art Personal growth Getting organized at home or at the office Spirituality, or other sources of meaning So how does Gay Life Coaching work? What if I don't meet my goals? We'll start with Inner Coaching, looking at your own values, sense of purpose, and life goals. If you already have a specific goal in mind, we'll start with that. If you're not sure, I'll help you explore what's really important to you. Once you've decided what you want to work on, then we'll move into Performance Coaching to identify some practical steps toward that goal, along with a realistic time-line. We'll also discuss how to anticipate and overcome likely obstacles. Then you'll let me know when you've accomplished the task, and we move on to the next step. If you haven't followed through, you don't get "punished" for not doing your homework! Rather, we look at whether your stated goal was realistic, or what else may be getting in your way that still needs to be addressed, such as blocks, negative beliefs, or fear. We do the best we can to counter these blocks with a realistic assessment of your true abilities. Then we try again until you meet your goal! Sometimes blocks occur because our goals don't reflect our real values—maybe these goals came from parents, teachers, or from some image we're trying to fulfill that doesn't really fit our true nature. If that's the case, we'll try again to get in touch with what you really want. Some specific techniques include visualization and guided imagery; countering negative beliefs; affirmations; mindfulness; and re-envisioning your future. So I really do act as a gay life coach for you: I help you identify your values, purpose and passion; refine your goals; establish practical objectives; break these down into workable steps; counter obstacles that get in your way; challenge self-sabotaging beliefs; and follow through to accomplish your goals! What's the difference between Gay Life Coaching and Gay Positive Therapy? FAQs Many gay life coaching skills are commonly used in gay positive therapy, as well: gay life coaching is essentially a refined method for helping you focus and follow through on specific goals. Gay positive therapy can help you get in touch with your emotional life and deal more effectively with anxiety, depression, grief, and loss. You begin to work through unresolved issues that may be getting in your way. Gay positive therapy can also be very helpful in recovery from addictions, codependency, or other self-defeating behavior. With gay life coaching, we assume you've resolved many of these issues (or at least you've got a firm enough handle on them), yet you still want to move ahead with specific goals. The focus in gay life coaching is more on the future than on the past, more on self-actualization than on healing from previous trauma. Gay positive therapy fosters self-acceptance and authenticity, which creates a great foundation for personal growth! Inner Coaching helps you get in touch with your own vision, then Performance Coaching helps you translate your vision into action. In other words, you're ready to zero in on exactly what you want to accomplish, and I'd like to help you get there! As a form of mental health treatment, gay positive therapy may be reimbursed through your health insurance. Gay Life Coaching, however, does not involve a mental health diagnosis—it's really about your own personal growth—so it's not reimbursable through health plans. (Although some businesses will pay for their employees to receive coaching for work-related goals!) Therapy and coaching are often structured differently: psychotherapy is usually a weekly session where I see therapy clients in my office. In contrast, coaching also takes place over the phone. I'll work with coaching clients wherever you are—we don't have to meet in person (although I'm perfectly happy to see you, as well!). Also, coaching sessions are usually 30 minutes, rather than the 50-minute therapy hour. It may take place over a few weeks, rather than the months or even years some forms of psychotherapy take. As soon as you've reached your goal and you're feeling confident you can sustain your progress, that may be enough for the time being—and of course you're welcome to come back again if you have some bumps along the way, or you have another goal you'd like some help with! What's the advantage of having a gay coach who's also trained as a psychotherapist? While I'm not offering psychotherapy over the phone, I do have a wealth of experience as a change agent in people's lives. As a motivational coach, I use a cognitive approach, visualization, and mindfulness to help people overcome blocks, focus on their own goals, and follow through with sustainable changes in their lives. Gay Life Coaching, or Gay Positive Therapy? Do I have to choose? If you're not sure whether gay positive therapy or gay life coaching would be the right choice for you, that's all right! We'll figure out which approach would most likely suit your current needs. Some people may have issues left over that they still feel the need to work on in psychotherapy, yet they also have enough "emotional space" available to really focus and move forward on a specific goal. If this is the case, coaching can often serve as a helpful adjunct to psychotherapy. It's usually just as well to separate these tasks with two different providers: you work on unresolved issues with your psychotherapist, and your coach helps you focus and follow through on a particular goal. So how do I get started? Give me a call if you'd like to explore further! For a free initial consultation, give me a call at 415 821-7665 during regular business hours, or contact me through Contact Rik, with some good times to call you. Risk-free! I want you to be happy with our work! I want you to be thoroughly satisfied with our gay life coaching sessions. If it turns out that after our first two sessions you don't think my coaching has been as helpful as you hoped it would be, I'll gladly refund your payments! So, if you're curious about how this process might work for you, give me a call at 415 821-7665 and we'll take it from there!
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