Coaching
Existential coaching is a philosophical approach to implementing change in our lives. I work to facilitate clients to make changes, plan for the future they want and gain new insights into themselves. I work with them to elucidate their worldview, understand how this affects their choices and relationships, and clarify their values – these parts are perhaps the more obvious aspects of working philosophically. But the part that is harder to pin down, and, I think, really sets aside our work as existential practitioners, are the less obvious aspects of this approach to coaching; working with paradox and ambiguity, managing crisis and challenge, accepting responsibility for our choices, exploring what it means to be authentic (and what sacrifices we have to make to do this), embracing our inevitable failures, shortcomings and crises.
So why are these things important as a coach?
To move forward with our lives, to make choices and to change we need to realise this requires work. To make our changes last we need to develop a kind of existential robustness and an understanding of your own inner workings. It takes strength and resolve to become oneself and to remain in a state of conscious becoming, as opposed to striving for some endpoint of security and perfection which do not exist.
As a coach I help to facilitate this change for my clients, recognising that everyone is different no journey is the same and each is deeply personal. I show my clients their complexity, helping to empower them to make decisions and take ownership of the complexities of being human.
