If you are a life coach, you probably know that a lot of what you do will deal with managing change.

And these days especially, it seems like everything is about change!  As a society and as a world, we are experiencing a lot of growing pains right now!

One of the best ways that you can go about managing change and helping your clients in this area is to really get a sense of where you (and they) are at about change.

For some people, the idea of change is embraced and appreciated and accepted.  But as you can imagine, it’s a pretty small percentage!

Most people thrive on the status quo, and it’s very uncomfortable for them when they have to step out of that comfort zone.  That is why the support that you can provide as a life coach in helping people to manage the changes that they are inevitably going through is truly invaluable!

I was working with a client who was worrying about some recent changes that were happening in her own life.  She has come into the position of having to care for her aging mother and father – both of them are aging and quite ill.

The catch is, her mother is living with her and her father is in another state. They’re divorced, and she can’t bring them together because they’ll kill each other!

And she’s saying, “What am I going to do?“  This is causing financial strain, anxiety, and building up a lot of resistance and resentment to these things that have come up in her life so quickly.

I told her, “First and foremost, this is a lot of change.  If you’re going to be able to manage this, you’re going to have to begin with getting a sense of where you are at now in dealing with all of this change.”

I encouraged her to do an Energy Blueprint about the idea of care taking for her mother and father – to do one for each – and to look at the beliefs, patterns and resources that really are positive to support her in this experience.

Then I had her look at the beliefs, patterns and resources that may not be supporting her as well.

I call this an Energy Blueprint because while I start with the Inner process, I also deal with the Outer actions, and creating this blueprint gives an actual physical picture or snapshot of what you are dealing with so that you can really get clarity on it.

After she did this process, I helped her to identify one belief that was triggering her most that was not serving her as well, and one outer aspect that was really making her worried and anxious and afraid.

It really came down to two things.

One - the belief was that she was going to have to put her own dreams on hold for her business in order to take care of her aging and ill parents in two different states.

Two - that she was going to drain her financial resources in trying to do this because of the impossibility of bringing them both together.

So the biggest thing that was going to help her manage her energy around this change was to go through a process that would enable her to make tiny little baby shifts on a daily basis – little by little.

It all started with helping her to create a progressive belief – something that would make her feel just a little bit better about this entire situation.

The belief she created was, “I want to believe that I really can manage anything that comes along in my life and still be able to have space and time and resources for my dreams and my passions.”

I want to believe that it’s possible.

You can always start that progressive belief with, “I want to believe.”  You can even start back with, “I want to believe that I want to believe!”

You want to get to a point that feels a little bit better than the belief that’s currently activated in you.

Then, to continue in managing change, identify that belief on a daily basis and look for any evidence you can find that will help shift that belief.

Start with only focusing on one thing.  If you can get your energy shifted around one thing, it will enable you to gain the traction that you need to shift on all kinds of other things! You can’t fix everything at once, so just start with one.

So she created that progressive belief that felt just a little bit better than, “I have to put all my dreams on hold because I’m caring for my aging parents.”

“I want to believe that I can, even while I’m caring for my ailing parents in different states, still have the time and the resources available for my dreams to move forward.”

She doesn’t believe it yet, but she wants to believe it.

So in order for her to begin to start shifting this progressive belief little bit by little bit, I asked her look at 3 areas – past, present, and future.

While she’s reading this belief that she’s written down – this current progressive belief, she’s going to look to the past to find a time that she’s felt this same way before.

It may not have been the same situation, but any time that she’s felt similarly – like something had to be put on hold or was draining her taking her time – any time that she felt like that before and it ended up working out.

If you or a client is using this process, just write that past feeling down briefly. You’ve already got it activated in yourself so you don’t have to write the whole story about it, but just jot it down with the purpose of remembering that time.

For my client, it was when she had been married and felt like she had to put her whole life on hold for her husband’s career.

What ultimately happened was that it really wasn’t acceptable to her anymore, and she ended up getting divorced.

But it actually turned out really well for her, because she found her passion, found her brilliance, and found out that her husband had been having an affair for 10 years of her 12 year marriage.

He was never fully present, and she was sacrificing her own desires for him!

She always kind of knew it at some level, but she didn’t want to face the change that was going to happen to her – that idea of change was so difficult that she put up with a bad marriage for 12 years rather than face that change that would have to occur.

It was a difficult thing that she finally went through, but it turned out great.  It was one of the best things that ever happened to her – and she still feels that way now.

So that was her past example of a time that she felt like this and it ended up working out for her.

Now she’ll look at, “What’s happening at a present level that could help make a little shift in this belief?”

Well, she does have a great support system now!

She’s working with a life coach, and she’s actually in one of my programs, so she has a group of people surrounding her that are all like-minded in helping her to manifest – and it’s because they don’t have any baggage that she can’t accomplish it!

Only she has that baggage, so having this support group is really going to help her to manage her change.

And then to the future.  She can write, “I’m really looking to the day when this can become my reality”.

Once you’ve gone over this 5 or 10 minute experience of walking through this past, present, and future energy management tool with your client, ask them if anything has changed for them about that original progressive belief – even in those past few minutes of doing this exercise.

• Just notice it, and write it down.
• Actually, I felt a little lightening in my chest
  
• I felt a little bit more hopeful
• Even though nothing’s changed, just jot that down as noticing.

She may even notice that she can now look up at that belief and say, “I’m starting to believe that I really can have my dreams.”

She’s activated that energetic shift at a cellular level now, which is the thing that is really necessary for her to ultimately allow that to become her reality.

This change management process has already started to produce some incredible things for her after just a few days of her doing it!

People are starting to show up that can help her with the care taking. Potential clients for her new business are showing up when she hasn’t done any marketing yet!

Nothing has actually changed at an Outer level, but everything’s changed at an Inner level, which is what allows the changes that you WANT at an Outer level.

If you want to learn more about how to become a coach or how you can dramatically empower your coaching experience, listen to this recording on The Missing Element to Your Spiritual Coaching Success.

There is a bonus at the end of the recording of a Round Table panel discussion between Stefanie Hartman, Joe Nunziata, Rich German, and me.   Listen here now: www.coachingfromspirit.com/CFSChallenge.

Tags: Anxiety, become a coach, change management, Coaching, Coaching From Spirit, energy management, Health, Joe Nunziata, Life Coach, lifecoach, Management, managing change, Marriage, Rich German, sharon wilson, spiritual coach, spiritual energy, spirituality, Status quo, Stefanie Hartman, Support group, technorati, Worry