Easier Said Then Done

Stress gets blamed for most everything, and much of time deserves the accusation (60 percent to 90 percent of health-care professional visits are stress-related - https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/10/relaxation.aspx ). Wellness and health coaching clients inevitably recognize that excess stress in their lives is affecting their quality of life, performance at work, and their very health in negative ways. Finding a way to…

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distant couple

“Don’t get too close to your clients.” It may have been my junior year of being an undergraduate psychology major when a professor offhandedly gave this warning to me and a couple of other students. There is always this question about ‘therapeutic distance’. Clearly when a therapist allows their own feelings of attraction or repulsion, insensitivity or caring to interfere…

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long road

Returning from the 2013 National Wellness Conference this month, I continue to be amazed at how wellness coaching has become such a vital part of the wellness field.  The tiny trickle of interest in wellness coaching that began in the late 1990’s is now practically a tsunami of both excitement and action washing the field forward with surprising speed.

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tree hand growth

In “The Self-employed Wellness Coach and Market Development – Part One: Closed Doors, Open Doors”, http://wp.me/pUi2y-9L, we shared three keys to opening up coaching markets and improving what you deliver:

#1 – Help others realize the true potential of wellness coaching.
#2 - Realize the true potential of wellness coaching ourselves!
#3 – Create even more value

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pathway through ferns

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu

History and Context

laozu oxIt is said that the legendary Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, rode off on the back of an ox when leaving the Middle Kingdom. Before a sentry guard would let him pass out of the city gates, he asked the…

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people on beach at sunset

When the best leader's work is done the people say 'We did it ourselves.'                                Lao Tzu

In Part One -  In the previous post "The Tao of Wellness Coaching – Part One - What Centers Us?"   http://wp.me/pUi2y-lN   we grounded ourselves in the history…

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motivate others

“Don’t ask how you can motivate others. Ask how you can create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves.”
Edward L. Deci

The motivation of the coaching client for change is usually seen as the foremost factor in the coaching process, yet many coaches lack adequate knowledge of this concept. Some coaches believe that is it somehow their…

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camping

As health and wellness coaches work with their clients to help them live their healthiest lives possible, an understanding of the basics of Self-Determination Theory of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (http://selfdeterminationtheory.org), is very useful. In the Part One blog posting on this subject we looked at how this theory addresses human motivation. (https://wp.me/pUi2y-nT). Here we…

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referrals hand computer

A critical issue for all coaches is to be clear about when and how to refer a client who is best served by seeing a mental health professional either instead of coaching, or in conjunction with it. This will be the first of a multiple post series on this vital topic.

Working on lifestyle improvement is going to bring

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Michael Arloski, Ph.D., PCC, CWP, NBC-HWC

Health and wellness folks are sometimes confused about the role each professional might play in helping individuals to live their best life possible.  Our clients are seeking to be healthier by losing weight, managing stress, stopping smoking, becoming less isolated, and often, managing a health challenge of some kind.  To do so they need:

  • excellent wellness information

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chair on beach

No matter how intensely we human beings think about time, the Earth rotates on its axis in the same twenty-four hour cycle. Yet time is all about our perception of it, and far too frequently we view it as a scarce commodity. Time scarcity thinking is just as detrimental to our health and wellbeing as financial scarcity thinking, maybe even

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piercing

When our coaching clients experience complete acceptance of who they are without judgment, and feel prized and understood, great things happen.

The suspension of judgment is a real challenge for many people. To keep ourselves safe we have learned to make distinctions in the world. Our ancestors needed to quickly appraise the behavior of an animal and know whether…

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Don Ardell

Don Ardell is truly one of the founders of the wellness movement that we can identify as getting in gear in the late 1970’s. His foundational book “High-Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs and Disease” was ground-breaking and he has since contributed more wisdom through authoring numerous books, being a true ambassador for wellness worldwide, and importantly reminding us…

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Wellness Coaches

The field of wellness coaching is growing and more job opportunities are unfolding for people with the right training and expertise. More and more a qualification for those wellness and health coaching positions is a certification in wellness coaching. At the same time there is concern and confusion about just what a wellness coach certification is and means. Licensure, certification…

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dandelion breath

It surprises many people to discover that the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease and cancer, is chronic lower respiratory diseases. These conditions take twice as many lives annually as does diabetes. Yet, unless COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), or another such disease is part of your life or family, the seriousness…

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A Holistic Approach

Most clients who struggle with medical adherence and/or the lifestyle improvements recommended by their treatment team (the Lifestyle Prescription) benefit from the structure that wellness coaching provides as well as the power of the coaching alliance. Clients are attempting to adopt new behaviors, shift from old unhealthy behaviors, and often reorganize their lives radically to do so. They benefit from…

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Univ. of Wisconsin-Stevens Point where the National Wellness Conference is held.

Analysis of a field of service, like wellness coaching, is always tricky. How do we know how well it is being received, how much it is growing, etc.? The best test is the market demand, and we are definitely seeing that with The Wellness Coach Training Institute (http://realbalance.com/) as we grow. Another way to find the pulse to put one’s…

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fireworks celebration

The Holidays are a time to practice what we preach about wellness so you haven’t been seeing much activity here. Hope you are enjoying these days in the very best of ways to enhance your well being.

New Year’s Day is fast approaching and is a classic time to reflect on the old and consider the new. New Year’s…

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couple sunset

Where Listening Starts

An essential part of any wellness coach training is focusing on developing competency in what the ICF (International Coaching Federation) calls Active Listening – Paraphrase and Restatement; Reflection of Feeling; Request for Clarification; the use of Silence and Intuition; Summarization. Yet the active listening skills that we talk about aren’t really skills about how to listen

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Americas Health Rankings Map

In the midst of the healthcare crisis, America’s actual health, in many ways, is improving! It’s easy to feel discouraged by the political struggles, obesity and diabetes “epidemics”. Hearing that the U.S. has a worse life expectancy than Slovenia and Chile is very disheartening. Yet, despite some huge challenges that aren’t going away, there is an upside.

The 2013

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Wellness Coaching News

Books by Dr. Michael

 

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Health Coaching Books

All books can be purchased through wholeperson.com or Amazon.com

 

Dr. Michael Arloski

Advancing the Craft of Health & Wellness Coaching

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