Bob and Marlene Neufeld coaching
Marlene and Bob Neufeld
Our coaching principles:
- We believe that the main issue that
people face is expanding their capacity to give and receive love and
to handle greater levels of intimacy in their relationships and in
their lives. We call this the "upper limits pattern",
acknowledging that we all have an upper limit on the amount of joy,
love and positive energy we allow into our lives. Over time, our
coaching allows you to expand your ability to handle more love, joy,
positive energy and intimacy.
- We emphasize personal integrity in all
the techniques we teach. For us, integrity includes being able to
tell the unarguable truth, to listen generously, to take full
healthy responsibility, to be emotionally literate, and to make and
keep clear agreements. We encourage revealing and authenticity
rather than withholding and concealing.
- We focus on distinguishing between
what you can and cannot control. For example, you can't control
whether someone likes you, but you can control whether you talk to
that person about your feelings. You can't control whether you feel
angry or frightened, but you can control your actions when you feel
a certain way.
- We look for the commitment issues
underneath complaints. Commitment issues show up in two ways: one or
both partners have not fully committed to the relationship and
hidden unconscious commitments sabotage our conscious commitments.
- We focus on assisting people to move
from entitlement to appreciation. Relationships thrive and grow in a
positive atmosphere and wither when partners retreat into an
atmosphere of rights and privilege.
- We assist you to open to more
creativity in all of your life. When creativity is missing the
result is conflict and a sense of "being stuck" in our
relationships.
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WHAT TO
EXPECT AS A CLIENT:
We use a body-centered coaching model while integrating a variety of
therapeutic methods. We coach both individually as well as working as a
coaching team. As you will see, our "2 on 2 couples coaching"
is different from traditional marriage counseling in a number of ways.
What is coaching?
- Our coaching is centered in the
present and in what you are experiencing. It focuses on you
creating, taking action and moving forward towards your goals,
aspirations, and fulfillment. We assist you to create action steps
which will allow you to practice and integrate your learning and
allow you to achieve the life that you really want and love.
- Our coaching is not about giving you
the answers. It's about focusing on your strengths and accessing
your truth to find the most effective answer for you. We ask
questions that will take you into the unknown and bring forth wonder
and curiosity.
- Our coaching is about developing an
ongoing partnership. Coaching is like having a personal trainer for
your life! We recommend that you make an initial commitment that
will provide you with plenty of time and support to integrate all
your learning (i.e. for a minimum of three to six months). After
this period, we will review whether you want to continue. Commitment
to a specified period and coaching throughout that period will allow
you to generate and sustain the results you want.
- Our coaching is not about fixing "broken"
people. We encourage you to let go of seeing yourself and others as
improvement projects. We believe that people already have all the
resources they need inside themselves. Our job is to provide
experiences so you can access your full creative potential. As you
integrate your learning, you will naturally create the action steps
needed to increase your happiness and success in life, relationships
and work.
- You don't have to be in crisis to
benefit from coaching. We often coach happy, well-adjusted people
who are interested in making more creative choices.
- As coaches, we are "for" you
and encourage you to be "for" yourself.
- As coaches, we sometimes challenge, or
make specific suggestions and/or requests, such as "Will you do
___ before our next session?" You may accept the request,
change it (e.g., "I'm not willing to do ___, but I am willing
to do ___") or decline.
- Coaching can take place over the phone
or in person. Telephone coaching allows you to experience
transformation in your busy schedule and convenience of your own
home or office. Some people find that they are more able to access
their body-signals and emotions on the telephone.
How is our coaching body-centered?
- We use the signals your body gives
(such as body sensations, changes in your breathing, foot tapping,
etc.) to explore underlying issues. We by-pass the mind-chatter to
get underneath the content of conflicts to what is really going on.
You will learn to pay attention to your own body signals.
- We incorporate movement, conscious
breathing and other tools that assist people to make shifts toward
vitality.
- Body-centered coaching supports
whole-body learning and collaboration. Learning is deeper than an
intellectual understanding. It accesses a wider part of the brain as
well as the whole body.
- Body-centered coaching is oriented
towards play, laughter and fun. We believe that if you want to
create lasting changes in your relationships and life, new ways of
'being' must be learned in a state of play and expansion.
- Once you have experienced shifts in
your body, they are much easier to access again; e.g. we don't just
talk about self-love, we guide you to experience it; once you have
experienced a relationship dance based on each partner taking full
healthy responsibility, it is easier to recreate in your daily life.
What other therapeutic methods do we
incorporate?
- Our coaching is not traditional
therapy but it is in that we are skilled at facilitating your
discovery of the source of your patterns, healing the past and
moving into the present and creating your desired future.
Body-centered and play-oriented methods allow you to achieve
awareness of your feelings, thoughts, beliefs, motives and behaviors
without getting caught in the content. Our clients have told us that
our methods allow them to "go deep"; in fact, they are
sometimes surprised by how quickly they are able to get to the root
of issues and allow healing to take place.
- Early childhood development: We
provide opportunities for disentangling our unconscious core
patterns that stem from early developmental years (conception,
pre-natal, birth and bonding period) and keep us from experiencing
our full creative potential. We also explore the impact of family
patterns and history (what we like to call "the party we walked
into") on current issues.
- Narrative therapy: Narrative therapy
is a respectful, non-blaming approach which sees people as the
experts in their own lives and allows us to explore the stories we
have about our lives. . It views problems as separate from people
and assumes that people have many skills, competencies, and
abilities that will assist them to reduce the influences of problems
in their lives. Curiosity and wonder (i.e. asking questions to which
we don't know the answers) are important aspects of this approach.
We are willing to assist you to loosen the grip of old patterns in
yourself and to re-author your stories so that you can create the
life you really want.
- Hakomi (see http://www.hakomi.ca) - we
are students of the Hakomi Experiential Method which invites
participants into an exploration of growth and healing through
discovery of how they are organizing their experiences, their
thoughts and beliefs, their self-image and world view. The Hakomi
method is based on the following principles:
- unity: everything is interconnected;
- organicity: healing happens from the
inside out;
- mindfulness: a focus on paying
attention to present experience
- non-violence: working with what wants
to happen and staying in a state of loving presence;
- mind/body holism: or working at the
interface of body and mind.
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Our background and training?
Marlene's background is as an Early
Childhood Educator and a Manager in Social Services with a Masters of
Social Work. Bob was an elementary school teacher for 30 years and has
his Masters of Education. Our current approaches are based primarily
on our apprenticeship with Drs. Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks (see
http://www.hendricks.com), as well as our training in Mindfulness
Based Stress Reduction, Hakomi, Narrative Therapy and our life
experience. We commit to using our life experience and tools to be of
service to you. |
