Is Career Coaching Holistic?

Is Career Coaching Holistic? — One of my clients fed back to me after our beautiful deep-dive of a process was this:

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And, whilst I have no idea how other career coaches work, I know I can’t enable clients to make any professional progress without focusing not only on the whole system inside the client but also the context that the client lives and works within.

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We humans are systems in ourselves, and we exist within the systems of life, family, work, the world et al.  All of there things impact on each other and it would be ridiculous and unsound to ignore this.

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I have had clients show up and share THE most outrageous things with me. — Take the lid off a human and you can never guarantee what you will find. And this is what makes it SO fascinating to journey alongside people as this unravel and reweave these threads back together in a way that works for them.

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I have clients who believed they need to change their CVS in order to get a job. When, in reality it turns out they are being driven by unseen things:

Within their individual system there co-exist with massive debts, abusive relationships, addictions in all their forms. These humans bring wounds from the past and fears for the future. One of my very first clients was a case of emigration due to attempted murder. I’ve sat and listened to outrageous stories: kids who witnessed a parents a suicide attempt assisted by a step parent. There have been tales of rapes and coercion, of embezzlement and fraud. Some of these stories live deep in the past and some are located in the here and now… And, this is what makes this work SUCH an immense privilege.

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And, do you know what? Whatever surfaces in these sessions — we will deal with it. Sometimes we may decide to consult with other professionals as well. However, together, we really have got this.

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Nothing is too big to work with. And, I say that because it is “Shame” that keeps people isolated

And in isolation, the simplest thing can seem insurmountable and ginormous.