First Questions

Compared to our ancestors who spent their days farming, most of us burn very few calories during the day. So how come we often end the workday exhausted - and then have trouble sleeping?

Emotional Fitness is a person's capacity to move through emotions effectively. It's not about suppression. It's about channeling emotions toward effective action or transforming them in a way that doesn't lead to unnecessary suffering. We increase our emotional fitness through the deliberate practice of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills.

My role as coach has more in common with a personal trainer than a therapist. My goal is to help those I teach practice skills to increase their emotional fitness, which is an invisible attribute until there is a crisis.

When I begin working with someone, maybe the arrival of a long-dreaded email is enough of a crisis and the result might be calling in sick to work and staying in bed for a day. Over time, my clients learn to disrupt cycles of upset all throughout the day so that unchecked emotions don't collect, resulting in mental and physical exhaustion.

Emotions are powerful forces. They inform us of what matters in life and if they're not channeled effectively they wreak havoc on our health and our relationships.

I work with individuals for whom connection is a basic function of their role. This includes organizational leaders, healthcare workers, caregivers, and teachers. In a society overinvested in strategies and technologies, my role is to foreground in-the-moment humaning skills that make all the rest possible. 

Integrating the skills into everyday life takes deliberate practice. My role is to guide you in that process.

• Upset is Optional: What is the physical reality of my emotions?  

• Mood: Can I design a mood big enough to include all that might unfold today?

• Phenomena: What can I observe with my five senses without interpretation or judgment?

• Breathing: Can I be still and simply witness never-ending movement and change?

• Listening: How am I listening?  What kind of listening might I ask for?

• Reframing: What’s the story? What are 5 other possibilities?

• Acknowledgements: Am I giving acknowledgements that land?  Am I opening myself to acknowledgements?

• 5 Symptoms: What are my symptoms teaching me?

• Words Are Drugs: What words am I drugging myself with?  Am I practicing medicine responsibly with others?

• Requests: Am I making clear requests to invite collaboration?

• Conversations for Curiosity: What if my only goal is to be deeply curious about another person’s experience?

• Generations: Who are the people for-the-sake-of-whom I stay in practice?

Here are some things that my clients have reported:

• Changes to physical symptoms such as migraines, insomnia, indigestion, irritability and so forth

• Changes to the experience of anxiety, social anxiety, cell phone use, smoking, and other modes of self-soothing

• An increase in intimacy in relationships with close family members and friends

• And, yes, more productivity

Each person goes through a different experience. What's consistent is that each person feels more confident in the face of the unknown and embracing change as it comes.

There's a massive upside here. You might come to me because you're sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. What you'll discover is your agency and co-creating the world in light of your deepest held values.

Schedule a first conversation to ask your other questions.